MORE than 600 people have signed a Scottish Parliament petition calling for a change in the law to make it easier for parents to opt out of religious observance in schools.
The petition, raised by the organisation Secular Scotland and Inverclyde parent Mark Gordon, asks Holyrood to change the law so parents are asked first before their children take part in religious activities in schools.
Scottish novelist Christopher Brookmyre, Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science have backed the petition.
Last year, The Humanist Society Scotland said pupils in both Catholic and non-denominational schools were being indoctrinated with Christian beliefs against Government guidelines.
The society said the legal right of parents to withdraw their children from religious education and religious observance was being widely ignored in state schools.
Since 2005, Scottish schools have been required to make parents aware they can remove their children from religious education and observance.
However, churches have argued it is the responsibility of the headteacher to make parents aware of all aspects of the curriculum and how it may affect individual children.
They believe religious observance courses in all schools are so inclusive that there would be very few occasions when a parent felt they should exercise the right to opt out.
The 2001 census found 28% of Scots said they had no religion. Church attendance on Sundays is in long-term decline.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article