Befrocked brats in the news

The Pope's rubbish, isn't he? He thinks there's a 'natural law' against gay people. The Archbishop of Westminster agrees, which was news despite that being his job. Mind you, Muttley mostly went on and on about Dastardly's right to speak out, which - from the reactions I saw - was an argument he was having entirely with himself. But while their bigoted drivel was widely reported, the dynamics of the criticism meant the media were surprisingly hostile - he was criticising 'our' equality laws, so it became a nationalistic thing. Outside of the usual circles it was only a few lefties who decided they agreed, which was a bit bloody weird: they seemed to fall for the 'why would you want to work for homophobes anyway' trick.

It's really quite easy: there are human rights, and that's it. No 'natural law'. No 'natural justice'. No religious rights. You get the human right to hold whatever beliefs you like. You get the human right to be treated according to your ideas, where they are relevant, and not your biology. There are more. The equality bill puts these transparently correct ideas into law. It's not difficult, yet the Pope still struggles.

He's coming to the UK later this year. I say we do our best to annoy him so he doesn't bother visiting at all, but, failing that, protest him when he arrives. Protesting is a tricky business, as you don't want to seem anti-religion and generally unpleasant, but I think it needs to be done. You can't let people claim condoms aggravate the spread of aids, or that equality laws don't apply to religious people. When people say things like that, there's a duty to point out that they're a dick.