In a move that I support (or do I?) the Pope (who leads an organisation that prevents women from gaining a high rank) has called for more equality.

Last week, Pope Benedict XVI spoke out about changes to the Equality Bill that were being proposed in the UK. He said:

"In some respects, it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is granted and by which it is guaranteed."

Indeed it does. Unless you are a woman or gay, in which case you are not equal. So he does not promote equality at all.

"Natural law" is what the church relies on to oppose anything homosexual. The Independent columnist E Jane Dickson says:

Based on the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas, "natural law" is the concept which has underpinned Catholic attitudes to sex and sexuality since the 13th century. Building on the Aristotelian notion that "in all things of nature, there is something of the marvellous" , Aquinas held that the natural instinct of man to procreate was evidence of his essential goodness. The flip side to Aquinas' theory (which might have surprised old Aristotle) was that sex for any purpose other than procreation was sinful.

He was something of a hardliner on this, to the point of insisting that rape and incest, since they might result in conception, were less reprehensible than coitus interruptus.

The problem, for some, is that the proposed changes would remove the loophole used by churches where they are legally permitted to discriminate against women or gays to religious posts, but they use to apply to other posts - like teachers.

In a disgraceful act of spinelessness, Harriet Harman (the minister responsible) has decided, as The Times reported, to "drop a planned amendment that church leaders from all denominations feared might undermine their freedom to continue barring gays and — in the case of the Catholics — women from the priesthood". Anglicans also put in their opinion, with Archbishop John Sentamu saying that "[T]hat way lies ruin".

Of course, the changes proposed are being portrayed as "socialism in one clause" and that it could be "a first step towards the positive discrimination schemes that have proved so divisive in America".

Just another slope that we have avoided slipping down, I suppose.