Are we entering another period of puritanism?

I have always held a particular aversion towards those whom one might describe as puritans, prudes who condemn out of hand yet, in reality, enjoy the salacious aspect of being scandalised and outraged and wallow in gossip and malicious character assassination.

Bishop Justin Welby - Archbishop of Canterbury in waiting, (if I heard his radio interview correctly on Saturday), answered a question on same sex marriage in the usual Anglicanspeak that is designed to support the wrong and condemn the right.
He said, or intimated, that there could be room for considering the possibility, at some stage in the future, all things being equal and with a fair wind behind it, the prospect of the Church of England supporting gay 'homosexual marriage'.

Seems to me to be pretty much a non starter; I mean, if you were a farmer and you decided that, in future, you would only place boars with boars and bulls with bulls, you would go out of business pdq.

There can be no progeny from such associations and without progeny, you fade away.

But it was more what Bishop Welby added to his supportive statement that was of especial interest.
 He said (in a rough recollection) that he would not tolerate homophobia (in his future capacity as the ABC).

So - if you are not for LGBT 'marriages' you must be a homophobe.
That, to me, is a fundamental tenet of puritanism and it does not bode well for all those good vicars who cling to the belief that marriage is for a man and a woman - full stop.

The Jimmy Savile affair has started a witchunt on a grand scale. We have producers and show business personalities who schmoozed up to JS throughout his career now running a mile in the other direction and screeching about how dreadful it all is and how surprised they all are.

Chat show hosts hand over an internet list of alleged paedophiles that they researched within a 3 minute internet session. "Hang all on that list" they might as well be shouting: "Burn them alive, bring back the ducking stools"

Four days ago the BBC, the media and an alleged victim of abuse were all intimating that a senior Conservative politician was a paedophile and now they are retracting and grovelling wildly in the hope of avoiding the litigation that is surely coming their way from an innocent man.
Symptomatic of the various periods in world history when just being single or slightly eccentric was enough to have you in the hot seat (or the wet one).

Abortion is another by product of puritanism. It is a particularly foul and tragic form of sweeping an issue under the carpet.
Get rid of the baby and you get rid of the problem, except that you don't; you commit murder and, in all probability, the woman commits herself to months and maybe years of mental anguish.

And, the latest casualty of puritanical cant is the unfortunately named George Entwhistle ("There's trouble oop 't Pebble Mill, Mr Entwhistle!")
We hardly got to know mild and muddled George before Lord Patten, in unseemly haste, dropped him like a hot brick. He's tainted you see? (Entwhistle, that is) and the BBC must be seen to be untainted despite its years of Leftist bias and anti Catholic attitudes.
Now, it looks like Lord P is for the chop himself unless he does some pretty canny swerving.

That's the thing about puritans, they accept much of what is shabby and dishonest in the world and then, when someone starts pointing the finger, they fall into the lynch mob mentality and start ducking and weaving - well, more just ducking, actually.