It's not every day you get an email from number 10 Downing Street. In fact, I'm impressed that Gordon Brown found the time to email me on only his second full day in office. The email was the government's response to an e-petition I had signed asking: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16." Predictably, the response includes the usual (easily rebutted) nonsense about the contribution of religious education to the moral development of pupils and the need to show respect for other faiths, but it also confirms that the government "respects the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their own faith".

"How can we ever know how many children had their psychological and physical lives irreparably maimed by the compulsory inculcation of faith?" Asks Christopher Hitchens in his excellent recent book God Is Not Great. He continues: "...we can be sure that religion has always hoped to practice upon the unformed and undefended minds of the young, and has gone to great lengths to make sure of this privilege by making alliances with secular powers in the material world". [My italics.]

[For anyone who is unconvinced about the damage religion can do to children here is a chilling video of a Palestinian Kindergarten. The children are asked "What is your most lofty aspiration?". They reply: "Death for the sake of Allah."]