Because the USA is a theocracy where the morals of a religion are held higher than the morals and laws of democratic values such as equality and tolerance, just like Iran and Ruzzia :D Enlightment anyone? No?
Some religious schools like reformatory and Islamic schools carry out duplicate messages: they teach children democratic values such as equality and tolerance, but place religious views next to it that are at odds with these values. This leads to confusion and can reinforce discriminatory ideas, particularly about homosexuality, gender roles and Jewish people.
Schools are required to teach children about democratic values and to comply with them in practice. But on the basis of Article 23 of the Constitution (in the Netherlands at least), schools also have the freedom to place religious messages next to it. According to experts, this leads to “double messages” that are difficult to follow for children, and in some cases are at odds with democratic values.
For example, children now learn that you can decide for yourself how to live your life, but also that they have to obey God. And they learn about the theory of evolution, but also that according to religion it is not correct, and that the world is actually only 6000 years old.
Reformatory schools teach about equality, but in addition, the view that the man is “the head” and the woman is “submissive” to him. It should be cautious about leadership roles.
The Dutch Ministry of Education says that it is “inevitable” that fundamental rights are chafing with each other here, and that democracy also means that children learn to deal with this. Experts call this “naive.”
Renowned theologian Abdullahi An-Na’im says a religious message will always dominate. According to him, there is no level playing field between a religious message and democratic values. “Religion has a psychological and emotional lead in children’s upbringing,” says An-Na’im. “With deep roots in communities, where the state has no reach whatsoever.”
Do we want a multicultural model in which we think very differently about freedoms? Or do we want to work towards a model in which not only equality, but really equality, for example between men and women, is seen as a fundamental starting point? In the latter case, it means that we need to make more work of that. CLEARLY
Dutch News anchor Nieuwsuur has investigated this in the netherlands: The clashing messages in religious education
https://nos.nl/collectie/14003
And then they wonder why the rest of the world looks at the US like a bizarre mix of Enlightenment ideals and medieval dogma. I mean, Locke, Voltaire, and Kant are spinning in their graves right now watching how their ‘right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ has been hijacked by a movement that actively denies science, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ existence in the name of a god nobody can even agree on.
It’s the ultimate paradox: the same country that gave the world the First Amendment (thanks, Voltaire!) now has a Supreme Court majority that thinks genuinely held religious beliefs can override basic human rights like letting a child die because a doctor’s ‘deeply held belief’ says so.
And let’s not forget the irony of a nation built on the idea that government should not impose religion (see: Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration) now trying to turn it into a Christian nationalist state where ‘freedom of religion’ somehow means ‘freedom to discriminate against anyone who doesn’t pray in your direction.’ So yes, the US isn’t an official theocracy… yet? But it’s doing its damndest to feel like one, all while claiming to be the ‘beacon of democracy.’ Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk and his ilk are out here acting like the Ayatollah of some sort of Christian Taliban. If this isn’t a lesson in how fragile democratic values are, I don’t know what is. Europe’s secularism and Enlightenment values might just be the only thing keeping the US from fully regressing into a theocratic dystopia.