Tag Archives: Country: United Kingdom

Times Online: “Up to 95,000 descendants of the prophet Muhammad are planning to bring a libel action in Britain over ‘blasphemous’ cartoons of the founder of Islam, even though they were published in the Danish press . . . Yamani is expected to justify the action by claiming that the cartoons, including one of Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, were accessible in Britain on the internet. Critics say the case is a political stunt and yet another example of how England has become the leading destination for ‘libel tourism’. The English defamation laws make it easier to bring and win libel cases here than in jurisdictions such as America that place greater emphasis on freedom of speech.”

AP: “That reputation was put to the test Monday as the Supreme Court began hearing a dispute between a German heiress and her ex-husband, a case that hinges on the issue of whether prenups can be enforced in England, one of the few countries in which they have no legal standing.”

Human Resources Magazine: “Nearly two thirds of people in the UK think the law should not prevent employees expressing their religious views in the workplace. According to a report from Christian think tank Theos, a further 32% of employees think religious freedom has been restricted over the past 10 years.”

Times Online: “A headmistress forced from her job after a campaign by two Muslim governors to give Islam a greater presence in a state school is entitled to £400,000 damages, the Court of Appeal has ruled. Erica Connor, 57, left the New Monument primary school in Woking, Surrey, because of stress after she was accused of Islamophobia.”

The case stems from legislation by the Labour government, the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) of the Equality Act, that force all services, businesses and charities to consider homosexuality a category especially protected from ‘discrimination’.

The Christian Institute: “Police in Kent have been banned from asking for a person’s ‘Christian’ name, in case it offends people from other faiths.”

The Christian Institute: “A 19th century Cambridgeshire church has been gutted following a massive fire, reportedly started when yobs set Bibles and prayer books alight. The news comes in the same week as it emerged youths disrupted a Roman Catholic church service, running to the front and intimidating the congregation.”

The Christian Institute: “Scores of viewers have expressed outrage after witnessing actors demonstrating sex positions live on ITV’s flagship daytime television show, This Morning. Members of the public have flooded internet message boards and complained to media groups saying the explicit sex topics were ‘inappropriate’ for a morning show.”

The Christian Institute: “A tiny but increasing number of non-Muslims are turning to Sharia courts to resolve civil disputes, but critics fear that the courts are inherently discriminatory. The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT) is reporting a 15% increase in the number of non-Muslims resorting to Islamic courts to settle commercial disputes this year.”

Telegraph: “Norrie May-Welby, 48, was born a man but had a sex change operation in 1990, at the age of 28. After becoming unhappy as a woman, May-Welby decided to become a ‘neuter’. The 48-year-old is now officially recognised as a person of no specific gender.”

Daily Mail: “A Catholic charity won a High Court battle today over adoption laws that would have forced it to consider gay couples as parents. Catholic Care, a registered adoption agency, wants special dispensation from sexual orientation regulations which forbid it from giving children solely to heterosexual couples . . . ”

AP: “An American infertility clinic seeking business in Britain has prompted fierce criticism by offering free eggs from a U.S. woman to one participant in a promotional seminar Wednesday evening in London.”

Times Higher Education: “The students declare that ‘multi-faith’ alternatives are unacceptable because ‘a vast number of Muslim scholars throughout history believe it is impermissible for Muslims to offer prayers in a place where [a god] other than our Lord, Allah, is worshipped’.”

Religion Clause Blog: “The British Humanist Association yesterday released a new briefing paper titled Religious Representatives in the House of Lords.”

The Christian Institute: “David Cameron has pledged his support for faith schools and has indicated that a Conservative government would oversee an increase in their numbers.”

Associated Press: “The latest buzz word in the clubby world of British politics is ‘hung Parliament’ . . . It means an election so close that no party receives more than half the seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament.”

Associated Press: “A British court has barred a far right, anti-immigrant political party from accepting new members until it stops discriminating against nonwhite people.”

Yorkshire Post: “An investigation has been launched after a pharmacist refused to supply the contraceptive pill to a South Yorkshire woman, saying it was ‘against her religion’. Janine Deeley was turned away by the female chemist at Lloyds pharmacy in Duke Street, Sheffield, when she went to pick up her prescription.”

The Jewish Chronicle: “A Conservative government would ban extremist Islamist groups, refuse visas to hate preachers and insist that universities identify and root out radicals promoting violence, antisemitism and other racial intolerance on campus.”

Christian Telegraph: “Pressure group Christian Concern For Our Nation is calling on Christians to write to the Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister Harriet Harman following last week’s vote in the House of Lords in favour of allowing churches to conduct civil partnership ceremonies.”

Chartered Management Institute: “Tory leader David Cameron has promised to make sure homosexual couples in civil partnerships will receive the same maternity and paternity leave as their heterosexual counterparts.”

Christian Institute: “ITV News at Ten anchor Julie Etchingham has warned that Christians are suffering discrimination at the hands of a secular media. Mrs Etchingham, who is a Roman Catholic, is the latest public figure to warn about the anti-Christian bias in the nation’s media.”

“She is now considering whether to try to take her case to the European Court of Human Rights, as she believes it shows that the right to religious conscience has been ‘trampled’ by the rights of homosexuals.”

NY Times: “Iceland’s voters expressed their outrage on Saturday against bankers, the government and what they saw as foreign bullying, overwhelmingly rejecting a plan to pay $5.3 billion to Britain and the Netherlands to reimburse customers of a failed Icelandic bank.”

EWTN (CNA): “Church leaders are defending the last remaining Catholic adoption agency in England and Wales against homosexual equality laws that will force it to close. They say children in the agency’s care will suffer, charging that the government is trying to force the agency to disregard Church teaching.”

Independent: “A culture of ‘instant gratification’ is making today’s schoolchildren harder to teach, a headteachers’ leader said yesterday.”

Daily Mail: “Two Muslim women have become the first passengers to refuse to subject themselves to controversial ‘naked’ full body airport scans, it emerged today. The pair – who security officials insist were selected at random – opted to miss their flight to Pakistan and forfeit tickets worth £400 each rather than be screened.”

Get Surrey: “Churches in Camberley have denounced the plans to build a large traditional mosque in the town. This week the Churches Together group said it felt the domed mosque, which will have 100ft minarets, would be making a powerful cultural and political statement.”

Telegraph: “The Equality Minister will decide with Cabinet colleagues whether to allow the controversial amendment to her flagship anti-discrimination bill to stand when it reaches the Commons next week. If the move to allow civil partnerships to take place on religious premises becomes law, having been agreed to by peers, it will raise ‘a number of problems’ for faith groups, priests, registrars and civil marriages for men and women.”

Google News (AP): “Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside of Britain’s Parliament on Friday, ahead of the viewing of an anti-Islam film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whose strong showing in a local elections sparked concern that his anti-immigrant views have become widely accepted in the Netherlands.”

Daily Mail: “A mother has taken her seven-year-old daughter out of school after she was made to watch a cartoon showing a couple chasing each other around a bed and having sex.”

Catholic Culture: “The House of Lords has voted to allow churches to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.”

Daily Mail: “Hundreds of ‘grammar-style’ schools run on traditional academic values and proper discipline would get the go ahead within weeks of a Tory election victory, the party will announce today.”

Todd Starnes: “British schools are creating ‘hate registers’ to monitor boys and girls who might be accused of what used to be called schoolyard banter but is now considered ‘homophobic.’ And the British government could soon make such lists mandatory.”

Telegraph: “Homosexuals who have undertaken a civil partnership ceremony will benefit from extended paternity and maternity leave under the Conservatives, David Cameron has pledged. The Tory leader also promised that proposals to extend flexible working would apply to homosexuals, along with tax breaks for married couples.”

Excerpt from Archbishop Vincent Nichols’ introduction: “I am glad to introduce this Statement by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. Its title: Choosing the Common Good has echoes of an earlier document we issued in 1996. Since then much has changed in our society. But some of the underlying principles and values by which we seek to construct a just and civil society have not.”

Times Online: “The House of Lords voted to lift the ban on civil partnership ceremonies in churches and other religious premises last night. Peers voted by 95 to 21 – a majority of 74 – to lift the ban which previously prevented gays and lesbians from getting ‘married’ in such places . . . The move will result in an amendment to the Equalities Bill which would allow, though not compel, religious organisations to host civil partnerships. Religious language would also be permitted within the ceremonies.”

“Requiring skirts in school uniforms discriminates against school girls who want to be boys, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said in a report this week.”

Civil Society: “Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) will this week appeal to the High Court as it seeks exemption from equality laws which require it to allow homosexuals to use its adoption services.”

Department for Children, Schools and Families: “Teenage pregnancies have fallen to their lowest rate in over 20 years, annual statistics published today show. The 2008 ONS conception statistics show that, despite a slight rise in 2007, the action from the Government’s teenage pregnancy strategy has led to a decline in pregnancies among under 16 and 18 year olds.”

“Children in care will suffer if the last Roman Catholic adoption agency in England and Wales is forced to close down by gay equality laws, Church leaders warned today.”

LifeSiteNews: “Supporters of homeschooling, however, are calling criticisms of home education because of the case a “red herring” to distract from the negligence of the local Birmingham social services . . . Birmingham social services, which is under heavy criticism after having admitted they were aware of the situation at the children’s home, has also blamed Britain’s laws allowing homeschooling, saying it had been difficult for social workers to gain access to the child and her five siblings . . . ”

Janice Turner writes at Times Online: “For the past decade the default setting for pornography — into our homes, on to our screens and newstands, into the mainstream of our culture — has been ‘on’. And parents were expected to guard their children from a tide of imagery. But how? We could faddle with Google settings, frown over screening software, which is quickly overridden by faster, more techno-literate young minds. We could, as advised, stand vigil over the household PC. But why are we lumbered with this grave yet impossible task? (What about parents who were too busy?) Why, if the Government believed that children should be protected, did it not come to our aid? Why did it not set the nation’s porn default setting to ‘off’?”

UPI: “Children being educated at home are twice as likely to be abused and should be closely monitored by social services, a British educator said Friday.”

Keir Starmer, Director of Public Prosecutions, writing at Times Online: “The policy I am publishing later today will show that we have looked carefully at the responses and, where appropriate, made changes. But I draw comfort from the large number of those responding who endorsed many important factors in the interim policy . . . Assisted suicide involves assisting the victim to take his or her own life. Someone who takes the life of another undertakes a very different act and may well be liable to a charge of murder or manslaughter. That distinction is an important one that we all need to understand.”

Damian Thompson writes at the Telegraph: “The school nurse provides students with clear accurate information about the full range of contraception and STIs and details of local services. Chlamydia screening is also offered to students in Years 11 to 13. Pregnancy options, including abortion, are also discussed in a non-judgemental way with the RE syllabus requiring students to understand the spectrum of pro- and anti-choice views on abortion.”

Guardian: “The number of school-leavers not in education, work or training reached a record year-on-year high at the end of 2009 and ministers look set to miss a key target, official figures reveal today. Almost 15% of 16- to 24-year-olds in England were ‘neets’ (not in education, employment or training), quarterly statistics from October to December show.”

The Guardian: “As long as British governments back wars and occupations in the Middle East and Muslim world, there will continue to be a risk of violence in Britain. But attempts to drive British Muslims out of normal political activity, and the refusal to confront anti-Muslim hatred, can only ratchet up the danger and threaten us all.”

EU Observer: “Herman Van Rompuy was subjected to a series of personal insults on Wednesday (24 February) spoiling his maiden appearance in the European Parliament as president of the European Council. Mid-way through a fairly tame exchange of views on EU policy, Mr Van Rompuy was visibly shocked and uncomfortable when comments by British eurosceptic MEP Nigel Farage took a personal turn.”

“Under the bill, schools, both religious and secular, will be required to give children information on homosexual relationships as well as artificial contraception and abortion.”

LifeSiteNews: “Britain’s Labour government clarified this week that an amendment to the Children, Schools and Families bill, that says faith schools may teach the mandatory Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) program ‘in a way that reflects the school’s religious character,’ does not, in fact, give the schools freedom to oppose abortion, contraception and homosexual activity on moral grounds.”

UK Parliament: “The Commons passed the report stage and third reading of the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which now moves into the Lords. The Bill aims to provide guarantees for parents and pupils, setting out what they are entitled to expect from the schools system. It will also reform the curriculum and introduce a new licensing scheme for teachers.”

Melanie Phillips writing in the Spectator: “Indeed, the real significance of this appalling piece of legislation [the Children Schools and Families Bill] goes far beyond this particular row over this amendment, and far beyond the particular difficulties to be faced by faith schools and the ludicrous hoops through which they are now expected to jump. For it means that in all schools, parents will now find that their children are to be indoctrinated in a set of ‘non-judgmental ‘assumptions about sexual activity that many may find questionable or objectionable – but by law these assumptions may not deviate from the doctrines laid down by the Inquisitors at the Department for Children Schools and Families.”

The Guardian: “. . . faith schools can continue preaching that contraception, abortion and homosexuality are wrong or sinful, even though sex and relationships education (SRE) – which will be a compulsory part of the curriculum – is supposed to promote equality, diversity and tolerance.”

The Christian Institute: “The Director of Public Prosecutions is preparing to issue his final guidelines on when cases of assisted suicide will be prosecuted. Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for England and Wales, issued draft guidelines last year, explaining the circumstances under which he would be likely to prosecute a case of assisted suicide.”

The Christian Institute: “Children are being sexualised by computer games, easily accessible pornography and sexual slogans at an increasingly early age, according to a report due to be issued later this month. The report, written by Dr Linda Papadopolous, will reveal that girls feel pressurised to please boys, while boys feel pressurised to sleep with multiple girls.”

The Christian Institute: “Lap-dancing clubs, casinos and betting shops are increasing in number in the UK, while the number of libraries and schools is falling, new figures show. The statistics have been called a modern day Domesday Book, with critics saying it shows the ‘decline of traditional Britain.’”

Christian Institute: “The Care Not Killing Alliance has accused the BBC of providing ‘biased’ coverage on the issue, after it broadcast Sir Terry Pratchett’s lecture encouraging ‘euthanasia tribunals.’”

Times Online leading article: “Benjamin Disraeli believed the Church of England to be ‘a part of our liberties, a part of our national character’. If it has any hope of continuing in that role, the Church — and the Government — must recognise that our liberties today should include the right of homosexuals to register the most important promise of their lives in a church.”

Politics UK: “The British legal system knows how to treat children: as humans incapable of giving consent. So why doesn’t the government? Allowing parents to force their children into faith schools is just really child abuse, as Richard Dawkins ably pointed out last year. It forbids them the freedom and space to develop their own thinking and decide if they wish to sign up to the varied mumbo jumbo religions espouse. Schools are where we create humans capable of deciding what they do with their freedom, not a factory for churning out new versions of ourselves, together with our prejudices and intellectual fallacies.”

Times Online: “Faith schools will not be able to opt out of statutory lessons on sex and relationship education when the legislation comes into effect in September 2011. This includes education about contraception and the importance of stable relationships, including marriage and civil partnerships. It will not allow the teaching of homophobia.”

Daily Mail: “A confidential blueprint for David Cameron’s controversial bid to impose more women, gays and ethnic candidates on reluctant party activists has come to light.”

BBC: “Senior Anglican clergy have called for gay couples to be allowed to hold civil partnership ceremonies in churches, synagogues or other religious venues.”

BBC News: “Members of the Isle of Man’s House of Keys will consider proposals to introduce civil partnerships on the island. The Civil Partnership Bill will have its first formal reading on Tuesday. If the bill is passed, gay and lesbian couples would be able to claim the same rights as those who are married.”

The Christian Institute: “A Government plan to centralise control of sex education in Whitehall will threaten parental choice and may squeeze Christian teachers out of their jobs, a top lawyer says.”

Religious Liberty in British Courts: A Critique and Some Guidance
Robin Hopkins and Can V. Yeginsu, 49 Harv. Int’l L.J. Online 28 (2008)

“For centuries, religious liberty in Britain existed as a broad-ranging but principally negative freedom at common law. Individuals were permitted to do as they pleased in matters of faith, unless the law stated otherwise.[1] Religious liberty, thus conceived, was more passive toleration of religion than any active promotion of religious freedom as a fundamental right. All that changed on October 2, 2000 when the Human Rights Act 1998 (‘HRA’) – the United Kingdom’s de facto Bill of Rights – came into full force and brought with it Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights (‘ECHR’).”

Guardian: “Campaigners today accused the government of performing a U-turn over sex education in faith schools, after changes to a bill they said would allow the schools to discourage the use of contraception and teach that homosexuality is wrong . . . an amendment tabled by the schools secretary, Ed Balls, last week, says these rules should not be read as preventing governing bodies or heads from letting the subject be taught in a way that reflects the school’s religious ethos.”

Politics.co.uk: “Speaking at the Cato Institute in Washington beside Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organisation for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, Nick Herbert, Britain’s openly-gay shadow environment secretary, urged right wingers to bring gay groups into the fold.”

The Independent: “Nick Herbert ['a member of David Cameron's shadow cabinet'], who is openly gay, admitted that the party had made ‘mistakes’ in the past – such as imposing the Section 28 law barring the promotion of homosexuality in schools – but insisted Mr Cameron had made that a thing of the past.”

Christian Post: “Its optimism is based on the findings of a survey of 18- to 24-year-olds at last summer’s Momentum event by youth ministry Soul Survivor, where 81 percent said they planned to vote, more than double the percentage of people in the same age bracket who voted in the last general election.”

Financial Times: “As Conservatives grasp the real possibility of victory this year, some are asking what degree of power a few evangelical Christians – only 3 per cent of the party members, according to one poll – will wield. The answer will determine the shape and sturdiness of any Conservative government.”

Digital Journal: “The Church of England’s rule-making body’s decision to extend pension rights beyond the legal minimum for same-sex partners has been welcomed. The motion, in the General Synod, was carried by a large majority. It has been welcomed by the Inclusive Church network and others working for equality.”

The Christian Institute: “A Christian who was told by her bosses at British Airways to hide a small cross she wore around her neck has lost her case for religious discrimination at the Court of Appeal today.”

Christian Post: “A devout Christian woman lost her appeal Friday that she was discriminated against by British Airways (BA) after the airline suspended her for wearing a crucifix to work four years ago.”

Christian Post: “The Church of England’s governing body on Friday approved a motion that emphasizes the compatibility of belief in both God and science . . . The compatibility, or lack thereof, of evolution and faith remains a hot debate among Christians. Prominent evangelical theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. has said he finds it impossible to reconcile the two. While he does not deny that changes do take place in the animal kingdom and that there is even a process of natural selection, he firmly rejects theistic evolution and the argument that the process is entirely natural and in no case supernatural.”