Christian schools are justified in continuing to exclude gay teachers under certain circumstances, this according to the highest advisory body in the Netherlands, the Council of State. In an advisory paper prepared for the cabinet and leaked to the newspaper Nederlands Dagblad, the Council argues that although schools are not allowed to discriminate, they do have a right to make specific demands of their staff under certain conditions. The case arose last month when a Christian primary school in the Dutch town of Emst suspended a teacher after he came out as being homosexual. The school board said the teacher's sexual orientation conflicts with the foundation and the mission of the school. Although private schools do exist in the Netherlands, the overwhelming majority of religious schools are state funded in the same way as non-denominational schools.
Christian schools are justified in continuing to exclude gay teachers under certain circumstances, this according to the highest advisory body in the Netherlands, the Council of State. In an advisory paper prepared for the cabinet and leaked to the newspaper Nederlands Dagblad, the Council argues that although schools are not allowed to discriminate, they do have a right to make specific demands of their staff under certain conditions. The case arose last month when a Christian primary school in the Dutch town of Emst suspended a teacher after he came out as being homosexual. The school board said the teacher's sexual orientation conflicts with the foundation and the mission of the school.
Although private schools do exist in the Netherlands, the overwhelming majority of religious schools are state funded in the same way as non-denominational schools.
The same issue came up when a Muslim school fired a teacher who decided to no longer wear a headscarf.
To be clear, there is also public, state-sponsored secular schooling in the Netherlands.
