If you receive the National Secular Society‘s weekly email, Newsline, you’ll already have read this message:

Why we need you to commit to your principles

A message from Terry Sanderson, NSS President

We know there are millions of people in this country who would prefer religion not to interfere in their life and to stay where it belongs in places of worship and in the homes of worshippers.

There is a definite feeling of discomfort abroad about the way that churches, mosques, temples and other places of worship are putting out tentacles that reach into all our lives whether it is into our children’s education (another huge increase in the number of ‘faith schools’ is on the way), our taxes (why do churches get special tax privileges, like reduced VAT, when the rest of us are shown no mercy?), our hospitals (why is the NHS paying the salaries of clergy when hospitals are going into administration?), our legislature (why are Church of England bishops involved in making laws that we all have to live by?), and our media (why is religion given such special consideration by the BBC especially when religious programmes have so few listeners or viewers?).

We worry about the spread of crackpot ideas like creationism into places where children are led into believing that there is, somehow, legitimacy in such superstitions. We are concerned about the imposition of prayers on to secular spaces, such as local councils. We are outraged that tax-funded religious schools are standing in the way of girls receiving vaccinations that could protect them from cervical cancer because they it offends the school’s religious principles.

And now we discover that local authorities all over the country are giving free or subsidised parking to people who attend a place of worship, wh