The EU is in a quandary. The US legal system is tangled in a two-year impasse. South Africa’s new president scrambles their young constitution.

In late 2006 the EU introduced its new Sexual Orientation Regulations, as part of the Equality Act. It became discriminatory to provide any goods and services on the grounds of anyone being heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. In the US, despite Republican opposition the new Democrat president has now rushed through similar legislation.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, we had already become used to the fact that discrimination on the basis of race, religion, age and sex would not be acceptable.

The new SO regulations have had mushrooming legal impacts. A French Muslim printer in Paris declined to print a poster advertising a gay pride parade and was taken to court.

In Manchester, a strongly Christian IT staffer was dismissed for refusing to work on developing a web site for homosexuals.

A Christian retreat in Atlanta was shut down for not allowing a radical Muslim cleric to participate.

Today I can no longer say publicly that I am anti-gay or anti-Christian without a turbulent backlash, public ridicule and threats to my continued survival on this planet.

It seems like the rights to personal freedoms, like freedom of speech, have come into full conflict with the rights of minorities and communities.

At the other end of the scale, in a hark back to apartheid, South Africa’s new president proposes constitutional change to outlaw homosexuality.

Where will it all end?