It's in the brain

There are even fewer grounds now for religious bigots to tell homosexuals how evil they are or, when they're being a bit more moderate, how evil the practice is.

According to the NewScientist.com news service, brain scans have "provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait".

The story continues:

The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex. The differences are likely to have been forged in the womb or in early infancy, says Ivanka Savic, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

"This is the most robust measure so far of cerebral differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects," she says.

Sikh, and you shall find a £100,000 bill for the taxpayer

West Midlands Police, that bastion of political correctness, have allowed a hundred grand to be spent on trying to source helmets to fit in with the religious demands of Sikh officers.

Sikhs believe they have to wear a turban and have a long beard. Goodness knows why, but there it is. According to the Daily Mail, instead of telling one officer that he couldn't join the counterterrorist Operational Support Group unless he cut his beard to an acceptable length and took off his turban because the usual helmet didn't fit, they told him to try to source suitable head gear.

He'd been refused a place because there wasn't a suitable helmet or respirator that would fit over his turban. The unnamed constable, thought to be in his twenties, claimed he was being discriminated against. But he was "then assigned the task – while on full pay – of sourcing new equipment that would fit", says the paper. He contacted manufacturers across the world, but it was all in vain, and, after 18 months, he was restored to regular duties.

Then he's said to have gone on long-term leave suffering from stress. The Mail's source says it cost £100,000 and was "a shocking waste of taxpayers' cash".

The West Midlands force is quoted as saying, "'No Sikh officer has applied and been 'turned down' from joining the Operational Support Unit because of faith issues. However, it has been identified that for some members of the Sikh faith, the removal of the turban to wear a helmet and the wearing of a respirator could be problematic.

"As an employer committed to equality and diversity, we are working to try [to] find a solution to what is a national issue."

At more public expense, no doubt.

Gay priest in wedding row resigns

It's emerged that one of the priests who held a marriage ceremony at St Bartholomew the Great Church in the City of London last month has now resigned, according to today's Guardian.

"The Rev Dr David Lord, a New Zealander who tied the knot with English clergyman Peter Cowell on May 31, 'felt it appropriate to lay down his clergy licence', according to a statement released through the Anglican Church in New Zealand," the paper says.

As you'll see from our story yesterday (linked to above), there been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the ceremony, coming, as you would expect, from the wailing and gnashing end of the Christian spectrum, especially those who wail and gnash in Africa.

And the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, has said that "services of public blessings for civil partnerships were not authorised in the Church of England or the diocese of London and has asked the Archdeacon of London, Peter Delaney, to investigate", according to the paper.

The priest who led the service, the Rev. Martin Dudley, tells the paper, "I am surprised and disappointed by the fuss. It was a joyful, godly occasion. Why turn it into a controversy? It was not a rally or a demonstration. Nor is it the first time there have been prayers, hymns or readings following a civil partnership. It may be that this ceremony had rather more knobs on. It may also be the only one we know about."

The story continues:

Liberals reacted with disappointment to the news of Lord's resignation. The Rev. Dr Giles Fraser, vicar of Putney and president of Inclusive Church, a campaign group working for equal rights for gay Christians, said: "This is disgraceful. It's amazing this church cannot celebrate what little love there is in this world. It was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives and they have been turned into outcasts."

Others said they hoped the event would help the church modernise. The Rev. Richard Kirker, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said: "I hope it nudges the church into the 21st century. There are so many gay clergy in civil partnerships, whose integrity leads them to wanting to have their relationships affirmed by their faith."

Meanwhile, Ruth Gledhill in The Times tells us that the Anglican Church "has been plunged into fresh turmoil" over the service, and that the paper has learned that up to 500 Anglo-Catholic priests are ready to resign after failing to secure the concessions that they had sought over women bishops. Read the full story here.

You can't kill your kids, holy Joes are told

The rights of Jehovah's Witnesses not to have blood transfusions don't extend to their kids, says a Canadian judge after a couple wanted to refuse blood for premature sextuplets.

Quite right, too. It's bad enough that people stand to lose their parents when these people selfishly choose to die when they're not in need of euthanasia or assisted suicide. But inflicting grief on others seems to be a skewed form of "loving" Christianity.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, this British Columbia Supreme Court Chief Justice, Donald Brenner, has ruled that child-welfare authorities were right a year ago to seize the couple's four surviving babies, so they could receive doctor-recommended blood transfusions that their parents had refused.

An ABC News story tells us that the judge told them that state intervention was justified when lives were at risk.

"Freedom of religion is not absolute," the judge said, adding, "While it is difficult to conceive of any limitations on religious beliefs, the same cannot be said of religious practices, notably when they impact on the fundamental rights and freedoms of others."

One wedding and a fundamentalist or two

This one's already begun to get them going. The UK's Sunday Telegraph tells us of a service, complete with exchange of vows, held at St Bartholomew the Great Church in London – one of England's oldest churches and one that featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral – and it's really got the traditionalists into a hissy fit of fury and righteous rage.

But this one was held to join together in holy matrimony two blokes: the Rev. Peter Cowell, who is a cleric at one of the Queen's churches, and the Rev. Dr David Lord, who had already registered a civil partnership before the ceremony.

It's nothing new, of course. Well, blessings, at least, over gay priests have been said for as long as there have been gay priests, which is as long as there have been priests. But this one was a rather elaborate affair, using the traditional wording of the marriage service.

Their service was conducted by the Rev. Martin Dudley, the parish rector, who opened the proceedings with, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join these men in a holy covenant of love and fidelity. Such a covenant shows us the mystery of the union between God and God's people and between Christ and the Church."

In the vows, Cowell and Lord pledged to "hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part".

One of the frothing reactions has come from Uganda. Henry Orombi, the archbishop there, said that the ceremony was "blasphemous." He called on Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to take decisive action to stop the Anglican Church from disintegrating. Orombi added, "What really shocks me is that this is happening in the Church of England that first brought the Gospel to us. The leadership tried to deny that this would happen, but now the truth is out. Our respect for the Church of England will erode unless we see a return to traditional teaching."

And over here the conservative Rt Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester said that the service represented a wedding "in all but name". "Strictly speaking," he said, "it is not a marriage, but the language is clearly modelled on the marriage service and the occasion is modelled on the marriage service. This clearly flouts Church guidelines and will exacerbate divisions within the Anglican Communion."

Only if you and your bigoted kind let it, mate.

Back to the Dark Ages

Gordon Brown is promising religious leaders he'll incorporate their wish list into his next manifesto.

Acording to the UK's Daily Telegraph, his move comes after a study showed that the government doesn't understand religious groups – or "faith groups", as it calls them.

"Labour says the responses it receives will then be fed into its manifesto ahead of the next general election, which must take place within the next two years, to show how much it values the opinions of the faithful," says the Telegraph. Gawdelpus!

There may be sensible ideas from "the faithful" (as there are from all groups), but how long will it be before we step back into the Dark Ages with religions permitted an unfair influence on what we are allowed to do, and even to think? We've seen already how some bemoan the passing of the blasphemy laws, and wish to see measures to protect religious sensitivities.

The paper goes on:

Mr Brown said at a Downing Street reception to launch the Labour, Faith and Faithworks taskforce: "What we are celebrating is the tremendous contribution that faith groups make to our community.

"There's nothing wrong with Britain which couldn't be solved by what's right about Britain."

Stephen Timms, the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform who is working on the taskforce, said afterwards that the consultation would lead directly to policies in Labour's manifesto, and that religious issues could be key at the next election.

Timms wouldn't say whether New Labour would adopt policies from religious groups to which it has previously been opposed, such as tighter abortion rules and more Islamic law imposed upon British citizens.

Given that politicians will appear to have listened if what is suggested accords with their own wishes, and will not listen if what is suggested doesn't, it may just be a case of as you were. But how much taxpayers' money is being spent on this and that group set up to monitor what the worlds of superstition think?

If these groups wish to input sensible ideas on policy in areas they have concerns about, then by all means let them have the same degree of government ear as everyone else. All groups should have an equal hearing. But why have special initiatives just to cater to the superstitious?

Who, dear? You, dear? Gay, dear? I had no idea, dear!

A tribunal has heard how a woman who runs a religious centre near Brecon in Wales sent a 25-year-old gay man gift of a toilet roll with pink fairies on it, plus a card with Oscar Wilde's face on it. She has denied that she did it because she knew he was gay, because, she says, she didn't know he was gay.

But Stephen Price, a philosophy graduate, is claiming that she did, because she did.

Price, from Clydach near Abergavenny, claims 40-year-old Mair Jones taunted him, effectively bullying him out of his Presbyterian Church job at the Trefeca centre, a 37-bed retreat used by church groups from around the UK.

The gift of a toilet roll with pink fairies on it was innocently chosen, she told an employment tribunal.

According to the BBC website:

He had told the hearing he was forced to quit as the assistant manager because of Ms Jones's non-stop comments about sex, which included calling him a "stupid poof" and telling other staff he "batted for the other side".

But Jones has denied knowing Price was gay, and would not have said "batted for the other side" because that was not the sort of language she would use.

The story becomes rather bizarre and surreal, so we'll let the BBC tell the rest of it:

Philosophy graduate Mr Price told the tribunal that she gave him an "offensive" 24th birthday present of toilet roll with pink fairies on it and a card with a picture of Oscar Wilde.

But Ms Jones said the gift was an innocently chosen birthday present and the card came from an assorted box.

"He had only worked with us for a week when I found out it was his birthday and I wanted to mark the occasion," she said.

"I had a pack of toilet rolls with the Christmas designs and I just happened to pick the one with fairies on.

"When I think of Oscar Wilde I think intellect, good looks and wit – not the fact he was a homosexual.

"I was not aware he found my gift extremely offensive."

An internal church investigation had upheld claims of aggressive behaviour, foul language and bullying, but had failed to take any disciplinary action against Jones, who'd worked there for 10 years.

Price said he was "moved to another office in Cardiff after less than 12 months", but he resigned when he was told to return to the college. He's suing for constructive dismissal, and a decision is expected at a future hearing after submissions have been made.

Shrink crap

This shrink in Northern Ireland who reckons he can magic gay people into straight people has had a go at defending himself.

He is Dr Paul Miller, who has been recommended by Iris Robinson, a Westminster MP, wife of Northern Ireland's First Minister and the chair of the Assembly's Health Committee, as a "lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals trying to turn away from what they are engaged in".

What they are engaged in? She makes it sound like some kind of drug-fuelled, riotous, incestuous sex at gunpoint in a graveyard at midnight with a corpse under the age of eight.

Anyway, this Pink News story says he's defended himself by saying that, while he doesn't assume that homosexuality is a mental disorder, "we simply treat those who ask for help with unwanted same-sex attraction".

And he can't see that his "Christian background" and attitude towards sexuality are the very things that will cause many gay people – especially religious ones – to feel guilty and then try to be "cured" in a "procedure" far more dangerous and potentially madness-inducing than being gay in the first place. It's a bit like saying the best cure for a headache is to have your head amputated.

Professor Michael King of the Royal Society of Psychiatrists is quoted as saying, "There is a lot of evidence going back 50 years to suggest that attempts to change people's sexuality in either direction are not possible. Such treatments do not work and can actually cause quite a lot of harm. Homosexuality is a state and a sexual orientation and is not a question of behaviour."

Meanwhile, the rabidly homophobic Christian Institue has weighed in, supporting Robinson, against whom two complaints have been made to police, and quoting this wretched woman's words to the BBC to the effect that she is the subject of a "witch hunt".

Witch? Well, if the cap fits, dearie . . .

Why religion says 2 + 2 = 5

There's a study that says people who believe in God are likely to be less intelligent. OK, so a lot of people believe in God who are also highly intelligent, but we're talking averages here. Mind you, this study is a bit controversial, as we shall see.

According to a story in today's UK Daily Telegraph, Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, says that many more members of the "intellectual elite" consider themselves atheists than the national average. The story continues, "A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed. But the conclusions – in a paper for the academic journal Intelligence – have been branded 'simplistic' by critics."

Lynn's caused a bit of a rumpus in the past, apparently, with claims linking intelligence to race and sex. This time around he's saying that most primary-school children believed in God, but, as they entered adolescence and their intelligence increased, many started to have doubts.

The story continues:

He told Times Higher Education magazine: "Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God."

He said religious belief had declined across 137 developed nations in the 20th century at the same time as people became more intelligent.

But Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, said it failed to take account of a complex range of social, economic and historical factors.

"Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterisation of religion as primitive, which – while we are trying to deal with very complex issues of religious and cultural pluralism – is perhaps not the most helpful response," he said.

But the last word goes to Dr David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University. "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief," he says. "Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability – or perhaps willingness – to question and overturn strongly felt institutions."

Which brings us back to what I said above. There are religious people who are highly intelligent (come to that, there are clever people who are barking mad). Why, then, do they believe – with only faith to make them do so – in an ontology predicated on the whims of a deity?

One thinks of the likes of the Rev. Dr John Polkinghorne, a particle physicist and theologian, who has written extensively about both (and one of whose lectures remained on my MP3 player for some time for subsequent listening). At the end of the day, however, even someone who can see the universe at its most basic level (or infer it, at any rate) has to draw a line between his science and his theology. There is no gradation. You do the science and say God meant it to be this way, created it in this form. From there, you just have to leap – a leap of faith, you might say – to the notion of the existence of a god.

But why? That one hasn't yet been answered, except by those nutcases who say God is ineffable in one breath and then claim to know his mind in the next.

Christian love in action

A Catholic bishop in Italy has told a paraplegic that, because he's impotent, he can't be married in church.

"The 26-year-old groom, who took part in a civil marriage ceremony Saturday in Viterbo, has been paraplegic since he was involved in a car accident," says a story captured by the Religion News blog.

Salvatore de Ciuco, spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli of Viterbo incentral Italy, told SkyTG24 television [. . .]: "No bishop, no priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence as it is a motive for annulment" of the marriage.

The civil ceremony was attended by the curate of the parish that was banned from marrying the couple.

And on the seventh day God created pillocks

Germans, it seems, have got more sense – even the religious ones. They don't want any of that Genesis rubbish in their backyard, thank you very much.

A Swiss firm wants to construct a "Genesis Land" with a "life-size" Noah's Ark (or "Noah's arch", according to this story at DW-World.de) near Heidelberg, because the area has a lot of water. Well, you would need quite a lot to float a boat that has two of every species on the globe, wouldn't you? Yet these nutters believe it once happened.

Anyway, the firm is called Genesis Land Inc., and it's looking for investors to the tune of about €25 million – a third of the dosh needed for a 50-hectare park.

The story tells us:

But religious and political representatives from the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg are less than enthusiastic about a facility inspired by the belief that the earth is around 6,000 years old, and that human beings and dinosaurs co-existed.

"A project like this only gets in the way of our attempts to spread the faith," Hansjörg Hemminger, the Wuerttemberg Protestant Church's Spokesman on World Views told the newspaper Die Welt.

Civic planners, too, are against Genesis Land.

Well, in a free world one can't object to the thing itself, any more than one might to Disneyland, as long as it doesn't try to tell people that all it depicts is or was true. But it will try to do that, because that's what these nutters are all about – as well as making big bucks, of course.

Here at Pink Triangle we've often wondered what God did on that seventh day when he was supposed to be resting. Did he just sleep, read Harry Potter, get pissed or play with his Plasticine and create pillocks. Yes, that sounds about right. And lo, the pillocks did go forth and did create religion.

Just imagine . . .

They don't mess about in Denver, Colorado. This billboard is definitely in your face as it forms part of a national ad campaign by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Read the story here; see the FfRF here.

The Foundation is the USA’s largest association of agnostics, atheists and devout secularists, and has been active in Denver courts for many years. Robert Tiernan, who's a Denver lawyer, and the Foundation once worked to halt city sponsorship of a day of prayer promoted by the mayor’s office.

The billboard, in Fox Street, just six blocks from the state Capitol, is costing about $3,000.

More Muslim calls for censorship – when will they learn?

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), reckons there's a growing "campaign of hate and discrimination" against Muslims by a small number of individuals and organisations. Well, it's not surprising, considering how much moaning and whining they do.

This International Herald Tribune story tells us that he wants Western governments to condemn acts that insult poor, hard-done-to Islam. The story says:

In a speech to a conference in Kuala Lumpur on improving ties between Muslims and the West, Ihsanoglu praised Western nations for criticizing acts such as the recent release of an anti-Quran film by a Dutch lawmaker [Geert Wilders], but said more should have been done.

This would-be censor and denier of free expression goes on to say, "Mere condemnation or distancing from the acts of the perpetrators of Islamophobia will not resolve the issue, as long as they remain free to carry on with their campaign of incitement and provocation on the plea of freedom of expression."

The story goes on to talk of the Wilders film: "Earlier this year, the release of the film Fitna by Dutch politician Geert Wilders sparked protests by Muslims for showing images of terror attacks interspersed with text from the Quran."

Correction. It didn't spark protests "for showing": it was made, it was released and Muslims decided to jump up and down about it instead of just entering into dialogue and showing up Wilders's film with argument and logic (they don't find that easy, I know, but they could try). And it wasn't only terror attacks. Click on the video at the end of this story to see part of the film. And just below it is Pat Condell's take on matters Islam (see his link in the sidebar).

Ihsanoglu also urged the media to reject "proponents of hatred and intolerance totally", citing other incidents such as the republishing in Denmark of cartoons considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad.

Oh, yes, the Jillands-Posten cartoons. The ones Muslims thought it was worth killing for, with some imams even faking cartoons to inflame the situation.

We've published the cartoon they particuarly hate on this blog at least twice, and no doubt it will feature again, as it does on blogs all over the world when these moaners moan. It's not a case of playing silly buggers: it's restating the principle of free expression, as we do by linking again to the Wilders film.

"It requires a strong and determined collective political will to address the challenge," Ihsanoglu said. "It is now high time for concrete actions to stem the rot before it aggravates [the situation] any further."

Ihsanoglu did not suggest what action should be taken. But the threat is always there: you print cartoons we find offensive, make a film, criticise our "holy" book, and there just may be a bit of a misunderstanding between us. And we know what that could lead to, don't we? It could just aggravate the situation further, as the man says.

No wonder there's "hate and discrimination" in some Western minds, you blithering nincompoop. Grow up!



And here is Pat Condell's recent take on the matter:

Godless Gandalf

It amazes me how many people don’t realise that the actor Ian McKellen is an atheist, though I suspect it could have something to do with his having starred in The Da Vinci Code and that, in our soap-opera-informed society, many people can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction!

McKellen said at the time:

The Catholic Church is upset by the suggestion that Jesus Christ was married and that his bloodline survives to this day. As an atheist, I am indifferent. As a reader, I couldn’t stop turning the pages of Dan Brown’s book.

He also said that he didn’t believe the book was true or factual, simply that it was a jolly good read. Whether he thinks the Bible is also a jolly good read is anyone’s guess, but, as was reported by NewsBusters in 2006, he does think it’s fiction:

Well, I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.

This quote reminds me of when McKellen was on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, and, when told he'd be able to take the Bible and the works of Shakespeare to his fictional desert island, revealed that when he stayed in hotel rooms he would tear out pages of the Gideon Bible he thought offensive – notably those in Leviticus.

McKellen came out as gay in 1988 while being interviewed on BBC Radio 3, in which he made known his objection to Clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, which was then making its way through Parliament. He has been campaigning for gay rights ever since.

Last week (1 June), McKellen was interviewed on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show. When asked about the current situation for gays in the UK, he acknowledged that great progress had been made but drew attention to the persistent bullying of gay pupils in schools – especially religious schools – and the inequality of civil partnership compared with marriage! He also cited the persecution of gay people in Islamic countries such as Iran, pointing out that gay men are routinely hanged in this barbaric theocracy. G&LH Autumn 2005 carried a story on one such incident.

Time lapse

Gay-hating bigots will even defy logic to get their sick message out. There's a bit of a rumpus in New York at the moment, because the governor there has said that state agencies must honour same-sex marriages if they've been performed legally in states that legally recognise said same-sex marriages – as California will soon, and will continue to do if the legislation isn't overturned by a constitutional vote in November.

But get this. The River Reporter quotes Richard Barnes, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, thus: "The definition of marriage predates recorded history. [Emphasis mine.] No single politician or court or legislature should attempt to redefine the very building block of our society in a way that alters its entire meaning and purpose."

You can read the background to the case in the link above, but this is my point. How can a definition of anything predate recorded history? Go figure. What a prat!

Power and sex in the Catholic Church

Geoffrey Robinson is in defiant mood. He's the Australian bishop who's touring the States promoting his book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus, and, afraid of the interest he could revive in the pervy-priests scandal, fellow bishops are telling him to stay away from California.

He's saying up yours, and is going ahead. Robinson's thesis is that it's the nutty Catholic insistence on celibacy that's led to the scandal, which has cost the church millions in compensation as people have come forward and complained that they've been abused by Catholic priests. Robinson openly criticises the papacy for failing to provide guidance.

A story in the Los Angeles Times says,

Following direction from the Vatican, the California religious leaders and eight other prominent bishops around the country have asked former auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Sydney to steer clear of their dioceses because of his "problematic positions" on priestly celibacy and other issues.

Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles has written a joint letter with nine other American bishops, warning Robinson that his visit could be "a source of disunity and cause of confusion among the faithful of the particular churches we serve".

And we all know why it could be a source of disunity, don't we? They'd all rather the pervy-priests scandal were laid to rest for ever, and don't like it when the whole filthy, disgusting business is raised again.

Mahoney wrote to Robinson last month, "I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles."

But 70-year-old Robinson says he has no intention of cancelling, and will be in California tomorrow.

Please don't ignore us

There's a report due to be published today in which the Church of England has a bitch at the the British government, which it claims isn't paying enough attention to it. Aw! It's favouring secularism instead. And Muslims.

Well, there may on the surface of it be something in that latter claim. Muslims bleat and whine and complain a lot, and of course there are a lot of votes in the places where they predominate. Please the Muslims, get a good concentration of votes. And so, as we've seen far too often, they get their way.

Christians tend to be more scattered, because it is, in name at least, a Christian country.

But should Christians be moaning? After all, don't we have hundreds of Christian schools, paid for by the taxpyer? Don't we have an established church, with 26 bishops in the House of Lords as of right, just because they are high up the heap within the ranks of the superstitious? Is not religion given pride of place every time there's a public commemoration of this or that?

The report is called "Moral, But No Compass", and has been commissioned by the church. In it, Stephen Lowe, the Bishop of Hulme, calls for a change of attitude.

He claims "that the Labour government had discriminated against the Church, favouring private companies to provide welfare, apparently as part of a continuing process of secularisation of public life", the report says.

And what is wrong with secularisation? By all means let us use whichever bodies can come up with the goods, provided they're qualified and are happy to do it without proselytising. But what's all this about secularisation? Isn't it time we had an entirely secular state?

The report wants a new "minister for religion" to improve the relationship between church and state. What? More taxpayers' money to be spent on religion? Let's have a minister for everything, then, improving relations between the state and this, the state and that and the state and the other.

It's time religion saw that its place in society deserves to be no more important than anyone else's.

What if . . .?

Just had a wicked thought. Some Hindus held a ceremony yesterday to mark their new Hindu school, which the British taxpayer is forking out for so that British children who happen to have Hindu-believing parents can have their brains stuffed with bullshit.

Don't get me wrong. There are wonderful, colourful stories tied up with Hinduism, and, as a mythology, it takes some beating. But let us teach about the Upanishads etc., not teach that what happens in these fascinating stories is actual, factual truth. And (yes, I know, we secularists do bang on about this, but it's true) it's just more segregation.

My wicked thought. Yes. I'll get to that in a minute.

This school is the Krishna-Avanti primary and it's going to be in London and will offer 236 places when it opens, possibly in 2009. It will teach the National Curriculum, it says, but, if it were going to teach only that, there would be no need for a Hindu school, would there? No, the idea is to ensure that the religion pumped into the kids' minds from birth continues to be pumped into their minds by teachers and peers as they grow older, depriving them of the opportunity to mix, in an educational establishment, with kids and teachers of all religions and none.

The British Humanist Association says there will be selection bias. The head teacher says no: the school will "promote community cohesion, inclusion and value inter-cultural and religious diversity".

If these people really believe that, why do they bother with a segregation school? But we know the answer to that: grubby politicians know there are votes in the ever-growing immigrant communities, and, anyway, it just doesn't do to be beastly to good, kind, faultless, cuddly religion, does it?

My wicked thought. Oh, yes. Well, you see, they held this ceremony yesterday called Bhumi Puja, during which they chanted and banged cymbals and all that, and sought permission from Mother Earth for the school to be built there.

And my thought was this: what if she'd said no? Seriously, what if that had happened? Would they go back to the drawing board and find another piece of land?

It will be interesting, assuming these segregation schools continue, to watch the Hindu ones to see if Mother Earth ever says no, piss off, find somewhere else. OK, we know Mother Earth won't actually use words, but these people presumably feel they are interpreting what higher entities say, just as Christians, conveniently, all seem to know what is in the mind of the ineffable God. My bet is that Mother Earth will always say yes – unless there's a Plan B that has also got the permission of those who really count in these matters, the planning authorities.

So Mother Common Sense has whispered in my ear and told me her sister Mother Earth will always say yes. Waste of a planning application otherwise, innit?

Dire straights

Here we go again: straight (possibly) Christians who think they can turn gay people away from their homosexuality.

One such is Dr Paul Miller, a consultant psychiatrist from Carrickfergus and a senior health adviser to the chair of Northern Ireland Assembly's Health Committee.

We don't learn of his Christian credentials in an an atrociously punctuated story in the Belfast News Letter until almost the end. But you could have guessed it all along, of course.

And just who is this committee chair to whom he is a senior health adviser? Well, none other than Iris Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), who is on record, loud and clear, as having said homosexuality is an abomination. And where have we heard that sort of language before? In the Bible, of course. So it must be right, then.

Miller is a former member of the executive of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Well, perhaps his career as a shrink will take a knock after these crazy and dangerous claims that he can turn gays into straights. It's telling that that very Royal College of Psychiatrists has rejected this nutcase's claim. But no one's yet saying he should resign his post as a director of the Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health.

The News Letter says Miller had begun his work "trying to help homosexuals become heterosexual" after a patient "struggling with his sexuality" committed suicide.

"One of the things that kept coming up was people who had a conflict between their religious identity and their sexual identity," Miller tells the publication.

Now this bloke is probably quite clever. He's been to university and all that, got a degree, got a doctorate. And yet he can't see what is right in front of his bigoted, religion-soaked face: a conflict between religious identity and sexual identity. Is there any wonder the guy topped himself and others do likewise when pillocks – dangerous pillocks – like this refuse to disabuse them of the notion that there is something wrong with them if their sexuality is not the one recommended in the thousands-year-old scrawlings of nomadic herders, but tell them that they'll be happier trying to turn straight?

It never occurs to these disturbed sickos that sexuality is natural and their adherence to said desert nomads' ramblings is entirely unnatural.

As for Iris bloody Robinson, have a look at this, also in the News Letter. She said, "My Christian beliefs teach me that you love the sinner but hate the sin. But homosexuality is something that is an abomination."

She was on BBC Radio Ulster condemning a violent homophobic attack, but went on to attack homosexuality in tones that will only feed the toxic minds of those who go around queerbashing. This monster had been challenged by the Sinn Féin education minister Caitriona Ruane, who had phoned in to challenge her comments.

Robinson said she would defend her right to express religious beliefs, while also condemning violence against the gay community. Yes, she does have a right to express religious belief, but while she's being paid to mouth about politics and policies, why doesn't she stick to those? What is a politician – on this side of the Atlantic, anyway – doing using her office as a platform for her superstitions? She was elected as a member of the DUP, not her church.

Her comments have already found their way into her entry in Wikipedia.

UPDATE: Since this post was published at 3 a.m. today, British Summer Time, we've learned from the Mail on Sunday that this revolting woman is being investigated by police. The story says,

In an outburst on a live phone-in on BBC Radio Ulster on Friday, Iris Robinson, the 57-year-old wife of First Minister Peter Robinson, referred to gays as "disgusting, loathsome, shamefully wicked and vile". She called homosexuality "an abomination" but said she knew of a cure.

She then went on to talk of that darling trick cyclist we opened this post with.

The paper tells us that Andrew Muir, the 31-year-old coordinator of a pressure group called GLAD (Gays and Lesbians Across (County) Down), has made a formal complaint to police. "They were reluctant to pursue the matter until I told them it was covered by the hate crimes legislation and I would not be leaving until they took a statement from me," he said.

Now I'm not sure she shouldn't be able to say what she wishes, and I'm not at all sure that so-called "hate crime" legislation is a well-thought-through idea (it just gives police more powers and, anyway, how do you prove hate?); but I would take issue with her dumping her hateful and vituperative religious baggage on us while being interviewed as a leading politician, one of whose jobs is to ensure community cohesion and the equality of service for all people in her patch. And she is, let's not forget, the chair of the Assembly's Health Committee.

What I have no compunction in hoping for, however, is that this misguided, hateful woman is hounded with ridicule until she feels the need to leave office.

What are family values?

Just what are family values? Never a day goes by without a prominent Christian declaring that the essential ingredient in civilised life is something referred to as Christian family values. I don't know what these are? Can someone tell me please?

Luke tells us in his gospel that Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine" (Luke 14:26).

Is this what they mean by family values? The precept we should all follow?