The days of having to Christen your child to make sure they got a school place might be gone, but a cross-border study carried out by Dr Catherine Stapleton of Mary Immaculate College and Dr James Nelson of Queen's University Belfast has revealed that because schools in both jurisdictions are exempt from equality legislation. they have the right to discriminate against recruits on basis of religion.
The reasoning behind this is to preserve the religious ethos of schools which, on paper, sounds reasonable enough. But when the vast majority of schools in the Republic of Ireland are Roman Catholic, for example, it leaves very little space for teachers who don't have a faith to get a job. So, what can they do? They lie, of course. According to the report, many get on in their profession by “hiding or suppressing their identity, including feigning belief”. In fact, the report suggests that a small minority feel they could be confident about expressing their non-religious beliefs.Isn't it time we all stopped pretending to be religious? From church weddings to communions and confirmations, regularly carried out by people who don't even believe in any God... Who, exactly, are we trying to kid?"Who, exactly, are we trying to kid?"
