(Fonte: New Humanist)
According to the Friday edition of Newsline, the weekly email newsletter of the National Secular Society, “a publicly funded school has stated categorically that it will not admit the children of atheists or humanists”. The school in question is Coopers’ Company and Coborn School in Upminster, Essex. The school has been criticised by the Local Government Ombudsman for its religious admissions criteria, which the school clerk, Steve Hogan, revealed to the Romford Recorder included the policy that “humanists and atheists would not be taken on by us.” Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: “This is utterly disgraceful. We know that other religious schools effectively bar non-believers while maintaining that in theory they could gain admission, the Coopers’ Company and Coborn school is quite clear that it will not take any humanist or atheist child. It might as well put a notice on the gate ‘non-believers keep out’. Of course, if they did this with any other religion they would be in court almost immediately. As it stands, they can turn atheists into second-class citizens with absolutely no opportunity for redress. It seems incredible to us that we who have no religion are required to pay for these religious schools – which are rapidly increasing in number – with no opportunity ever to have access to them.”