Annoyingly his comments on homosexuality have allowed Benedict’s main thrust here to be disregarded. I know that the implications for gays are significant and doubtless some of the thinner skinned might find his words offensive, but it’s hardly the main jist. This follows a long-standing and much noted upon pattern: the Pope says something foolish which has implications for near enough everyone and only the elements related to a minority are picked up upon.

This is why you see gay Catholics as somehow seen as having some additional burden which heterosexuals are free from. In reality the straight Romans are permitted only the outlet of sex within a marriage where they intend to procreate, with everyone who spills a drop of sperm outside of those precise conditions a sinner. This should make it fairly obvious to all but the clinically naive that Catholicism is incompatible with virtually all strains of sexuality. Homosexuals who live other than chaste existences are only as defiant as their legion brethren who have disregarded the absurdly restrictive laws applied to them to.

So now Benedict assails gender theory (next up: mind) and much the same occurs: an edict which applies to the totality of humanity is presented as something which is worth discussing only with regards to humanity. This is clearly a foolish approach. When Benedict speaks of a matter such as this he speaks of everyone, there can be nobody excluded.

What makes it so frustrating that this was that his reason is so shoddy. Indeed he states “The Church speaks of human nature as ‘man’ or ‘woman’ and asks that this order is respected” without so much as a jot of evidence. Apparently the importance of this dichotomy and its inherency can be deduced by “Listening to the language creation”, although Ratzinger fails to elaborate, instead declaring that disregarding this mysterious linguistical muttering would mean “self-destruction”.

But on one thing, at least, we can agree:

The human being wants to make himself on his own and to decide always and exclusively by himself about what concerns him.

Precisely. And so, to content them, we should not assume their nature through minor physiological details.

Campbell Brown attacks the root. Something that has occurred to me too.

Best news I’ve heard for a while. An indication (if ever one were needed) that the views of parents don’t inexorably shape those of the children. The fear of reactionary writers such as Mark Steyn that Muslims will overwhelm the European world appears to depend upon the premise that they will, but from this evidence it would seem otherwise. Admittedely Yasmin is an exceptional case but she serves also as a testament to the power of western culture.

I only hope that this article does not cause her to be a target for the more brutal elements.

No. A Fellow of the Royal Society argues that we should; Michael Reiss believes it to be self-defeating to dismiss pupils who really feel that a god created life. And he’s right, up to a point. We shouldn’t refuse to discuss creationism; you’ll not persuade someone of a point of view if you won’t speak to them.

But beyond that, he misses the point. We shouldn’t teach creationism as a legitimate, scientific point of view; because it’s not, and it doesn’t claim to be. The theory states that a divine being literally created life, the universe, and everything. As such, it’s explicitly based in faith, both in a god, and a theory. It isn’t an empicically tested hypothesis, as inclusion in a science lesson would suggest.

And yet that’s how it’ll be taken; children expect what they’re taught in a Science to be demonstrably true. Far from challenging creationism, encouraging Science teachers to include it in their lessons will simply lend it the perception of fact. We should teach pupils about creationism, and the debate that surrounds it - but in RS, along with every other belief system based in faith above empiricism.

…this time in Northern Ireland. There, the “Family Education Trust” wants the state to withold a vaccine against STDs and cervical cancer from teenage girls on the grounds that it’ll encourage early sex, and that parents should emphasise abstainence.

The base idiocy of this position is well established. Abstinence only sex-education doesn’t work, and simply encourages the spread of disease through ignorance. The desire for sex is a perfectly natural instinct, and one that won’t be quashed because a collection of pompous prigs stand in front of a class and say that it’s naughty. Teenage experimentation will happen; I speak as a teenager who has experimented, and would’ve done so in most conceivable circumstances.* But, because these teenagers have only been told to abstain, they might not know to wear a condom, or about how syphilis/chlamydia/AIDs/etc are spread; so they don’t take precautions. And then teenage pregnancy and STD infection rates go up.

The case for the vaccine is still more simple. The state exists to preserve and extend the freedom of its citizens; one such freedom is from infectious disease, and from dangerous ignorance. A lack of knowledge of how infectious diseases such as this cervical cancer because you’ve only ever been told to avoid sex counts as dangerous ignorace. Therefore, the state must offer full and detailed sexual education, for the sake of the individual and public health. And if a vaccine exists which can prevent the spread of potentially deadly diseases, that needs to be available too; if they vaccinate against meninghitis in schools, why not cervical cancer?

Ah, but doesn’t all this infringe a parent’s right to raise their child as they wish, you ask? Not so. A child does not exist as an extension of their parent’s will; it exists as an entity in its own right. If a parent plans to put that child at risk of infectious disease for the sake of the parent’s beliefs, then someone else must look to the child’s rights and future. It’s in the teenager’s every interest, both in the present and the future, to be safe from disease and ignorance. If they themselves objected on strong grounds, religious or otherwise (and I note this is an offer of a vaccine), then there’d be grounds to withold its provision. But not otherwise. A child is an individual in its own right, and one that exists in a community as well as a family. If it serves that individual’s interests more, then that community must also play a part in raising them.

So, frankly, the “Family Education Trust” can fuck off (preferably wearing condoms, of course.) There are no legitimate grounds to withold a vaccine against a potentially deadly disease from teenagers; especially when it’s an offer rather than a compulsion. Individual and public health must comes before parental sensitivity - and this is no exception.

*Could there be a more unfortunate sentence?

And, for today’s dose of religiously inspired insanity:

Representatives for a gallery in Gateshead appeared in court yesterday charged with outraging public decency, after featuring a statue of Jesus with an erection.

The artwork was part of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art’s September 2007-January 2008 exhibition Gone, Yet Still, by the controversial Chinese artist Terence Koh, which featured dozens of plaster figures including Mickey Mouse and ET - all in some state of arousal.

What? There are no grounds on which the Baltic Centre can legitimately be persecuted. They’ve exercised a simple freedom of speech; they own a building, they’ve displayed art there, and they’ve offered the public the choice to view it.

And that’s what the public have; a choice. They do not have to visit art galleries. If it offends them, they’re at perfect liberty to walk out the door and complain all they like. If it offends enough people, they’ll collectively ignore the gallery; the gallery may then notice a significant drop in its takings, and pull the exhibit.

You have a right as absolute as the freedom of speech to be offended - but you don’t have the right to demand that freedom of speech be curtailed for the sake of the offence. Unless, of course, you accept that the principle applies universally, and your freedom might also be limited for the sake of offence. Which might get dangerously reciprocal, given how offensive this aggressive bigotry is to myself, at least.

Better, then, that everyone accepts free expression for all? Not according to this particular collection of theocrats:

But the Christian Legal Centre - an organisation that aims to “promote and protect the biblical freedoms of Christian believers in the United Kingdom” - agreed to pay her legal costs. The CLC also funded the case brought by Stephen Green against the BBC over Jerry Springer - The Opera. A CLC spokesman said Mapfuwa believed in freedom of expression, but “this statue served no other purpose than to offend Christians and to denigrate Christ”.

At Gateshead magistrates court yesterday, a solicitor for The Baltic Flour Mills Visual Arts Trust, the charitable body which runs the Baltic, indicated a plea of not guilty. The case was adjourned until September 23. Mapfuwa intends to cite a case from 1990 in which an artist and shop owner in London were convicted of outraging public decency over showing a sculpture made of foetuses.

So; they intend to force their convictions upon the gallery owners and general public, citing an obscure case from a period when a significant portion of that public couldn’t vote and so influence the law. If the case isn’t hammered out of the court at the first opportunity as a waste of everyone’s time, I’ll worry. God might be dead; but the fundies are still alive and howling.

It seems that the Vatican is more responsive and timely than I had anticipated. In response to my question in this article asking when the Church would involve itself the answer can only now be “Pretty damn quickly.”

Now I doubt the editor of their affiliate accelerated the Pope, or perhaps worked at his instruction, but it is pleasing that the Italian government has found an enemy in the Church. The Vatican wields considerably more clout when dealing with the Italian right than our own Anglican bishops could ever hope to hold over the Labour party.

The news that Famiglia Cristiana’s editor is to be sued by a leader of the far-right coalition who hold power over Italy suggests that they feel especially vulnerable. We must hope that this measure is doomed to the failure which is richly deserves, but regardless it demonstrates that the instinctive authoritarian instinct to close down debate is in evidence here.

The article contains a worrying aside, however:

So far, church leaders have been far more outspoken in their criticism of the government’s policies than Italy’s main, centre-left opposition party.

Which simply pleads for the question: if the Italian left can’t even muster the guts to call finger-printing innocent children for being gypsies “Indecent” then what the hell are they for?

Less than half weddings are now religious there. And so the importance of religion diminishes yet further.

Oh no, another toss-up between my virulent anti-theism and desire to allow free expression to flourish is required. How irksome.

Complicating this matter there is the whole “Multi-Cultural” angle, with this one calling herself “A proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh girl.” Why exactly she would be proud of being Welsh or, more seriously, feel the need to distinguish herself from others who share the affliction is beyond me. Regardless, the model I have always admired for integration is that offered by the Zorastrians while seeking entry to India. They assured their potential hosts that they would dissolve “As honey into milk” when entering their new home. I suppose that a few bangles are modest enough to be deemed appropriate remnants of such a solution.

But this ruling still troubles me. It claims that the school was guilty of “Indirect discrimination” and in breach of race laws. Exactly how does it constitute discrimination to enforce rules equally upon Sikhs to upon those of other or no faith? Surely this is the total reverse of discrimination?

Perhaps the optimum solution would be the school simply taking a less hard-line stance and relaxing uniform policy. That she was suspended for so minor an offence is the root cause of this nonsense. I see no reason, though, that the school should honour irrational leaps of assumption and their sartorial implications over any other piece of reasoning. Where precisely is the distinction between somebody who has a “Lucky” bracelet and one that thinks it is representative of some fictional creature lasting for infinity?

I have no doubt that Singh is sincere in her conviction but there is no cause to imagine that her choice in garb is any better supported besides theology. It was an immensely petty to have her so severely punished over, but the same is true of any student.

Obviously enough the Church has declared itself “Wounded” over the recent split. Meanwhile the Catholic Church has finally taken the long required step of apologising to the child victims of sexual abuse systematically protected by the Church.

Both of these crises provide potential to maim the institutions which they have engulfed. In addition to providing a severe drain upon the Church’s temporal resources (now with legal bills and compensation payments running into the billions) it has severely undermined any claim which the Church may have once been perceived to have over matters of morality. If this organisation is truly the epitome of ethical conduct then why were its own affairs so badly out of order? Doubtless this will weaken the Church’s clout (indeed it already has) and the potentially crippling loss of members joining the priesthood is doubtless at least in part caused by the fallout from the scandal.

Meanwhile the obvious problems caused to the two splintered fragments of the Church in terms of stretch of authority are perhaps matched by the issue of logistics. The results of a schism in terms of Church property alone are a legal nightmare and potential quagmire. Untangling the mess left by a sudden division could be a formidable feat for even the most skilled lawyer.

Consequentially it is likely that both of these Churches will suffer immensely over the coming years. Their recovery should be deemed unlikely to occur. At least in their present form both seem entirely unsustainable. This is a pleasing development as instutitionalised religion are an inevitable blocade against progress towards singularity.

Grim though their death throes may seem we must hope that internal divisions lead towards insignificance for all factions and sects in the Anglican Church (much as with the left) and the additional, fatal strain placed upon the already overstretched top-down structure of the Catholic one results in their collapse and pursuit by greater unity across the globe in the absence of divisive and irreconcilable interpretations of ancient tracts.