This does remind me of something perhaps comparable in Canada.

to my knowledge, Canada is the only country with a publicly funded religious and secular school system. That is, as a taxpayer you can decide if your taxes want to go to pay for the secular high school or the 'separate school' system which is a taxpayer funded Catholic school. I think that Canada has gotten into a bit of trouble with the United Nations over this, since they consider it discrimination.

The whole reason it passed through was to placate the French Canadian population, which is roughly half the country. Until about the 1960's, every aspect of French-Canadian life was controlled by the Catholic church. The French Canadians demanded that they be allowed to put their tax dollars towards high schools which reflected their culture, values, and religion. Otherwise, they would simply refuse to pay taxes. You can't put half the people in the country in prison for tax evasion, so at least a quarter of the high schools built in Canada became Catholic schools.

(Actually, most French Canadians are Atheists or agnostics now, or at least non-Catholic but the charade goes on. Interestingly, there are even some Catholic priests that think there shouldn't be publicly funded Catholic schools anymore. )

Well, some of the Protestant religious kooks in Ontario started a lobby group and managed to convince a Provincial candidate from the Conservative party it would be smart to encourage the development of Protestant high schools too. This would be achieved through a tax credit system. You pay $5,000 or whatever a year to send your kid to one of the handful of private Protestant high schools and the government would reimburse you. Sounds fair doesn't it? Catholic high schools are publicly funded through property taxes so why not Protestant schools too?

The Conservative candidate took this tax credit and introduced it as a major plank in his platform. If he was elected, he would start with these tax rebates for 'spiritual schools'.

Then the fun hit the fan.

Muslims started calling his office and telling him how happy they were with the idea, since now they would be able to send their kids to an all-Muslim high school. Many Jews were also pleased with the idea, for much the same reasons. Hindus and Sikhs started calling his office and asking details of how the plan would work, and whether they would get a provincial tax rebate for building new 'Hindu only' and 'Sikh only' schools, and whether the province would pay for the construction of these new schools or whether they would have to fund them and the province would give them a rebate.

Wiccans were also calling his office and asking details about the plan. Wow, wouldn't it be great to have a 'Wiccans only' high school where kids could take courses in spellcraft, and learn about Wotan and Zeus?

However, this Candidate flatly denied the request of the Wiccans stating that they wouldn't qualify. They asked him why not, and he told them he didn't think they were a 'real' religion. They asked him to define what a 'real' religion was. The Wiccan church is recognized as an official relgion in Canada, after all. He said he only considered the 'traditional' religions as the ones that would qualify. (He was trying to insinuate that he meant Protestant Christianity only, but of course he realized he couldn't say this flat out.)

Even if he defined traditional religions as the big three 'Abrahamic' religions, he still put himself in the difficult position of taking public tax money away from a public secular school where kids of all creeds and religions (or lack of) can attend and intermingle. Now instead of building more secular schools, he would be sending tax dollars to fund a 'Muslim only' high school which would be built on public land and will either A) Teach the kids exactly the same thing they would have learned in a secular school anyways, and/ or B) Use public Ontario tax money to teach these kids Muslim values, history, tradition, language, etc.

Or, he could say "NO, I DIDN'T MEAN TAX CREDITS FOR JEWS AND MUSLIMS, WICCANS AND SATANISTS, JUST FOR PROTESTANTS ONLY." However, this is unconstitutional in Canada. So, he just kind of stared like a deer caught in the headlights when the media started asking him details of how the 'tax credits' system would work, considering all the various religions in Canada.

Church and state are separate for good reasons.

If you promise not to pray in our schools, we promise not to learn in your church.

<No this isn't a race and the situations I'm talking about are nothing like what your talking about. In the situations you describe yeah it wouldn't be a good idea.>

I don't understand the situations you are talking about. If you are talking about Richard Dawkins and his belief that religions are a mental illness, then I have to disagree most vehemently. Religion is not a mental illness in of itself, but a symptom of any variety of mental illnesses. You might want to peruse a book called "The Courage to Heal."

www.amazon.com/Courage-He.../ref=sr_1_1

Many of the women who share their stories in this book were also victims of religious abuse. Their religious beliefs were put in place as a means of avoiding the memory of the trauma they suffered as children. When they finally confronted the trauma, their religious beliefs vanished like snow in August. Then there is religious schizophrenia or obsessive compulsive disorder. Even depression can lead to religious symptoms.