The Church of England lies!

Or at least a committee drafting documents in its name does! From today's document about the same-sex marriage consultation:

We have supported various legal changes in recent years to remove unjustified discrimination and create greater legal rights for same sex couples and we welcome that fact that previous legal and material inequities between heterosexual and same-sex partnerships have now been satisfactorily
addressed.

So far and no further hey? But that statement is manifestly untrue - the majority of Bishops in the House of Lords voted against those changes - historical revisionism rules!
[Updated 13 June] The Church of England has now put up a document here giving the contributions made by the bishops in the Lords during the debates on the civil partnerships bill, it says:

The bishops, consistent with their place as independent and non-whipped members neither spoke nor voted as a bloc on these issues when they were before the House.

So some bishops spoke in favour and some opposed - that still means a line 'We have supported various legal changes..' is misleading - none of the bishops who voted 5-1 for the wrecking amendment eventually voted for the passing of the bill.

Horrific anti-gay violence

(not that there's much violence which isn't horrific!).
We don't normally get the Observer but this weekend, being away, we did I was glad (if that's the right word), appalled is probably a more fitting word to read this article on the systematic murder of gays in Iraq. If you don't think that anti-gay sentiment in religion is a problem, read this and see where it takes you.

The killings are brutal, with victims ritually tortured. Azhar al-Saeed's son was one. "He didn't follow what Islamic doctrine tells but he was a good son," she said. "Three days after his kidnapping, I found a note on my door with blood spread over it and a message saying it was my son's purified blood and telling me where to find his body."