But at the same time, organised religions have often been at the forefront of the developments. For instance, the Baptist tradition in Britain has been ordaining women since the 1920s.
Islam? Hinduism? Shinto? Even then, what proportion of Christianity in the UK is Baptist? What about the Baptist traditions in other countries? And even if ordination was achieved, that doesn't in any way justify the religious depiction of gender roles.
The Church of England ordained their first deaconess as early as 1862.
And yet when did their first lady Bishop arrive?
See above for the matter of women's rights - remembering that matters such as abortion are treated as women's rights but actually impact on men just as much.
No, they don't impact on men anywhere near as much, in part because of social attitudes towards the differences in men's and women's roles in child-care and child-rearing (largely reinforced by traditional religious teachings) and in part because of the biological reality that pregnancy has to involve a woman throughout, whereas men are not required after the first few moments.
Racial equality has also been something that the churches have been in the forefront of.
Really? Is that why so many Christians were actively involved in the slave trade? There is nothing in the scripture that prohibits slavery, whilst there are some references to acceptable behaviour of and towards slaves. Wilberforce - a Christian, admittedly - was motivated to campaign against the slave trade, but I see this as an example of culture civilising religion; certainly, at the time, the establishment church stood against him.
Whilst many like to put gay rights in the same category as these other two, they aren't because they are more of a behavioural issue than a purely genetic one.
Most people put them in the same category as they are areas where people are discriminated against without justification - it doesn't actually matter whether homosexuality is inherited, nurtured, accidental or a combination of all three. Typically, you find, people who try to make that sort of differentiation are people who are trying to justify discrimination - and many of those are religious, particularly Christian.
That might be the case with the Roman Catholic church, but ever since I was born, most Protestant denominations have employed women and non-whites alongside men in the various areas of ministry.
'In various areas'... but not all, right?
They have also encouraged women to take on many of the lay roles without which any church or congregation can't exist.
So they can do the work, but they can't have the say or the influence.
As someone brought up in the Anglican denomnation, I can inform you their acceptance of women clergy is part of their Christianity - men have been pushing for it for over 50 years, and often the stumbling block was the women themselves.
Often the stumbling block was the teaching and the scripture, let's not forget - Timothy 2:12, is it? "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence". You might well suggest that this has been taken out of context, and that may be so, but it doesn't actually change the fact that it has been deployed in that way for centuries, and it's those centuries of formative influence in our culture that modern society has been railing against in order to achieve the first glimmers of parity that you are lauding as somehow equally Christian.
So is their acceptance of gay people, who are - after all - human beings like everyone else.
Their acceptance of gay people to the point where they aren't allowed to get married, and when congregations do allow it they are punished and excluded for the temerity of treating people equally...
O.
