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Bill: Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public
Details
Submitted by[?]: Scientific Libertarian Party
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: September 2361
Description[?]:
| We here at the SFP feel that religion has no place in our nation's schools, and if a religion really wants to brainwash our children, then they can do it on their own time, and not in a government-supported way. Furthermore, any private citizen is to be permitted to display the accoutrements of his religion under any circumstances, but the government and its officials is not allowed to be seen endorsing any one religion. Religion is fine, but there must be a clear delineation between religion and government. Regarding article 3: Religious schools are to be regulated no more and no less than corresponding secular private and public schools. This article simply specifies that religious schools are granted no special rights or privileges and have no special requirements or obligations, and are treated identically to secular schools. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy towards evangelism and religious advertising.
Old value:: Religions are required to obtain government approval before promoting themselves or advertising in any manner.
Current: Religions are permitted to freely promote and advertise themselves.
Proposed: Religions are permitted to freely promote and advertise themselves.
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change The state's policy concerning religious clothing.
Old value:: People are required to dress according to religious codes
Current: There are no laws regulating the wearing of religious clothing and the wearing of religious symbols.
Proposed: There are no laws regulating the wearing of religious clothing and the wearing of religious symbols.
Article 3
Proposal[?] to change The governments stance on religious schools.
Old value:: All schools are required to be religious in nature.
Current: Only recognised religions may set up religious schools, with no regulations.
Proposed: Any religion may set up a school, but they are strictly regulated.
Article 4
Proposal[?] to change The government's policy with respect to prayer in schools.
Old value:: Teacher-led prayers in schools are encouraged.
Current: Teacher-led prayers in schools are forbidden, except in religious schools.
Proposed: Teacher-led prayers in schools are forbidden, except in religious schools.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 22:44:02, February 12, 2007 CET | From |  United Democrats of Jakania | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | Ok here are the problems Article Two is just plain wrong, anyone, even none religious officals should be able to display what religion they are. Article Four: Teacher led prayer in school should be permitted in Religious schools only |
| Date | 22:46:45, February 12, 2007 CET | From | Liberal Democratic Party | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | The Liberal Democratic Party will not support this legislation due to Articles 3 and 4. Article 3 is not suitable in a publicized educational evironment. A religious school should be maintained and regulated strictly by public education officials. Just because it is a private religious school does not make it exempt from public education regulations. All education should be equal so all of our citizens have the same chances and opportunities in life. Article 4 is most certainly out of the question. Schools are to be seperated from all religious influence unless they are specifically religious private schools. The fact that a religious entity is allowed to influence a student at a school is absurd. Students in a public school are from all walks of life, have various background, beliefs and must all be accepted and respected accordingly. To impose a certain religion's beliefs and practices on a student is detrimental to our school system. So long these two Articles dominate half of the legislation we will not support. |
| Date | 23:05:38, February 12, 2007 CET | From | Scientific Libertarian Party | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | Proposed change to article 4 is reasonable, it has been modified accordingly. However, we are still officially of the position that individual schools should decide the matter for themselves, for the same reason as we will explain in our defense of article 3. We are still thinking about article 2. However, we are kind of firmly of the opinion that the government should not be seen to endorse any particular religion, and a government official discharging his duties as such is undeniably a representative of the government, and as such should in turn not endorse any particular religion. Article 3, on the other hand, well, why should all schools be exactly the same? What if the regulations for public schools yield an inferior education? Why should all schools be bound by the same rules? Parents and children should have a choice in terms of what sort of education they recieve, and if we mandate that all schools be identical, then we are obviously taking away this choice. If a parent wants their child raised to be an ignoramus, this is fine with us. Who are we to say that ignorance is somehow inferior to active thought? Having been exposed to both, we will admit that, in practise, public schools yield a better education than private schools. However, in theory and in principle, there is no particular reason why this should be. What if we, as the government, are a collection of buffoons and idiots? Imposing our buffoonery and idiocy upon the nation's schoolchildren is unconscionable. Granted, we can make an honest effort to be fair and intelligent, but no matter what metric we use to measure it, someone will disagree. We have no way of knowing for certain that our way is best, so we have no right to remove the choice of education from our citizens. |
| Date | 23:58:15, February 12, 2007 CET | From | Liberal Democratic Party | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | Parents and children should have the freedom to choose which type of schooling they wish to partake in. However, that does not make one system and sect of education exempt from the regulations of the other. Public Education should be the model for education in our nation. As for what the S.L.P. says here as listed, we do not understand and feel an essence of offense. "If a parent wants their child raised to be an ignoramus, this is fine with us. Who are we to say that ignorance is somehow inferior to active thought?" ~S.L.P. This is not how the parties in our legislative system debate what-so-ever. There have been times in accordance to where things may have stepped out of fine political correctness, but that is not excuse. We respect each other and at least attempt not to offend the opposition when debating. Moving on, it is not good that one system of our education is the better of the other. This is not ideal, it would more seem something to "mix it up for a change". This debate has lost efficiency. The mere use of "idiocy and bufoonery" has shown our party that the opposition has little knowledge of debate within the lines of political correctness. "What if we, as the government, are a collection of buffoons and idiots? Imposing our buffoonery and idiocy upon the nation's schoolchildren is unconscionable. Granted, we can make an honest effort to be fair and intelligent, but no matter what metric we use to measure it, someone will disagree. We have no way of knowing for certain that our way is best, so we have no right to remove the choice of education from our citizens." ~S.L.P. And for the last, we don't want to remove the choice of public or private schools. We have never mentioned this nor stated it. We are further encasing upon this by trying to make sure that they are both the right choice; one made if a parent wishes religion to effect a student's outcome and the other if a parent wishes their student to grow stronger in their faith (This is not to say the parent can't be going to school, or an adult.). |
| Date | 00:34:46, February 13, 2007 CET | From | Scientific Libertarian Party | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | You, ser, are taking offense where there is none. We were describing religious schools as generating ignoramuses, we were making no judgement on our fellow parties. Moreover, "who are we to say that ignorance is somehow inferior to active thought?" Even if we had been labeling our fellow parties as ignoramuses, the following statement specified quite clearly and distinctly that it was not in any way a value judgement, in fact that making a value judgement on the subject is impossible. As for the notion that the government may be a collection of buffoons and idiots, please note that we did not specify that we agreed with that idea. My wording was admittedly poor ('is unconscionable' rather than 'would be unconscionable'), however, I was merely venturing a possible state of affairs. If we (and the SLP includes themselves in this collective of the government) are a bunch of buffoons, then we have no right to impose said buffoonery on our populace. This is an if/then argument, and we make no claims as to the veracity of the original premise. One of the most important principles in reasoned debate is to admit the possibility that you may be wrong. We simply take this to heart, and our governing style is to begin with the assumption that we are, in fact, buffoons, and to attempt to minimize the potentially disastrous effects of said buffoonery. In this way, we at worst do no damage. Of course, the flip side of this coin is that at best we do very little good, but considering most governments that we have seen, doing nothing is still much better than the average. All of that aside, we think that much confusion is stemming from the vague wording of 'with no regulations'. Does it mean that the religious nature of the school is unregulated (which is good)? Or does it mean that the school is completely and wholly unregulated in general (which we think is good, but can see the reasoning behind other opinions). Does it imply that religious schools are unregulated while secular schools are regulated (which is very bad)? Perhaps we simply saw that alternative was "strictly regulated", and screamed in terror at this most hated of phrases? What does it mean? In the case of vagueness, we have to come up with our own meaning. I will agree with a change to "Any religion may set up a school, but they are strictly regulated", as long as we add a note to the bill that they are only regulated in the sense that they are treated exactly the same as any secular private or public school, no more, no less. |
| Date | 00:37:19, February 13, 2007 CET | From | United Democrats of Jakania | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | To aid the LDP, one of your that he puts of the SLP is "If a parent wants their child raised to be an ignoramus, this is fine with us. Who are we to say that ignorance is somehow inferior to active thought" Before you joined, the country was run with ideas like that, we want that changed, not to fall back into it. |
| Date | 00:44:56, February 13, 2007 CET | From | Scientific Libertarian Party | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | On the contrary, UDA, the previous government of the country operated by forcing ignorance upon everyone. It could be said that you now wish to force knowledge upon everyone. As a policy, this could be seen as very similar to that of the old regime. You assume you know what is best, and then you enforce it. This is, of course, perfectly fine, IF you actually do know what is best. Our position is simply that there is no way to know what is truly best, and thus we should just leave it alone and let it sort itself out. |
| Date | 00:46:02, February 13, 2007 CET | From | Scientific Libertarian Party | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | (For the record, our opinion is that knowledge is superior to ignorance, BUT we realize that this assessment could be wrong, so we do not act upon said opinion.) |
| Date | 18:04:20, February 13, 2007 CET | From | Jakanian Liberal Socialists | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | Our only sticking point remaining is Article 2. We do not believe that government officials must appear entirely non-religious. We believe in a seperation of church and state, but this does not require our leaders to be entirely unreligious themselves. It only requires that they respect other beliefs. And this is not something we can force, whether we allow them to display religious symbols or not. We believe all people should express their religion openly, including our leaders, but our leaders should not let this interfere with others' worship. Were this article removed we would support the remainder of the bill. |
| Date | 19:49:06, February 15, 2007 CET | From | Jakanian Liberal Socialists | To | Debating the Freedom of (and from) Religion in Schools and in Public |
| Message | We support the bill is its current form. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 267 | ||||
| no | Total Seats: 0 | ||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 213 |
| Random fact: It is not allowed to call more than 5 elections in 5 game years in a nation. The default sanction for a player persisting in the early election tactic will be a seat reset. |
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