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If you've been following the campaign to stop the funding for homeopathy on the NHS, and the mass overdose outside branches of Boots, you'll be delighted to hear that Parliament's Science and Technology Select Committee, after hearing all the evidence, has called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and official licencing of homeopathy.

Sinéad O'Connor, the Irish Catholic singer-songwriter, has reacted angrily to the news that the Bishop of Ferns, Denis Brennan, has asked parishioners to help pay the compensation claimed by the church's abuse victims. Apparently, he was "“asking for help to fulfil a God-given responsibility”.

You may have read elsewhere about the shameful way that the House of Commons voted for Ed Balls' amendment to the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which means that the Catholics are crowing that they've won the right to teach a different version of sex education to other schools. Mark Steel (in the Independent) asked,

How can there be so many lunatics opposed to sex education? And apart from anything else, what makes them think a lesson about sex is going to make kids go out and immediately have sex? It's education about it, not an instruction to get it done before dinner break. Maybe they should demand an end to history lessons as well on the grounds that "I don't want my fourteen-year-old learning about Napoleon as he's too young to invade Italy."

Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner who came to talk to us at a Colchester meeting in March 2007, has been forced to cut down on his activities by the consequences of the beatings he's had, the Observer reports today. He was going to stand as the Green Party's candidate in Oxford East, but has had to quit because "horrific beatings have left him experiencing permanent symptoms of severe concussion." Peter's lifestyle and workload are punishing, but as he's driven to continue campaigning, he's unlikely to give them up.

The photo was taken at our meeting, when he spoke about democracy after a meal with a group of us at a local noodle restaurant. From the look of him, he could do with a lot more noodles.

Visit Peter's website here.

The church has been complaining again, this time about the BBC's religious programming. There's not enough of it, they say, or it's not the right sort. The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, says,

There is also a danger of the ‘David Attenborough’ effect: religion always reported from the point of view of an observer of a fascinating and increasingly rare species, rather than explored as something of fundamental importance to the vast majority of the country.

It's tedious, hearing those in Parliament wittering on about "secularism", when they clearly haven't a clue what it means. But then, neither do a majority of religious leaders (including Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury) who complain about "aggressive secularism".

Personally, I'm feeling quite aggressive about the latest threat to secularism; John Denham, the Communities Secretary, has announced that a new panel of religious experts has been set up to advise the Government on making public policy decisions. I'd hoped that that sort of nonsense would have been dropped when Hazel Blears departed, but no.

In today's Guardian, Phil Hall writes about humanist funerals, and why he finds them much more satisfying than ...

... religious funerals, where a stranger usually officiates and witters on about heaven, often fail to commemorate a life well lived properly. Religious funerals can be a whimpering anti-climax.

He goes on,

In contrast, the humanist funerals in our family were completely satisfying and eclectic. They looked backwards and allowed us to see the lives of our loved ones clearly. We did not need to look forwards towards some sort of puzzling postscript. Perhaps the last thing people want after a death, during the messy form of group therapy that is a funeral, is for some sanctimonious stranger to stand up and start talking about a the afterlife.