Kevin Donnelly, John McIntrye, and the right to indoctrinate while sucking on the taxpayer teat ...

(Above: now children notice in these pictures based on Jack and the Bean Stalk, notice how the old woman is cowering from the threat of domestic violence, while pathetic Jack does nothing to help her. In the second, notice how the evil, greedy Jack has snatched the harp away from the giant, and the sweet harp hangs on desperately to the vine, anxious to avoid rape and capitalist exploitation by the entrepreneurial Jack).

I don't think the notion of schools as faith-based indoctrination centres has been expressed with more clarity than managed by Dr Kevin Donnelly in Why the bishop is wrong on faith and rights.

Here's the rousing conclusion to his column:

In its submission to the review of the EOA review the union argues, "The Victorian Government, through its legislative power should determine that religious schools respect the rights, values and ways of being of job applicants and employees who do not share the same beliefs".

Such an argument is both dangerous and flawed. Dangerous in that it gives pre-eminence to the individual's right to believe and do as he or she wishes in opposition to the faith-based morality and teachings of the school.

Such an argument is also flawed as teaching and education, in general, can never be value-free. It is important that those seeking to work in faith-based schools sympathise and agree with the religious beliefs and teachings of such schools. To do otherwise is hypocritical and sends a contradictory message to students and other staff.

Yep, it's four legs good, two legs bad time, and to be anything other than a sheep would be hypocritical and send a contradictory message to anyone who might listen. Like think for yourselves. Or gays and single mothers bad, four legs good. Or whatever.

No, it seems like a clear cut victory for indoctrination over education - at least education in the classical sense of a disinterested pursuit of the truth.

You'd never guess that Dr Kevin Donnelly was once the chief of staff to that turkey Kevin Andrews, would you?

Yet it wasn't so long ago that Donnelly was writing about Cannon fodder of the culture wars:

In the US it's known as the culture wars: the battle between a liberal-humanist view of education based on the disinterested pursuit of truth and those committed to overthrowing the status quo and turning students into politically correct new age warriors.

The editorial in the latest edition of English in Australia, the journal of the Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE), provides ample evidence that the culture wars have reached our shores and that those seeking to control our schools prefer indoctrination to education.

But, but ... surely once you've got the kids in your grasp, you should give 'em a double barreled blast of your beliefs. Anything else from a dedicated secularist would surely be contradictory, hypocritical and confusing to staff and students. You know, the same way you'd expect a fundie Islamic school to preach fundie Islam ...

In the confused sights of Donnelly is Bishop John McIntyre, who in his column A betrayal of the faith, had the decency and courage to criticize Attorney-General Rob Hulls for selling out to conservative church leaders. Showing a dangerous radical streak, McIntyre gave evidence he'd actually read and understood the teachings of Christ, not always obvious in some Christians:

I am perplexed! On Sunday, The Age reported that Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls had, after extensive lobbying from conservative church leaders, pre-empted a parliamentary committee report on exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act. Hulls announced a compromise that will allow church groups to continue to discriminate, albeit in a more limited way. This will, I imagine, also flow on to the national debate under way in regards to the introduction of a national Human Rights Charter.

Such a response is arguably at odds with the essence of what the founder of the Christian faith lived, taught and died for. How bizarre that the followers of Jesus Christ would oppose, and ask for exemptions from, a legal instrument that has at its heart a declaration of the dignity and value of every human life and the basic rights of every person. Jesus of all people, would champion an affirmation of fundamental human rights, which especially benefits marginalised groups in society and those least able to protect themselves.

I could go on quoting McIntyre - as evidence that atheists and Christians can get along - but why not duck over and read the rest of what he's got to say. Oh heck, I can't resist quoting his last two pars anyway:

How strange that today some of the heirs to the anti-slavery campaigner tradition of the church seem reluctant to support a Charter of Human Rights in Australia and seek ongoing exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act in Victoria. Those Christian social reformers who opposed slavery, such as William Wilberforce or Pope John Paul II, would surely be perplexed by this stance. If a radical statement of the full humanity of every person, simply because they are human, lies at the heart of Jesus' teaching and if he showed a particular concern for the marginalised and the most vulnerable, why then would Christians oppose a legal instrument designed to affirm these truths?

And furthermore, why would Christians defend their right to be exempt from a commitment to them when employing people to work in their church-based organisations? That is why I am perplexed.

Well there for my money walks a genuine and compassionate Christian. No doubt he will be called an interfering, woolly headed jumbuck of a do gooder cotton wool cleric, without an understanding of the way the real world must operate. You know, by taking the ball up the middle, and discriminating in ways that keep your limited little world order in spic and span shape.

But back to Donnelly, who without the clarity or compassion of McIntyre, manages to jumble up a lot of bizarre arguments along the way, including such matters as shouting 'fire' in a crowded cinema and polygamy as a way of life:

Freedom of expression does not give one the licence to shout "fire" in a crowded cinema. In terms of sex discrimination, it is permissible, in the context of women's health centres for example to deny men membership. Some customs, such as polygamy, that might be accepted elsewhere in the world are not permitted in Australia and the right to do as one pleases has to be balanced against the common good and what both state and church law says is permissible.

Huh? WTF has that got to do with anything? Can we get back to the matter of school employment please?

The right to discriminate is also supported by the Australian Human Rights Commission's 2008 Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st Century: Discussion Paper that suggests two grounds for exemption, one being to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of a particular religion.

Faith-based schools are not secular schools and, while they are an important part of the broader Victorian educational community, such schools have a unique mission to fulfil in terms of their religious teachings and principles.

If a teacher's lifestyle or beliefs are in opposition or contradict the religious beliefs and tenets of a particular faith-based school, then it is only reasonable that the school has the right to deny employment.

Yep, there's the nub of it. The right to deny employment is a crucial part of the right to indoctrinate (or fulfill a unique mission if you want the' blather gibberish' version). What this has got to do with the teaching of maths and sciences is known only to Donnelly, but I guess it's also the key to how science will be taught in a creationist flavored religious school.

Well okay, but let schools that think they have a divine right to indoctrinate stop sucking on the teat of the taxpayer dollar. Let's see them spend their own bucks to fulfill their divine right to fill their captive students heads full of indoctrination and mis-information.

To fulfil their obligations and mission, religious schools need the freedom to employ staff who embrace that particular religion and who follow its teachings, both in word and deed. As educational institutions, it is also important that individual school authorities are free to employ staff that are committed to and support the culture of a school and its educational philosophy.

Funny. Well I guess that sews up the case for fundie Islamics to use their taxpayer-funded schools to teach jihad.

Here's Donnelly on the desperate need for independent thinking while berating Wayne Sawyer of the NSW English Teachers Association:

It's also ironic, notwithstanding the rhetoric about empowering students to think independently, that Sawyer seeks to impose his view of what is politically correct and judges anybody who begs to differ as being duped ...

... In the post-modern classroom, literacy is defined as social-critical literacy and texts are deconstructed to show how disadvantaged groups, such as girls and women, are marginalised and dispossessed. Ignored is the aesthetic and moral value of great literature.

The result? Traditional fairytales such as Jack and the Beanstalk and children's classics such as The Magic Far Away Tree are criticised for presenting boys as masculine and physically assertive and for failing to show girls in dominant positions.

The English classroom was once a place to learn how to read and write. In the edubabble much loved by teacher educators such as Wayne Martino, this more traditional approach is considered obsolete and, as an alternative, the English classroom must be "conceptualised as a sociopolitical site where alternative reading positions can be made available to students outside of an oppressive male-female dualistic hierarchy - outside of an oppressive phallocentric signifying system for making meaning".

Funny, I look forward to Donnelly explaining how the edubabble of teaching based on scientological principles, or the fundamentalist creationism of the Exclusive Brethren is just fine and dandy, and - as well as being part financed by taxpayers - should also have the right to discriminate in relation to employment, the running of their schools and their educational philosophies.

Well it's a "F" for Hulls, an "A+" for the genuinely Christian Bishop John McIntyre, and a request to Donnelly to "please re-write this paper so it conforms to your previous parrotings about independent thinking, while adducing evidence of coherent logical thinking, together with a more rigorous explanation of how polygamy bears on the matter of the Equal Opportunity Act in relation to employment in schools."

We used to have a favorite saying in school, which still seems to be around: durr-brain.

Still works for me.

Let's argue about the proper faith based spelling another time. While der-brain might be acceptable, it should not be confused with 'd'oh' brain.

(Below: now children notice how the first The Faraway Tree picture suggest a funny looking moonface and a saucepan man and a pixie and children can fly. This is witchcraft or satanism, and like Harry Potter books, must be banned. Nobody can fly like this, using thistles, unless they attend scientology school and hit level 12.

Note the second picture suggests a girl can climb a tree. This is naughty. Feminism is naughty. Girls should be prim and proper and nice to boys. Then they might get a bliss bomb from the moonface man, perhaps with honey in it.

In the third notice how the funny saucepan man likes to clean his pots and hang around children. What a weird, funny looking man. Strange and different and somehow evil. It's likely he's one of those paedophiles who's strayed out of the Catholic church. Kill the saucepan man, it's the only way to clean up the world.

And yes, in the final picture, the children have found some magic mushrooms. Eat the magic mushrooms. You will find the world seems strangely different. Yell 'fire' in a cinema, and you too can grow up to believe in polygamy. You might even like to share time with the moonface man and the saucepan man. And they say these classics are no longer taught in school. What a scandal).