Totally circular arguement

Following on from the announcement earlier this week that the first state-funded Hindu school in the UK has been approved to open (see Cru-blog below), Margaret Hodge has said she wants faith schoools to open up to children of other faiths... She doesn't mention what atheist children should do. Her comments included the remark "cultural practices such as forced marriages that are unacceptable within Britain must be banned".

Now I don't want to make any direct connection between Hindu-ism and forced marriage, because I think that arranged marriages (which are considered socially acceptible as long as you've thoroughly brain-washed your kids in advance into believing they shouldn't make a fuss) are more of a cultural than a religious thing. However I would be prepared to bet pretty good money that kids sent to secular schools with a mixture of religions, including Atheists and Humanists, etc, Pagans, Animists and Jedi knights, are a lot more likely to stand up against their parents on these kinds of issues than kids sent to a specialist Hindu school where I'm guessing 100% of the students will be from the same cultural background.