God help the children

Enter the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union, that on Friday called for all monies going to ACCESS Ministries to be withdrawn. Citing ACCESS volunteers who taught their young charges gems like, Buddha is Satan’s friend, the union said that Paddison’s comments were an affront to students in a our secular government schools and a clear breach of the federal guidelines for the national school chaplaincy program [that prohibit proselytising].

The AEU’s stance follows that take by Professor Gary Bouma, an Anglican Priest and the UNESCO chairman of Interreligious and Intercultural Relations. Denouncing the ACCESS curriculum as crap, Bouma bemoaned an education department ill equipped to stand up to religious bullies like ACCESS. Several days later, he signed an open letter with a handful of other religious and social inclusion experts. Addressed to Federal and State decision-makers, including the Prime Minister, it called for the replacement of scripture with general religious education taught by trained teachers, not evangelical Christian volunteers — via redwolf.newsvine.com