The US Senate has blocked a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. President George W Bush had backed the ban, saying marriage between a man and a woman was the most fundamental institution of civilisation. Link: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US Senate blocks gay marriage ban Depends what you mean by ‘civilisation’, Mr Bush. The Oxford dictionary defines it thus: civilization (also civilisation) • noun 1 an advanced stage or system of human social development.

The women of Basra have disappeared. Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women’s secular freedoms – once the envy of women across the Middle East – have been snatched away because militant Islam is rising across the country. Link: Independent Online Edition > Middle East The BBC reported that Iraqi women feared for their rights in July 2005. Human Rights Watch provides information on the status of Iraqi women before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Both the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association do weekly e-newsletters. The following is from the latest National Secular Society’s e-newsletter, Newsline. If you’re not already a subscriber and would like Newsline to drop into your inbox every Friday, send a blank email with “Subscribe to Newsline” on the subject line to enquiries@secularism.org.uk. Quotes of the Week If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming.

Current security policies assume international terrorism to be the greatest threat to global security, and attempt to maintain the status quo and control insecurity through the projection of military force. Link: Oxford Research Group – Global Responses to Global Threats: Sustainable Security for the 21st Century Paul Rogers from the Oxford Research Group was interviewed about this new report at 0845 on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

**At a Humanist wedding recently, the bride’s mother made an unusual speech. It’s reproduced with her permission, but the names have been changed to preserve anonymity. The following piece is offered, with apologies to Bill Bryson, whose book ‘A Short History of Everything’ put me firmly in my place. Welcome – and congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn’t easy, I know, in fact it was tougher than you perhaps realise.

Since the 1980s, many Humanists have celebrated World Humanism Day yesterday, the 21st June, but since Humanists, in general, are independent thinkers, it’s not surprising that some have questioned the need to have a special day. However, it’s a good excuse for me to talk about World Humanism. The International Humanist & Ethical Union, based in London, was founded in Amsterdam in 1952 as an umbrella organisation for Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secularist, freethought and similar organisations worldwide.

Creationism – the belief that the biblical story of creation is scientific fact – is beginning to make inroads into the science curricula of UK universities, The Times Higher can reveal. Leeds University plans to incorporate one or two compulsory lectures on creationism and intelligent design into its second-year course for zoology and genetics undergraduates next Christmas. At Leicester University, academics already devote part of a lecture for third-year genetics undergraduates to creationism and intelligent design.

It’s good to hear that my ‘Thoughts for the Day’ are appreciated. I get feedback from Radio Suffolk listeners and from people I meet in the street, and yesterday I heard from someone who’d found the scripts here, on our website. She wrote, Just wanted to say that I’ve spent a very enjoyable evening reading the transcripts of some of your radio Suffolk thought for the days. Haven’t done the washing up as a result but never mind.