Using the social networking website Facebook, incensed students have formed a protest group designed to prevent the course running on university property and using student union funds across the country.

Websites such as Facebook and MySpace, have enabled students to rapidly galvanise support for issues on a national level. Taking their cue from large scale protest groups, who use the internet to attract support for their campaigns, students are finding the online sphere a powerful tool for change.

A Stop the War coalition official told Times Online Student: "The internet is increasingly used both as a source of news and as the main disseminator of information on popular mobilizations… this is a process both vital and necessary for the healthy future of civil society."

The controversy surrounding the course called Pure, began after pilot courses were held at Edinburgh University. The pilot was deemed a success and the Edinburgh University Student newspaper printed details of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship plans to roll out the courses across Britain.

The course recommends literature that has been labelled homophobic and suggests students "Say farewell - it’s a No Go!" to homosexual relationships.

What Some of You Were by Christopher Keane is one of the texts recommended by the course. It tells the stories of "ex-gays" who have rejected the temptations of homosexuality in accordance with Christianity. It cites the case of Christopher, a "reformed homosexual", who says: "I shudder to think what may have happened to me if I had gone to a counsellor (or to a church) who had not upheld the Scriptures and had affirmed me in my homosexuality. If that had happened I may well have been dead from AIDS now."

The book also comments on the characteristics of gay relationships, claiming that lifelong, quasi-marital fidelity in homosexual partnerships is a myth, contradicted by the facts. "The truth is that gay relationships are characterized more by promiscuity than by fidelity."

In response to the course, students at Edinburgh set up a Facebook group called "Stop Pure", which has enlisted 1,400 members within a fortnight. Students from around the country have joined from universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews and Kings College London.

Group creator Lucy Chambers said: "We want to use the group to help make students aware of the issues raised by the presence of this course on our campuses and to encourage them to make a stand. Facebook is a great means to contact lots of students up and down the country in the space of a few minutes.

"We have already set in motion a process whereby our students’ association is investigating the course and it is our hope that we will be able to use the group, or perhaps set up a new one, to affect change nationwide."

Responding to criticism of the course, a spokesman from the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship said: "Surely it’s completely reasonable for a Christian to believe what he or she believes and to say what he or she believes. I am perfectly happy for LGBT members and the gay community at large to be gay – I don’t agree with it but I will defend their right to be gay.

"Remember that you choose your partner, it is a choice, and Christians should have a right to voice their beliefs and not be labelled homophobic."

Gay rights groups were quick to disagree. Allan Wardell, Director of Parliamentary and Public Affairs for Stonewall, said: "I’ve come across this sort of material before, especially from America, but the fact that this mumbo-jumbo is being taught in British universities is very worrying indeed."

Scott Cuthbertson, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual Officer for the National Union of Students said: "Homosexuality is not a choice, it's a reality for thousands of students across the UK. Christian Unions would do well to realise that discrimination and inequality has no place in a modern world. I welcome the attempts of the Students Association to ensure those harbouring prejudice can no longer use the bible as a shield."

Members of Facebook can click here to see the protest group.

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