REPORTS of the Catholic leaders recruiting kids to help do their dirty work in their vicious ongoing battle against gay marriage have provoked fury among human rights campaigners – and, at one school in London, a backlash by pupils.

REPORTS of the Catholic leaders recruiting kids to help do their dirty work in their vicious ongoing battle against gay marriage have provoked fury among human rights campaigners – and, at one school in London, a backlash by pupils.

The Pink Triangle Trust entered the fray by issuing a press release slamming the Church’s interference in the matter after the Pope’s representative in Britain urged Roman Catholic leaders to form a united front with their Muslim and Jewish counterparts to oppose gay marriage.

Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Apostolic Nuncio (referred to by one commentator on the Internet as the “Apoplectic Duncio”, called for closer co-operation with other faiths as well as Christian denominations to put pressure on the Government over its plans to allow same-sex couples to marry.

The PTT pointed out:

At the same time the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, has defended  the right of Catholic schools to promote the Church’s position on marriage following accusations of ‘political indoctrination from secular and humanist campaigners’. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has threatened to take legal action.

PTT Secretary George Broadhead said:

This move by the Papal Nuncio should come as no surprise. After all, Islamic groups and Orthodox Judaism are as hostile to LGBT rights as the Roman Catholic Church. It is no less surprising to learn that the Archbishop of Southwark is defending the action of Catholic schools. It is outrageous that children attending a school paid for by taxpayers are being encouraged to be homophobic. Let’s hope that the BHA carries out its threat.

Meanwhile, The Daily Wail reports that:

David Cameron is under intense pressure to ditch his gay marriage initiative amid claims that Tory MPs fear they are ‘haemorrhaging’ votes over the issue.

Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin is said to have has privately assured anxious Tory backbenchers that the Prime Minister’s same-sex marriage plan will ‘not come to a vote’ and will be ‘kicked into the long grass’.

The Chief Whip, a former miner, is one of the most senior Roman Catholics in the Conservative Party.

Now there’s a surprise!