Why are my taxes paying for religious schools?

It's a tense time in many homes across the UK as parents of three- and four-year olds begin researching their local primary schools, ready to apply in the next few months.

We live in an oversubscribed school area and it is doubly important to us that our three-year-old gets a good place as our one-year-old will follow him, so there's a lot of pressure on us to get a place at a good school.

Yet the very best school close to our home is a religious one, a Catholic school to be exact. Although I was raised Catholic I am now an atheist and I'm raising my boys without religion.

But that means that they are unlikely to get a place at the best local school, as it is entitled to restrict the number of places offered to non-Catholic children. We could live next door and still not get a place.

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State-sanctioned discrimination

Leaving aside any questions of whether it's right or wrong to educate children within a religious context, I do not believe that my children should be discriminated against for entry into a state-funded school. It is nothing short of state-approved discrimination, despite such discrimination being against the law for hotels, shops and other businesses.

Of course, you might choose to point out that religious parents are taxpayers too and should have their preferences catered for. However, I simply don't believe that any state-provided service should have a religious slant or be allowed to discriminate – can you imagine a hospital that received state money but gave preferential treatment to Muslims or Catholics?

Perhaps you think that faith schools are financially supported by religious groups? That would make sense and would give those schools more of a moral right to discriminate in favour of their faith. However, the vast, vast majority of religious state schools are 95% supported by the state, meaning they are almost entirely paid for by the taxpayer.

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Pray, don't pay

Many of my friends are not religious and yet have had their children christened and are now hastily looking up their local churches. 'On your knees and you're spared paying fees' seems to be the attitude. This is ridiculous.

They pay taxes, why should they also have to sign their local church's register to get their kids into a good local school? It's like asking me to attend Friday Prayers before visiting my state-subsidised dentist.

What's more, taxpayers don't want faith schools. A survey by Opinium earlier this year found that 58% of voters don't think faith schools should be funded by the state, with 70% of those with concerns saying the taxpayer shouldn't be funding the promotion of religion in schools.

Not only that, but teachers don't want faith schools. The teaching union ATL warns of the dangers of such early segregation, arguing: "In a country portrayed statistically as progressively secular and yet diverse, the existence of denominational schools within the state sector is increasingly anomalous."

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Universal services

Finally, this article has concentrated on the financial arguments and not the ethics of segregating children according to faith. Since I don't actually want my sons to be taught faith, you might argue that I'm being unreasonable in being so angry they won't get into a religious school.

However, I don't believe it should be a religious school at all; I believe that taxpayers' money should only be spent on services that don't discriminate and which are suitable for everyone. That universal suitability is also important, as even though a handful of faith schools do not discriminate, many parents will hesitate to send their children to a school adhering to a different religious doctrine.

In a multicultural society made up of many faiths, as well as people like me with no religious faith, it's incomprehensible that the state can be paying for services that discriminate against certain children because of their parents' beliefs.

What do you think? Are faith schools providing an important service or should they be stripped of state funding? Have your say using the comments below.

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