Church in school

No, Mr Brownsey (Letters, 12 April), I do not wish my son to sport a badge saying: “My type of family is morally superior to yours.” But society benefits from a strong culture of marriage: love, then marriage, then children, then joint child rearing by the parents.

Children should ideally absorb this norm through stories and example. When they are older, they should be made aware of the statistical facts underlining the wisdom of this model. Government-funded gay campaigning group Stonewall recommends children’s story books depicting unorthodox family structures, with the intention of blurring children’s conception of family.

Richard Lucas

Broomyknowe

Edinburgh

Let me answer Veronica Wikman (Letters, 11 April) as a proud Scot and adherent of the Church of Scotland. Most Scots who have been through the Scots education system in non-denominational state schools will not recognise the ludicrous “straw man” of indoctrination by ministers, set up in her petition.

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They may even view the petition as something of a calumny. As far as I can see, many of the secularists urging the removal of worship from Edinburgh schools have no grasp, or experience in their own childhoods, of the very moderate nature of exposure to worship that most Scottish non-denominational schools offer.

It is important to most Scottish citizens, I suspect, that our children have exposure to the Christian culture that has shaped our forebears and this country for centuries.

As with other subjects in the curriculum, children may take or leave what they learn of literature, chemistry or Christianity in school later in life but they should be exposed to something of what Christian worship and observance means, in a Scottish context of Presbyterian worship.

What a shame it will be if 
Edinburgh schools were to abandon our historical and cultural birthright on the whim of an unrepresentative and tiny group of secular activists.

ANGUS LOGAN

York Road

North Berwick

What other reason, if not to express the societal equivalent of territorial marking, and the opportunity to scatter leaflets around the school, can there be if the congregation of a church must use a publicly funded school, despite the fact that they already have a fully functioning church building at their disposal nearby (Letters, 12 April)?

Why should I as a tax payer be forced indirectly to support the anti-equality leanings of this church, one of the signatories of a protest letter against the same sex-marriage bill?

I have no doubt that Mr 
Lucas’s appalling insinuation that my involvement in the campaign to remove religious observance from non-denominational schools should be motivated by religious hostility will be regarded as being just as ludicrous to the Christians and Muslims I count among my friends and acquaintances, as it is to me.

In the absence of valid arguments it would appear that Mr Lucas has chosen to go down the route of personal attack. I find this as deplorable and tiresome as I find his continued slurs against secularism.

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Should he wish to enlighten his mind about secularism, he might find a visit to the websites of the Edinburgh Secular Society and the National Secular Society of interest.

Veronica Wikman

Malleny Avenue

Edinburgh