Anti-gay protest
An anti-gay protester. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features Sipa Press / Rex Features/Sipa Press / Rex Features

Did you feel the earth move under your feet? Did you see the sky tumbling down – tumbling down? No, you're not, sadly, at a Carole King concert but rather are sensing an unexpected tectonic shift as certain branches of the Christian church encounter something that they have heretofore managed to avoid: doubt followed by concession.

Let's start with Exodus International, a large US-based Christian organisation whose entire raison d'etre is to "cure" homosexuals of their sexual orientation through something called "reparative" therapy. For the record, Exodus International does not believe that "Aids is God's judgment against homosexuals … because completely innocent people sometimes contract the disease. For example, from contaminated blood supplies." As Exodus International triumphantly yet tactfully points out, if Aids doesn't only affect filthy and guilty gays, it can't be a judgment against gay people. Quod erat demonstrandum indeed.

However, earlier this month Exodus International's president, Alan Chambers, admitted that, contrary to the message his organisation has been plugging in its 260 ministries around the world, it is, come to think of it, not possible to "cure" homosexuality, and he should know, being gay himself. Chambers is married to a woman and the father of two children but, according to an interview he gave to the New York Times, he still "harbours homosexual cravings". He believes that sex outside heterosexual marriage is "sinful", but there's no way to "cure" homosexual feelings entirely. So if you're gay, you're pretty much screwed. So to speak.

There has been a similar shift on the thorny issues of pre-marital sex and abortion. As David Sessions wrote on The Daily Beast last week, "US states where abstinence is emphasized over contraception in school sex education – almost all in the heavily evangelical South – have teen-pregnancy rates as high as double those of states with a comprehensive curriculum." Religion may require an ability to believe in fairytales rather than reality, but US figures such as 80% of evangelicals having pre-marital sex and 30% having abortions when they accidentally get pregnant are tough for even the most devout to ignore. The realisation that chastity for unmarried evangelicals is, really, only theologically possible these days has been highlighted by the discovery that the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) accepted a multimillion-dollar grant from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, an organisation that encourages the use of contraception. Leith Anderson, the president of the NAE, defended the partnership, pointing out that evangelical young adults report having pre-marital sex at rates similar to the rest of the population. He added that, while the NAE opposes sex outside of marriage, pairing up with an organisation that encourages contraception doesn't change that.

"Many of our churches and organisations either don't know what's happening or have chosen to keep silent about sex and abortions in the evangelical community," Anderson was quoted as saying in Christianity Today.

Or, worse, spread poor education about it, as reportedly happened in one Colorado school in which students were taught that sleeping with someone who wasn't a virgin was like drinking out of a glass of water into which someone had spat chewed up food.

Needless to say, not all religious people are of Anderson's or Chambers' mindset here. Regarding Chambers' assertion that one can't, actually, pray away the gay, one chap by the name of Greg Quinlan and president of a group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays protested: "I think Mr Chambers is tired of his own personal struggles, so he's making excuses for them by making sweeping generalisations about others." Equally, many evangelicals remain outraged about Anderson's open-mindedness, claiming that accepting money from an organisation that promotes contraception is "incompatible with our faith convictions". And lest we forget, the US government spent over $1billion on abstinence-only education in the first decade of this century.

Nonetheless, an interesting screw does seem to be turning. But if nature abhors a vacuum, religions detest one even more. If even some prominent religious folk are beginning to relent on issues such as "curing" homosexuality and the incompatability of pre-marital chastity with an age when people are living longer and marrying later than they did in Biblical times, how else could the church legislate to bring misery and shame to its followers, in a way that is predicated on anachronistic attitudes and mistranslations of the Bible?

Being a helpful sort, here are some suggestions:

1. Women are not allowed to use the toilet more than once a week.

Toilet facilities were hard to come by in ancient times and men always had priority, seeing as they were the ones who fought wars and killed animals. Thus, women must learn to dam up their bladders and bowels, waiting for their once-weekly relief, as is tradition.

2. Never let your neighbour see your backside.

It's hard not to covet your neighbour's ass, isn't it? So help your neighbour with his struggle in this fight by always facing him, even when you're walking away. You don't want him to see your ass, right?

3. Join a dodgy-sounding cult.

Isn't that, basically, what Jesus's apostles did? Jesus seems to concede this in Matthew 19:29 when he says: "And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much, and will inherit eternal life." A little bit culty-sounding, no? You know, maybe we've all been a bit hard on Tom Cruise.