Quotes of the week

If you criticise ideas, you challenge ideas, that's when you move a society forward. When you demonise people that's how you rip societies apart.

I am all too aware that these laws were often put in place by my own country. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. As the UK's prime minister, I deeply regret both the fact that such laws were introduced and the legacy of discrimination, violence and even death that persists today.

This was never about protest. It was about small groups of strangers choosing to gather by our entrance gates where they could harass and intimidate women and try to prevent them from accessing healthcare to which they are legally entitled.

Don't let go, be the British bulldog, be tenacious. I would tell anybody out there to trust in the British justice system. Yes, it's crazily weird, but you will get justice.

Politics apart, this is horrible that some people would see this horrendous crime through a religious prism to gain some mileage. It's a new low and I don't know if we can stoop any lower after this.

There is no point in reviewing how it is taught if schools will still be allowed to ignore it.

Ladies, please take your seat… and keep it!

Two exceptionally courageous, tenacious and determined men who simply refused to give in to the lies and deceit of the church hierarchy.

Following last year's terrorist attacks, a central government has again been forced to make it look like something is being done on integration. But once again the administration of the day appears to have a faith schools policy that flies in the face of such a goal.

Those fighting injustice should be the last to demand censorship, the first to oppose it.

A terrible week with evidence of religious exceptionalism, stupidity, incompetence, lying, dumping responsibility at every level including the highest, and folie de grandeur. Bishops must be accountable. This means not just to themselves.

From the start of his career to his dying breath, he was cocooned, chastised and cared for by the institution in which he had flourished. Ultimately he was shamed, but he was not cast out.

A man has been convicted in a UK court of making a joke that was deemed 'grossly offensive'. If you don't believe in a person's right to say things that you might find 'grossly offensive', then you don't believe in freedom of speech.

All of us have a responsibility to challenge extremist rhetoric. People should be free to scrutinise Islam. But they must not aid the hatred of Muslims.

For us it's clear that no student should be subjected to religious influence in school. To have faith or not should be every child's own choice.

Schools are at the heart of our communities, bringing families from all walks of life together. Through education, we can ensure the next generation learns the values that underpin our society – fairness, tolerance and respect.

If a sweet thing is left uncovered, swarms of dirty creatures are liable to prey upon it and corrupt it. Similar is the case of a woman. The current wave of rape incidents in regions where public exposure of women prevails strengthens this argument beyond doubt.

You can't write off a good guy because of a bad day.

An empire of misogyny.

It is more important than ever for our children to interact with people their age of different backgrounds and faiths. Enforcing division, which the children themselves have had no say in, is only damaging to society.

Like most secularists, I also believe in equality. We also believe in freedom of religion. All we object to is that beliefs that we and other people do not share are simply imposed on us whether we like them or not.

I saw the Vatican up close, and its resistance, the lack of priority [on clerical child sex abuse], lack of transparency, and the absolutely misleading statements issued. I saw, close up, how things work in the [Catholic] Church.

An exemplar to generation upon generation of modern Christians.