UK: Good news, bad news

SENIOR members of the Church of Scotland have voted to let some congregations choose ministers who are in same-sex relationships – an important compromise that must still pass further hurdles before it can become church law.

NZ: What happens in Antioch…

…doesn’t happen in New Zealand!

Australia: Anglican Bishop resigns over child abuse cover-ups

Bishop Keith Slater today apologised for his past failings in managing the allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the North Coast Childrens Home in Lismore between 1940 and the 1980s.

Australia: ‘My headmaster made me a pedophile’

If I get him the wool, will he make me one too?

Global: The huge scale of the Islam problem

Jerry Coyne passes on a report about just how many Muslims worldwide are opposed to justice, tolerance and an open society.

Afghanistan: Woman killed for ‘dishonouring’ family

The public killing of a woman in Afghanistan is further proof that the authorities are still failing to tackle the shocking levels of gender-based violence in the country, Amnesty International said today.

Australia: Catholic sect admits supporting and covering up pedophilia

THE Christian Brothers admit they were aware of abuse complaints against two brothers at Ballarat in Victoria but failed to tell police.

Australia: Melbourne University condones Islamic gender segregation

The Left is furious when private clubs exercise that freedom….

Nigeria: I want to pray for you…

…can I have your underwear?

Australia: Catholic priest charged with sex abuse

VICTORIAN Police have charged a Catholic priest with child sex offences after he returned to Melbourne from Rome.

US: Irony alert: when a young woman warns her church that it’s driving young people away…

…the church drives her away.

El Salvador: Want an abortion?

Then die, witch, die!

NZ: How DARE he!

New Zealand MP hits back at gay marriage bill attackers with reason!! And logic!!

UK: Are Islamists really THAT stupid?

No, it’s not the toilets

Apparently.

US: When he was good, he was very, very good..

PZ Myers, on the ‘Islamophobia backlash’:

When the popular culture has been howling for centuries in protest at any expression of the idea that there is no god, you don’t get to use the word “backlash” any more, OK? You don’t get to pretend that this nonsense is something new. It’s just a “lash”, yet another in the commonplace droning torrent of complaint. And they don’t have a single original idea in that complaint, either.

Pharyngula.

UK: Those who can’t do, teach…

Those who can’t teach write the manuals.

Those who can’t write do performance art.

Australia: Salvos paid $15m to child sex abuse victims

THE Salvation Army has told a Victorian sex abuse inquiry it is ashamed of the treatment of children that occurred in its homes, as it revealed it has paid out more than $15 million to victims and that 50 Salvation Army officers had been named as abusers.

The Australian

Now everybody wants to get into the act!

Australia: Rabbi admits sex abuse at Melbourne Jewish school

VICTIMS say the admission of guilt by a former teacher at a Jewish Orthodox school accused of sexually abusing students is a watershed for Australia’s Jewish community.

Australia: Protecting a cultural right to abuse

Yes, there are reasons why people from tribal cultures move out, go to cities and emigrate to the West. They’re not just being silly.

US: Jewish welfare group shelters paedophile

A self-confessed paedophile who sexually abused several boys in Sydney is being harboured by a leading Los Angeles Jewish welfare group.

Israel: Victims of the Nazis? No, only women!

The Sisterhood has covered Haredi exclusion of women from the Israeli public sphere for some time now. When it comes to the removal of women’s images from public view, we’ve seen the disappearance of women from advertisements; the photoshopping of female leaders like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton out of news photos; the blurring of women’s and girls’ faces on memorial notices and even the erasing of a pair of women’s shoes from an innocuous photo of a family’s shoe drawer.

Pakistan: Female teacher killed by Taliban

Shahnaz Bibi was shot dead on Tuesday by two motorbike riders as she disembarked from a passenger van near the school where she taught in the Khyber tribal region.

BBC News

Australia: Misogyny and bullying alleged at Uniting Church college

Sydney University’s Wesley College is investigating reports of inappropriate behaviour and sexual harassment during Orientation Week, after two undercover magazine reporters snuck in to a number of on-campus parties posing as students.

UAE: Life under theocracy…

…even visitors get shafted.

UK: Muslim men can’t sit next to women, because…

Well, because they’re women! Get it? WOMEN!

US: Can you get fired for having sex?

Only if you’re a woman.

Palestine: Spoiling it for everyone

The UN has been forced to cancel its annual marathon in the Gaza Strip after the ruling Islamist movement Hamas insisted that women be banned from the race.

UK: Scottish Cardinal resigns after ‘inappropriate behaviour’ allegations

Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned as Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh on Monday, saying he won’t attend the coming conclave of cardinals to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI…

Australia: More Catholic cover-ups

The letter written by Stinson provides an insider’s view of the desperate efforts of a handful of priests to have action taken against Harris. When the archbishop stonewalled, the paedophile priest was moved to the next parish then left free to roam for almost 50 years…

Australia: Gay sex in Catholic Church needs immediate action, Pell says

Child abuse, not so much.

AUSTRALIA’S Cardinal George Pell yesterday called on the Vatican press office to respond “in some constructive way” to reports of an internal investigation by three senior cardinals that told Pope Benedict XVI about an insidious web of blackmail, corruption and homosexual sex inside the Vatican.

The Australian