Julian Bennetts

Julian Bennett is the Secretary of Cardiff Humanists. Here he recounts his experiences attempting to get on the local Sacre Board as a Co-Opted Member. The "Standing Advisory Councils on Religious Education" exist in every Local Education Authority and were set up to advise on issues of religious education.

Since 2003 Cardiff Humanists have been denied a role in Cardiff Sacre on the grounds of not being religious. Last year in April 2008 we decided to re-apply given that there have been changes in the syllabus of RE and a recommendation for Humanism to be on the syllabus as well as changes in the Law.

I had to wait a full 11 months before being allowed to give a presentation which took place in last week in March 2009.

I cited 3 main reasons why there should be a Humanist representation present.

1: Humanism has been recommended by the OCA to be included in RE in order to make the syllabus more inclusive to many pupils who want to explore ethical issues from a non-religious perspective.

Since there is a representative from every other belief system on the RE syllabus bar a Humanist it is only fair that a Humanist be represented. To exclude Humanists on the basis of their belief is probably against part two of the Equality Act 2006 which "prohibits discrimination against a person because they do not hold a religion or belief"

2: Cardiff Humanists are affiliated to the BHA. The BHA is the largest organisation in the UK that represents the Humanist tradition and makes available a large range of excellent teaching resources for schools. A Humanist representative on Sacre would enrich the resources available for RE teaching of Humanism.

3: Humanists participate in over 60 Sacres in a wide range of authorities around the country, some have co-operated in generating syllabus conferences, others have been elected to vice chairs or even chairs of Sacre. Humanists have worked with religious leaders such as the Rabbi Jonathan Romain in the organisation 'Accord' to make faith schools more inclusive. The BHA recently hosted a conference in Cardiff International Arena that included a discussion led by Simon Barrow of the Christian think tank Ekklesia on the law and definitions of religion.

All of the above highlight that Humanists are capable of working together with representatives from religious organisations.

There was wide support for my acceptance on Sacre other than from the Chair and the representative from the Catholic tradition.

The Chair - Lib Dem counsellor Freda Salway asked whether there were any humanists on Sacres elsewhere in Wales and since there were not this was implied to be a good reason for not having one on Cardiff Sacre.

The next objection was equally banal - did I have faith? If not that seemed like a good reason for not having me on the committee since everyone else present did.

To this the head of RE that was present defended my case by noting that Sacre oversaw religious education with the emphasis on 'education' . That the meaning of 'religion' was rooted in the Latin 'Relgio' meaning to bind or hold fast to, and that Humanists no less than other religious groups hold onto or could be said to have faith in a view of human nature that is able to solve ethical problems.

However, the Chair had the final say. She has 'absent mindedly' arranged the date of my presentation on a day when there were insufficient counselors to take a vote on my acceptance. Hence there would be yet another delay over a representative from Cardiff Humanists being on the committee and they will contact me at some point in the future.

So what else can I do - I find it disgusting the way the chair of Cardiff Sacre can orchestrate this pantomime - clearly she is doing her very best to keep any representative from Cardiff Humanists out of Sacre.


Regards
Julian Bennett
Cardiff Humanists Secretary

Well it seems that that there is a certain level of unwillingness to allow secular voices onto the local Sacre Board. Other Sacres invite humanists. Surrey County Council has a humanist on their Sacre board under "other faiths" (which includes Muslim and Catholics accounting for over half the worlds population and maybe more than half of the practicing faithful in the UK). Other LEAs have rejected secular board members. My first thought is that Humanism is not a religion and this is perhaps an issue in the minds of Sacre members. The point needs to be made that children need to be aware of non-religious responses to religious issues if they are to be properly educated about Religion.

We should write to our MPs and AMs passing on Julian's experience.

Blakeley