What laws do, David, is to prevent to some degree the institutionalization of prejudices. (Of course that works the other way around, too! See Jim Crow in your local encyclopedia.) School rivalries threaten no ones life or livelihood. Ethnocentrism and racial prejudice do.

I prefer eclecticism as a philosophy. Where I find merit in the arguments of a self-proclaimed conservative, I will agree. The subject of phonics as the preferred method for teaching reading for example. Children in the first three years of school must learn to decode. Third and fourth grade is plenty early enough to start working on comprehension and analytical skills.

Your statement " a conservative (read as individualist, free-marketer or whatever) knows you can't legislate morality and doesn't try. I reiterate: "He governs best who governs least." " struck me as ludicrous. Conservatives, in the U.S. at least, cheerfully legislate morality in much more intensely personal areas than the public occasions where liberals want to restrict prayer. (I do see some merit in society meddling with sexual conduct, but strictly along medical and consequential grounds.)

The people who really don't try to legislate morality are the libertarians.