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The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has forecast "civil unrest" as a result of recent court decisions involving Christians. This was in response to Lord Justice Laws' dismissal of an appeal by a Christian marriage guidance counsellor who was sacked for refusing to give advice to gay couples.

The Guardian reported,

Lord Justice Laws said legislation to protect views held purely on religious grounds could not be justified. He said it was an irrational idea "but it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary".

As Stephen Bates noted, Lord Carey was most upset that his suggestion should be dismissed so emphatically.

As the Catholic church has to find £millions to pay compensation to victims of clergy abuse, the excuses being trotted out by the hierarchy are staggeringly creative. Archbishop of Westminster the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, leader of the Catholics in England and Wales, told the BBC's Newsnight programme, "The level of abuse in the Church is actually quite small in terms of the overall levels of abuse in any country." Now Pope Benedict, in his pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, blames the abuse on "the creeping influence of liberal, secular society for weakening resolve against it."

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.