403 when editing the Homepage
If I understand this correctly, you can't put the /craft folder above the public root, so you put both /craft and /public inside public root? That's no point, and you need a lot more .htaccess vodoo to get that sorted out. But, if the craft folder has to stay inside the public webroot, you should just move it there, and not have an additional /public folder inside it. Your setup should look like this:


craft
index.php
.htaccess


In your /public/index.php file you the path to craft to $craftPath = './craft'; and use the default .htaccess file that comes with Craft (or a more complex one).