Students in Ontario Can Now Opt Out of Religion Classes at Catholic Schools

[NeoGreen]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/06/15/students-in-ontario-can-now-opt-out-of-religion-classes-at-catholic-schools/

Students in Ontario Can Now Opt Out of Religion Classes at Catholic Schools
June 15, 2017 by Hemant Mehta

In Ontario, where Catholic schools receive public funding, a settlement by a Human Rights Tribunal has paved the way for students to be exempt from religion classes without punishment.

Claudia Sorgini filed the complaint last year when she began her senior year at St. Theresa’s High School in Midland, Ontario, part of the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School District.

She, like approximately half the students in her thousand-member class, wasn’t Catholic, but attended the school anyway.

(Why would a non-Catholic student attend a Catholic school? There are a number of possible reasons. It’s closer to home, the school board encourages it, they get more funding, they’re better run, etc. The point is: It’s not weird for non-Catholics to go to Catholic schools in the province. For the most part, Catholic schools and secular schools are identical.)

Sorgini took religion courses throughout high school because she thought they were mandatory — and did very well in them — but realized that they were actually optional. So her senior year, she requested an exemption so she could sit in on a science class instead. That’s when the problems began.