Why should religion have any influence on our lives?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Faith schools create more inequality and lower overall educational standards thanks to all the people that are effectively segregated out of those schools that choose to ban children who are not indoctrinated into a given faith.

There's nothing fair about them, and the so called 'choice' for parents would still be around if the state stopped funding them as there's nothing to prevent parents setting them up themselves with their church, especially considering the fact that the government now allows this through it's academy/free school reforms.

Using the illusion of 'choice' (is it really a choice if the options available are a well funded and great performing faith school vis an under performing and underfunded state comprehensive?) as a reason and justification for segregation is just awful. And that's what faith schools promote and endorse. Segregation. And on beliefs that are often not the child's own but those of the parents (what 4 year old knows about God or religion??)