Would it be justified for a libertarian state to ban certain religious schools?

Question

From a libertarian perspective, public education system is not desirable in a free society, roughly because public education is a monopoly (in this case, of the State), which is based on the compulsory extraction of everyone's income and to use it to make children to be educated according to a curriculum set by the government. For this reason, private education and home schooling are regarded as the main systems to train and educate children, and the parent's freedom of choice when it comes to their children's education should be respected.

Since in a free society (again, from a libertarian perspective) can exist many different types of privately owned education systems, and parents can freely choose the schools that they regard as the best for their children education without government interference, they could make use of their liberty and choose to send their children to private religious schools.

What if these schools teach certain kind of ideologies, such us the denigration or disapproval of homosexuals or certain ethnic minorities based on religious principles? Would it be justifiable for a libertarian state to limit parent's free choice by means of imposing control or even banning some kind of religious schools?

I think that if these institutions taught explicit hate ideologies against certain people, it would be easier to answer, but since the limit between teaching "hate" or just "soft contempt based on religious and moral principles" could be very permeable, the question can be difficult to answer.

Answer 1

What if these schools teach certain kind of ideologies, such us the denigration or disapproval of homosexuals or certain ethnic minorities based on religious principles? Would it be justifiable for a libertarian state to limit parent's free choice by means of imposing control or even banning some kind of religious schools?

No. You are concentrating on examples which are clear in your mind. But note the response in the other answer:

If school A teaches certain kind of ideologies that is not popular

But what does not popular mean? Modernly, anti-homosexual rhetoric may not be popular. But until 2003 some state laws made homosexual acts illegal. Those laws could have been repealed democratically if they were unpopular.

Libertarianism is in general far more concerned with the negative impact of shouting down the unpopular voice than with the possibility of an unpopular voice saying something disagreeable. Whatever some private party may say or do to restrict others, it is dwarfed by the government's ability to restrain debate. And the government will generally uphold the status quo rather than squashing it. Some famous examples of the government upholding the status quo: Bowers v. Hardwick; Plessy v. Ferguson; Dred Scott v. Sandford.

That's not to say that none who describe themselves as libertarian would favor using the government power that way. By its nature, libertarianism is broad and covers many views. But there is a strong argument that using government power even to maintain libertarianism is dangerous.

Answer 2

From what I understand of Libertarianism, No.

Libertarianism is very strong on freedom of speech/action. The philosophy wishes to provide as few limitations to these freedom as possible, as long as the actions are non-violent.

Libertarianism advocates the use of market pressure to solve such problems. If school A teaches certain kind of ideologies that is not popular, one can simply start a school B, right next to school A. Most parents would then send their children to school B, which will flourish, while school A would have very few students.

Answer 3

Libertarians are famous for unwavering support of their principles. One main principle, although vague in true definition, is the NAP(non-aggression principle), generally stating that if no one's life or property etc is explicitly threatened, then no crime is committed. In a phrase: "No victim, no crime".

This is because libertarians believe that reality and society are way more likely to change a person's view then government imposed morality, or in this case, the government prohibiting schools from teaching certain things.

Bigots who own a store and chose to sell only to a certain demographic are opening themselves to a smaller client pool (decreased profits) and public scrutiny that should result in either a close of business or a change in opinion. This same example holds true to schools as they would, in this example, be a private "company".

Answer 4

No.

In a libertarian system, you could probably even directly call to doing bad things, and it's not your business if somebody does what you say or not. Because you cannot be responsible for other people's deeds, you can only be responsible for what you did. That's the freedom of speech.

However, if you commit an actual crime based on somebody's speech, not only you are likely to be dead soon (everybody has guns), but you also can be enslaved by victim's family (you kill my 15 year-old child? you will be a slave to my and me wife for 25 years because there's personal grudge and interest involved).