As of MySQL 5.5.41, released on November 28 (last week), Oracle has fixed MySQL Bug 67433, which I filed on October 31, 2012 and wrote about 4 months ago in Stupid and dangerous: SET GLOBAL sql_log_bin. You can see the fix in Launchpad revision 4718.
The MySQL 5.5.41 release notes mention:
Replication: The global scope for the sql_log_bin system variable has been deprecated, and this variable can now be set with session scope only. The statement SET GLOBAL SQL_LOG_BIN now produces an error. It remains possible for now to read the global value of sql_log_bin, but you should act to remove from your applications any dependencies on reading this value, as the ability to do so will be removed in a future MySQL release. (Bug #67433, Bug #15868071)
Thanks for addressing this and making the world’s data (and DBAs’ jobs) a little safer, Oracle! Special thanks to Morgan Tocker (MySQL Community Manager at Oracle) who cared about it enough to keep pushing it through to a reasonable fix/resolution.
Jeremy Cole 
So here’s my nomination of Morgan Tocker for Community Contributor of the year 2015 (if that’s still a thing).
Thank you for the mention Jeremy! It’s very humbling, but the credit should really go to Nuno Carvalho from the replication team.