Religion to excuse bad behaviour

Last week was a mad bad week for religion. In what marks a waypoint to the end of the age of reason and a return to the Middle Ages, come stories of fundamentalist religion stamping all over rationality.

Jesus loves you - unless...

...you teach fact, not fairytale...

US teacher Steve Bitterman has alleged that he was dismissed after some students complained that his comments were "denigrating their religion". The 'denigrating' comment? He apparently described the story of Adam and Eve as a fairy tale.

Mr Bitterman said the school was "teaching their students very well to function in the eighth century." Leeches anyone?

...or you're gay...

The Anglican Church has bent over for the fanatic fundamentalist element of the church and formally agreed to exclude gays from some aspects of the church.

The US church won't appoint bishops who have admitted to being gay and having a partner, and won't do gay blessing services either. There's something very un-Christian about the church uniting over the intentional exclusion of some of it's congregation just because of their sexual preferences.

...or want safe sex

The US doesn't have all the fun though. During the 18th and 19th Centuries some clergymen were at the cutting edge of science and rational thought. Not so now. Mozambique's Roman Catholic archbishop Francisco Chimoio has accused European condom manufacturers of infecting condoms produced for African countries with HIV. His comments amount to a fatwah on safe sex and a death sentence for tens of thousands of his countrymen and, presumably, flock. Nutter.

Sharp dressed homophobe

But the fundamentalist Christians don't have it all their own way in the homophobia department. Iranian president and walking Top Man advert President Arminadinnerjacket proudly announced to the world that there were no homosexuals in Iran's Muslim paradise. Those gays that do raise their heads are rehabilitated with the hangman's noose. I'm not convinced that Dinnerjacket should be so confident, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Anglican Church had their next bean feast in Iran.