Secular education... please...

I feel sorry for school children in Staffordshire because it looks like their council thinks it's a good idea to halt swimming lessons in August and September i.e. during the UK's warmest and most "swimming friendly" period of the year. The council isn't concerned about kids suffering from the heat however, they are more worried that Muslims might swallow water during their Ramadan fasting period and they wouldn't want these children to feel "disadvantaged because of their religious observances".

There is so much that's wrong with this its hard to know where to start, but I'll have a go...

- There's no such thing as a "Muslim child" only children of Muslim parents who are in the process of indoctrinating them; the desire for these parents to starve their children is a matter for the parents of those children and possibly the legal system; nothing to do with education, physical or otherwise.

- Why aren't the council concerned about non-religious children who will be disadvantaged because of the bronze age beliefs of the parents of some of the other kids. Religion is an optional pastime, it is proven a posteriori by the billions of non-Muslims that Human beings do not need to starve themselves periodically and grovel to some invisible super-man in the sky in order to be healthy, successful, happy, fulfilled or educated so if Muslims wish to disadvantage their children in order to follow such things then that is a matter for them and them alone.

In addition to swimming apparently exams and sex education also need to be avoided during Ramadan  because some pupils (clue: the ones with Islamic parents) will potentially have concentration issues, presumably because of low energy levels and and waking up before dawn to eat stuff (doh!). Thoughts about sex are (as ever) particularly verboten during this time for teenagers, however if any Muslim claims that not receiving sex education is a sure-fire way of preventing teenagers from having "thoughts" about sex then I'd call them a liar; Muslims may believe in a slightly different flavour of deity (although not entirely original) than others do, but last time I checked they were all still human beings.