Religious pluralism requires accepting the presence and status of religious doctrines that reject or oppose the status quo. What happens, though, when those doctrines are opposed to liberty and democracy - and are taught in religious schools? Can the liberal principle of pluralism or tolerance accept this?

The Economist discusses the presence of Muslim in schools in Britain that teach doctrines at odds with fundamental premises of religious pluralism itself:

The real argument, though, is about principle, not numbers. On the one hand stand some parents, Muslim and Christian alike, who think, among other things, that evolution is a fallacy and that homosexuality is a wicked perversion. They want schools for their children that uphold these beliefs, and feel they are facing a “liberal inquisition” in Mr Mears's words, or an “imposed secular viewpoint”, according to Sylvia Baker of the Christian Schools' Trust. On the other hand stands an educational establishment which thought that diversity and tolerance were synonymous, and finds they're not.

Pluralism has to accept the presence of anti-pluralist attitudes, but that really only works so long as the attitudes are in a very small minority. As soon as they gain real traction, pluralism itself is threatened and could end. Pluralism, then, has to have limits of some sort if it is going to survive in any form. But how should those limits be conceived? How can they be enforced?

Read More:

• Separation of Church and State 101
• Secularism 101