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The Rights of U.K. Parents to Remove Children from Religious Education Classes (Part 1)

Jun 30, 2019 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald

Headteachers in the UK. have complained about parents removing their children from religious education classes, especially those about Islam. The Independent has the story:

Parents should not be allowed to selectively remove their children from religious education (RE) lessons, headteachers say, as study reveals many withdrawal requests are over the teaching of Islam.

But parents have a perfect right, under both the 1944 and 1988 education laws, to remove their children from any classes on religious education they wish to, and are not even required to give a reason. Do the headteachers not know the laws that are in place? Or do they hope to persuade Parliament to undo them?

More than two in five school leaders and RE teachers have received requests for students to be withdrawn from teaching about one religion, research from Liverpool Hope University has revealed.

Islam is the dominant focus of these parental withdrawal requests, according to the study of 450 school leaders and heads of RE.

One participant, who received requests for children to be withdrawn from mosque visits said: “The students that have been removed are the ones that need to understand different cultures the most.”

Really? Perhaps these children are being withdrawn by parents who know perfectly well what Islam is all about, do not wish their children to be subject to indoctrination, and do not believe that their children will better “understand different cultures” by visiting mosques — for what will be a carefully-choreographed visit where a friendly reception makes visiting Infidels overlook the fact that nothing of substance is being learned.

The majority (71 per cent) of teachers believe a law allowing parents to withdraw their children from RE is no longer required, according to the study in the British Journal of Religious Education.

The right of parents to “withdraw their children from RE” is “no longer required”? Given that classes on Islam, complete with a visit to a mosque, are in the opinion of many parents not so much education as  indoctrination, the right of parents to  withdraw their children from RE classes is “required” as never before.

It comes after a report from Thurrock council revealed that parents in Essex were withdrawing their children from religious education lessons on Islam and stopping them from visiting mosques.

Iman Atta, director of Tell Mama, an activist group which records and measures anti-Muslim incidents in Britain, told The Independent: “We have been hearing about cases where parents are pulling their children out of mosque visits as part of religious education since they do not want them to be near a mosque.

“This has been taking place over the last five years and shows that there are parents who have fears or dislike Islam. This is also concerning, since what kinds of views are their children being exposed to? It does not bode well for the future of people and communities living together”.

Iman Atta apparently thinks, without a shred of evidence, that parents who do not wish their children to be subject to Islamic indoctrination are thereby “exposing” them to anti-islamic views. Objection to one’s children being indoctrinated in a particular faith is not the same thing as preaching hatred of that faith.

When Iman Atta raises the concern that children may be exposed to (anti-Islam) views which “do not bode well for the future and [religious] communities living together,” she does three things, none of them acceptable. First, she wants you to believe that any parents who remove their children from the classes on Islam are necessarily exposing them to anti-Islamic views, when the parents may simply explain that they would not object to a neutral presentation of Islam, but will not have their own children subjected to what, they have strong reason to believe, amounts to indoctrination rather than education.

Second, she is silent on the behavior of Muslim parents. Are they willing to have their own children participate in classes in Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism, including visits to churches and synagogues and temples? We have every reason to doubt it. Nothing has been said about this. And if Muslim parents object, would  the headteachers be as ready to force those Muslim students, despite their parents’ wishes, to participate in such classes and such visits, just as they now are trying to force non-Muslim students to take classes in Islam and to visit mosques? Or are there different rules for Muslim parents and students?

Third, Iman Atta worries about the effect on non-Muslim children if they are excused from classes on Islam. She fails to understand the gravamen of the parents’ complaint, which is not against all classes on Islam, but against classes on Islam that amount to indoctrination, by leaving out so much of what the Qur’an contains that is so disquieting, and mendaciously presenting what is included. Further, she and those headteachers determined to thwart the desires of parents fail to recognize that the right of parents to withdraw their children from RE and from collective worship has been in enshrined in law by both the 1944 and 1988 education acts. Parents can withdraw their children from some or all of the RE curriculum without giving a reason. These laws are still in force.

Fourth,  Muslims have the chutzpah to claim they are worried that non-Muslim children who withdraw from classes on Islam or visits to mosques will be sending a message to Muslims that is not conducive to (faith) “communities living together.” Can they think of anything in Islam that might send an even more disturbing message to non-Muslims, not conducive to “communities living together?” In more than 100 verses the Qur’an commands Muslims “to fight” and “to kill” and “to smite above the necks at” and “to strike terror in the hearts of” Infidels — are those verses helpful for promoting “communities living together”? And what about the verses that tell Muslims not to take Christians and Jews as friends, “for they are friends only with each other”(5:51)? Are the verses where Muslims are told that they are the “best of peoples” (3:110) and non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6) likely to promote “communities living together”? Surely these verses do far more to prevent “communities living together” than the parents who do not wish to have their children forced to visit a mosque or be subject to other forms of Islamic indoctrination.

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Filed Under: Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald, Islamic supremacism, United Kingdom Tagged With: Iman Atta


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Comments

  1. mortimer says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 10:09 am

    One law Muslims, but another harsher law for the dirty kufaar… Muslims are required to ‘hate’ kafirs ‘for the sake of Allah’ and to direct enmity and hostility towards them. This is an ‘ESSENTIAL’ teaching of Islam required for Islamic salvation. Muslims who do not direct hatred and hostility towards the disbelieving kufaar will not enter Islamic paradise.

    Islam’s DOUBLE STANDARDS must be challenged by the Brits or they will soon be living under discriminatory Sharia law in perpetuity with no way to take off the restraints to freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

    Brits need to be reminded that England and Scotland already have an established faith and it AIN’T ISLAM.

    • mortimer says

      Jun 30, 2019 at 10:15 am

      correction: one law for Muslims…

      The normative process of Islam’s dawa-proselytism is initially to conceal and deny Islam’s harsh and vicious teachings while emphasizing the non-controversial aspects … that are increasingly fewer and fewer as people become aware of Islam.

      Most Europeans and Brits already see for themselves that Islam is medieval and thus incompatible with human rights and modernity.

      • Lu says

        Jun 30, 2019 at 10:49 am

        “Most Europeans … already see”.

        That’s about all what is happening – they just (perhaps) “see”. Yet they are consistently voting for Corbyn, Merkel, Macron, Rutte … and in doing so they effectively prepare their own demise.

        This ain’t gonna end well for them, for the Cult and eventually for anybody involved by just “seeing” the reality.

        • Jayell says

          Jul 1, 2019 at 5:21 am

          I don’t know about that lot across the channel voting for Macron and Merkel (that’s their busines), but Corbyn hasn’t got an snowball’s chance in Hell of making it to No. 10. We want to keep him in charge of Labour because that’s the best insurance against a Labour Government. If he goes, there’s a line-up of highly dubious characters behind him who’ll reduce the Westminster government to a Whitehall (Theatre) farce, including a certain lady who’s been tipped for Home Secretary but appears to have problems with her multiplication tables and thinks that she can get out of tight spots with persistent TV interviewers by going into a second-rate rip-off of a Joyce Grenfell ‘teacher’ routine. But, worst of all, a Labour government might prove to be the cue for the Great and Mighty Khan (yea verily, for is is He that doth dispense His omnipotent wisdom unto Presidents of the World from His seat in City Hall) to make the trip across Westminster Bridge and eventually install himself in His rightful abode at No. 10, Downing Street – at which time a 1,000 watt PA system will replace the bells in the tower of Westminster Abbey for the Call to Prayer, female BBC announcers will appear in burkas, President Trump would probably be advised to reconsider where he re-aims his nuclear arsenal, and, of course, poor Mr. Spencer will be banned for life.

          No, I don’t really think any of that that’s going to happen, do you? And nor do 90% of the UK population.

        • smoris says

          Jul 1, 2019 at 10:53 am

          Our public schools in the US are also guilty of indoctrination. They are seen as a very convenient tool for those who want to subvert our culture and eventually our law and government. Lincoln said it well: What is in our schools today will be our government tomorrow. In a dictatorship it doesn’t much matter what the people are taught. But in a democracy or republic it does because the people who come out of the schools decide the fate of the nation and its people. We need to take this very, very seriously. In my view, public schooll should be all but ended. Parents should home school their kids and/or send them to private or religious schools of their choosing. By the way, if Christian beliefs were being taught, and priests were giving lectures, Muslim parents would never have any obstacle to taking their kids out of classes. In fact, they would cancel the classes altogether. There should be no religious courses in public schools. Now, it might be reasonable to teach current events . . . and feature Jihad Watch. Bottom line – it is the parents’ fault it has gotten this bad and they will need to be the ones to fight. it might not be pretty, but it is time they stand up for their kids and their country’s future. These are the grandchildren of WWII vets. What did they put their lives on the line for? Not Islam, burkas or Sharia.

    • paul 316 says

      Jun 30, 2019 at 10:18 am

      sooooo true!!! +1

      • Rufolino says

        Jul 1, 2019 at 3:25 am

        What Lu is saying is that there is almost NOBODY ELSE to vote for amongst the major political parties who is going to reverse this disastrous slide.

      • J D S says

        Jul 1, 2019 at 5:01 pm

        Muslims have zero tolerance for Christian teachings if any kind, schools, churches etc. So why should Christians send their children to any school that reaches anything about islam…except to show how bad Islam is. and of course that won’t be taught.

    • Save Europe says

      Jun 30, 2019 at 3:30 pm

      Also Wales and Northern Ireland.

    • William A Carr says

      Jul 1, 2019 at 5:07 am

      It does not bode well for the future of people and communities living together”.
      Are the Muslims living together with none Muslims? What about the Muslims who stand on street corners with placards demanding ‘sharia for all’ and ‘democracy is hypocrisy’. Are they living with the community? What about the Muslim parents who do not allow their children even in their teens to mix with non Muslims?
      Waht about the Muslim who willingly liten to their clerics preaching destruction to Jews and Christians every time they go to mosque. Are they living with the community. Not to mention the ones who send their kids to separate schools so that they will not be contaminated by non Muslims. It is my human right not to like things if I choose. They (the Muslims) do not like non Muslims in fact they look down on them, and I do not like Muslims

      • William A Carr says

        Jul 1, 2019 at 5:09 am

        Listen to their clerics

  2. Emilie Green says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 10:50 am

    “Islam is the dominant focus of these parental withdrawal requests”

    Yep, it’s small, but this is one glimmer that some in the UK still have their common sense, powers of observation, and respect for truth & reality.

  3. Angemon says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 10:55 am

    People with a self-rightrous, “I know better than you” attitude shouldn’t be teaching anything or anyone…

    • The Political Oracle says

      Jun 30, 2019 at 11:04 am

      Islamaphobaphobia: An irrational fear of the fear of Islam. Pass this on!

  4. Shirley Ann says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 11:02 am

    Am I right in believing that Non-Muslim Children, whose Parents Withdrew them from Islam 101, may be Liable for a Bad Grade? Children are Small Captives, under the Power of Pro-Muslim Teachers & Administrators, & can be Easily Shamed by these Pro-Muslim Hacks, In front of their Peers. Children will Do Anything, to escape that Disgrace! We have a Problem in the U.S.A.too, but our Dishonest Media has Built a Wall of Silence, concerning All Things, Muslim!

  5. Westman says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 11:19 am

    This seems to illustrate that UK socialism is on the same road has the rest of the EU, toward atheistic communism, where the state becomes the moral and spiritual authority; curtailing the parents role to only supporting the child while the state programs its mind.

    When school teachers are demanding that children’s perception of a specific religion must programmed, the state’s indoctrination has gone full circle.

    As we observed with the USSR, communism leads to incompetence and eventual bankruptcy. Where is the point on the fuzzy boundary between socialism and outright communism where the economy and nation fails?

    The UK should finish Brexit before it is dragged into EU machinations that will highjack its sovereignty and its children.

  6. D. Morris says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 2:04 pm

    I’m glad that I’m no longer in school and do not have children. The schools would have a battle on their hands trying to force me or any family member to submit to Islamic teaching. It is only fair if Muslims must also be taught Christianity, Judaism, etc. and visit churches, synagogues, etc. It is not a religious education unless ALL religions are taught and treated equally.

    • Carol the 1st says

      Jul 3, 2019 at 12:51 am

      Entering churches (especially those without “images”) is generally “makrooh” for muslims (greatly disapproved of but not specifically haraam). Skipping all the straight-faced blather, one site finishes with a description of the proper attitude to bring with you:

      “Makrooh may reach the level of being haraam if entering the church will lead to any bad consequences such as if it means approving of the Christians’ shirk and their claim that Allaah has a wife and son, exalted be Allaah far above that. Or if entering the church is a sign of taking the Christians as friends and loving them, and so on.

      It says in Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah (2/115):

      If your going to the church is just to show tolerance and lenience, then it is not permissible, but if it is done to call them to Islam and create opportunities for you to do so, and you will not be taking part in their worship and you are not afraid that you may be influenced by their beliefs or customs, then it is permissible.”

      The goal of the visit would be Dawa – “Now come into MY parlour said the spider to the fly”.

      ‘

      ‘

      • gravenimage says

        Jul 3, 2019 at 12:58 am

        It’s also allowed if Muslims are entering churches in order to slaughter Christians…

  7. gravenimage says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 7:42 pm

    The Rights of U.K. Parents to Remove Children from Religious Education Classes (Part 1)
    ……………………….

    Don’t give up your rights, or allow them to be taken away!

  8. Lydia Church says

    Jun 30, 2019 at 7:46 pm

    Parents have a right to withdraw their children from ANY classes and indoctrination that are mere opinions and such!
    The only goal of education is to teach children math, reading, writing, and those subjects!
    Raising them belongs to the parents, they are not the State’s playdo to mold and indoctrinate the way they want to!
    Furthermore, the children are too young to learn about topics like that and when they are old enough, they will be able to decide for themselves, even after the parents have raised them. Not even parents can decide for the children what religion to pick. And I say that as a Christian.
    The job of education is not to teach you what to think, but to teach you how to think for yourself!

    • James Lincoln says

      Jun 30, 2019 at 8:35 pm

      Nice post, Lydia,

      Enjoy your evening.

    • Sylvia says

      Jun 30, 2019 at 10:17 pm

      That’s just it. They don’t want independent thinkers.

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