Although state "faith schools" will automatically and permanently become religious academies, state community schools will not automatically become secular academies and may even acquire a religious sponsor and become religious academies.
But now, as the Boy Scouts face growing calls to reverse their policy of excluding openly gay leaders and members, the predominance of Mormon and other religious sponsors is a complicating factor.
Once a state "faith school" has become a religious academy, it does not need to follow the national curriculum and we know from experience that there are curriculum and teaching concerns specific to existing academy schools with religious sponsors.
Catholic peace organisation Pax Christi and Quakers in Britain are the two most prominent religious sponsors of peace lessons, while another group, Spiritual England, is behind the recently launched Peaceful Schools Movement.
Even more importantly, this ambiguity hinders the religious "sponsors" of Catholic hospitals from determining the best use of resources in their mission to serve the most vulnerable.
The deliberations over whether to admit openly gay and lesbian members to the Boy Scouts has divided organizers, polarized its corporate and religious sponsors, and placed the group at the center of a nationwide debate over gay rights over the past two years.
Many victims were attending a religious conference sponsored by a United States-based evangelical group.
All of the major Republican contenders spoke on Friday or Saturday at the conference, a pep rally for religious conservatives sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and other conservative Christian groups and attended by 3,400 people.
A hotel in this Manila suburb went up in flames today, killing at least 70 people and injuring 54 others, including some taking part in a religious conference sponsored by an American evangelical group.
What I didn't realize was that this Frontier Ranch was a religious outfit, sponsored by an organization called Young Life.
Religious groups sponsor 70% of the more than 100,000 scouting units in the US.
