atheists.. pee me off

The simple fact is that as a non-Catholic parent of a non-Catholic child I am in fact subject to daily discrimination. There is no public secular schooling option in this country and even if there was it would amount to segregated education and my child being marked out as different in ways that he shouldn't be because we don't belong to the majority faith. I'm not particularly ok with being a discriminated against minority and I'm really, really not okay with my son being. And I get that it's hard for people to get their heads around the fact that people like me and my family are minorities being discriminated against. We tend to be, on average, well educated, middle-class people who live lives loaded with privilege. Most people look at us as kicking up a fuss and we tend to see ourselves that way and find it very difficult, often impossible, to ask for even our own children to be treated as equals in state institutions. Especially when we know that if they are treated as equals, they are held up as different in a social setting where it's very, very difficult to be different and increases the chances of the child being subject to social exclusion and bullying.

I see it all the time with parents forced to choose between baptism or not having a school place if their area is over-subscribed. Applying for school places for newborns if they are lucky enough to live near an ET that the commute is feasible. Then having to choose between a daily school commute to a school where their child will be closer to equal (but not necessarily equal as multi-dom rarely includes no religion) or letting their child go to the local school with their neighbourhood friends but where they will never be equal no matter how nicely they are treated. Choosing between whether to opt out of religion which isn't really possible due to the integrated curriculum or to just keep the head down and have their 4 year olds taught that you should let the stranger who visits you alone in bed at night do what they want to your body even if you are scared. Or maybe be told by the school that they have no right to remove them from religion even though that's unconstitutional, so they are forced through deceit or fear of repercussions if they fight it, to have their kids sit through learning other people's beliefs as facts. Or they have to fight and fight for their rights and even deal with teachers who out and out bully their kids and make them do all sorts of religious work that they know damn well their parents don't want them doing. It's ****ed up, it's not right and it's (part of) why so many of us are so pissed off and angry.