More homophobes hiding behind the Cross

You've seen the Tories shacking up with the anti-gay movement in Poland; now it's time to say hello to the UK version. The "Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans" (crap name by the way) is anti-same sex unions, anti-gay priests; in short, religion for the 19th century, at the latest.

If I was running the Church of England (unlikely!) I'd have no truck with these guys (and all the leaders are of course guys, as they're the same people who don't like women priests, being sexist as well as homophobic. At least they're not racist; the leader is Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester). The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is too nice to these people. I guess he wants to keep church attendances up come what may, but surely the toleration of a huge number of reactionary bigots is too high a price to pay? The same thing happened at Millwall FC in the 70s when they turned a blind eye to football hooliganism because the attendances were high.

What makes me laugh about people like the FCA is that they act like the victims when in fact they are the oppressors. They're waging a war against gay people - not the other way round. I suspect for many regular churchgoers the schism in the Anglican church can't come soon enough. Would you be comfortable going to services knowing that you were in the same building as some of these reactionaries? Probably not.

Unity of religious belief is wildly overrated - most obviously by big religious organisations like the Roman Catholic Church, but the Church of England is another example. There needs to be freedom to dissent and to disagree, rather than some ridiculous show of unity for the cameras. I would be most comfortable attending a church with one member - myself. (And even then, I couldn't rule out a schism).

Happy Xmas you homophobic f***head

Even worse than usual crap from the Pope this year... apparently, saving humanity from homosexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

If you're a Catholic, and you agree with this stuff, you're an idiot. If you're a Catholic and you don't agree with it, then maybe it's time to ask yourself what you're doing in the organisation. If the huge majority of followers of Catholicism - or any religion - just upped sticks and left, the religion would collapse, or be reduced to an irrelevant fringe phenomenon. These guys (and they are guys, all of them) only have any power because the rank-and-file turn up for services every week. So stop going, and see how long they last.

It's possible that the Pope may be in the employ of Richard Dawkins. Certainly, by making statements like this, he's playing into the hands of the atheist vanguard. Maybe Ricky D just gives him the most ludicrous quotes possible and Benedict just goes and repeats them verbatim... I certainly can't see any more plausible reason for someone to come out with this crap in the 21st century.

So I won't be saying happy Christmas to any readers. Because that could be the slippery slope to believing shit like this.

The most appropriate wish for this year's festive season? Be careful out there.

Wanna be a bigoted reactionary? Better go hide in the church then.

Firstly people, sorry for the infrequency of posting at the moment. Having gone self employed I find that many waking moments are spent trying to do various stuff I am being paid for, and this blog gets filed under the 'remainder', if you like. Nonetheless Friday evening often presents an opportunity. For the next few weeks I'm gonna use a reasonably serious end-of-week post as an opportunity to catch up on big issues that have been bugging me lately, and intersperse that with short mid-week bursts of comedy wherever possible.

I'm gonna post on religion this week - not my usual topic of conversation, for sure, as a reasonably committed atheist (although not in the rabid 'anyone with religious sensibilities is a dribbling imbecile' Richard Dawkins camp). Nonetheless I did venture onto this fertile new territory a couple of months back to suggest that Tony Blair was a twat, and I'd now like to take the opportunity to give the good ol' C of E some advice.

For the benefit of anyone not from the UK reading this (well you never know), in Britain (well 'England' actually) the official religion (i.e. established church) is the Church of England. Started in bizarre circumstances (King Henry VIII wanted a divorce and the Pope refused so Henry said "OK, see ya"), it is a "broad church" in a very real sense - encompassing all sorts of punters including die-hard 'Anglo-Catholics' , radical quasi-Marxists and tub-thumping evangelicals plus just about every other combination.

The C of E is now facing a possible 'schism' because one group - call them the 'modernisers' - want women to be allowed to become bishops (they're already allowed to be priests) and another group - let's call them the 'reactionaries' (biased language, but then I am biased, so let's have cards on the table here) think they shouldn't be allowed. What's more, the reactionaries want to be allowed to have a special 'male-only' bishop category so that any of them who wants to opt out of worshipping under a female bishop should be allowed to do so.

What's amazing about stuff like this is that the reactionaries' stance is so obviously sexist that it's amazing it's even legal under human rights legislation. If any secular group wanted to mount a campaign in favour of women being debarred from taking a certain type of job, they'd be laughed out of court. But because this is a religious grouping, they're allowed to get away with it.

It's the same with the reactionaries' stance on homosexuality. Their anti-gay stance would be indefensible, indeed would have overtones of fascism, if it came from a non-religious source. But because they are religious, their arguments are seen as somehow defensible - even though their only justification is from The Bible, a book which no-one outside the Christian faith would accept as an authoritative source, and even within the Christian faith there is no agreement whatsoever on its correct interpretation.

The logical conclusion to draw from this is that if you want to be a right-wing fascistic misanthrope, go hide out in the C of E - because the modernisers haven't got the guts (or, more charitably, they pity you too much) to kick you out and expose you for what you are - miserable scum. Of course even if they do kick you out, you have several other options:

• start your own non-aligned church.
• Join the Roman Catholic church (which is even more hardline reactionary on this than most of the C of E traditionalists, and where the modernisers are in a far weaker position since the Pope runs the thing like the Soviet Union circa 1950).
  
• join another religion that has a proportion of homophobics and misogynists who get themselves taken seriously (radical Islam and orthodox Judaism spring to mind, although it can be difficult to get into the latter unless you have the correct ethnic background).
  
• Start your own religion. Worked very well for L Ron Hubbard for example...

So, reactionaries of the Anglican communion, don't feel too down that the Synod voted for women bishops on Tuesday. Because of society's remarkable tolerance towards irrational hatred of gays and women - as long as it is claimed to be religiously motivated - you have many alternative hiding places.

Johnson deserves to be extended: religion, as well as patriotism, is the last refuge of the scoundrel.