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Britain is a land where people of every faith are equal.

Britain is a land where all schools teach children to an equal standard.

Britain is a land where we don’t want religious extremists to indoctrinate children.

So which country is it where three men had ammonia sprayed in their faces for being gay?

Which country is it where people who want to exterminate non-whites and Jews are targeting young students?

And which country is it where the Education Secretary has backed religious academies funded by the state, saying: “By becoming an academy a [faith] school can place itself permanently out of range of… unsympathetic meddling.”

Well, that would be Britain too. Confusing, isn’t it?

Under our legal and social system, we tolerate all faiths. In our towns and cities there are places to worship Mohammed, Jesus, Yahweh, gods with more than the usual numbers of arms, elephant heads, and heaven knows what else.

It’s absolutely fine by us, even though around 40% of Britons don’t believe in any god at all.

Yet there are 6,751 state-funded schools where they’re allowed to teach pupils that there are no other gods but that of their parents’.

Those schools are not required to take children who live nearest.

And they are exempt from part of the Equality Act so that they can block children and teachers of different faiths.

As for the National Curriculum, which demands all children are taught a certain standard of science, that’s pick-and-mix for faith schools as well.

In 2012 the Education Secretary approved three free schools run by creationists.

That’s people who teach magic as if it’s a science and tell children to take their holy book literally.

Including all the bits about burning, homosexuality, stoning non-virgins, and treating women as chattels.

The bits most people would think are a bit, well… extreme.

It’s because we, as a nation, disapprove of religious indoctrination, extreme beliefs and inequality that there is a big row about Muslim schools in Birmingham.

An anonymous letter claimed hardliners had a ‘Trojan Horse’ plot to take over 21 schools, Ofsted inspectors held surprise inspections, and around six schools are expected to be put under “special measures” for failing their pupils.

Except this isn’t about Muslims or Islamophobia or creeping Sharia law.

According to figures released in 2012, 98% of England’s 7,000 faith schools are Christian.

A mere 42 are Jewish, 12 or 0.06% of the total are Muslim, three are Sikh and one is Hindu.

The Hindu one accepts only vegetarian pupils, and insists their parents avoid alcohol as well although not all Hindis agree that’s necessary.

A lot of them segregate boys and girls. And so do grammar schools, independents, and some others – around 12% of English secondary schools, in fact.

Those who back faith schools say they generally get better exam results and have better discipline records than others in the same area.

Perhaps that is because figures show religious schools also favour the children of wealthier families, as their pupils are less likely to qualify for free school meals.

What you have with faith schools is a two-tier education system of precisely the kind most people in Britain find distasteful – where a third of all our schools select on the basis of wealth, gender, and genetics.

Faith schools force-feed their pupils in the same way foie gras producers force-feed their geese, except instead of fat livers you get closed minds.

Picking one faith to demonise for all that while overlooking the same offences by others is, well, uneducated.

We have a system of education which everybody in Britain pays into, but does not have an equal right to access.

Faith schools exist purely because they are exempt from equality before the law, a concept which Britons have held dear since long before Magna Carta.

And how can we insist that others are equal – regardless of colour, gender or faith – when the way we raise our children is so unbalanced?

Society has changed since all the holy books were written, and it’s changed since the 1944 Education Act that insists on a “daily act of worship” in all schools.

If we stopped funding all faith schools tomorrow, what harm would befall us?

Our children would be taught by people of all faiths, alongside fellow pupils from all walks of life.

There would be nowhere for extremism to grow.

Equality would be universal, the National Curriculum would be national, and faith would be just that – a belief you arrive at by yourself, not something you are pressured into.

Perhaps we’d respect people of faith a little more that way.

Perhaps there would be fewer children who grow up to try to blind gay clubbers because of who they love.

Perhaps there would be fewer children who grow up thinking Jews should be exterminated.

And perhaps one day there’d be an Education Secretary who thinks teaching is helping children to figure things out for themselves, rather than shoving his own rather limited thoughts down their throats.

If we all pay into our education system we should all get the same out of it. If you want extra for your children, then pay for it yourself.

Call it unsympathetic meddling if you like, but it’s better than force-feeding.