Tag Archives: Global: Marriage and Family

Christian Institute: The Government has said it will consider whether to allow heterosexual couples to have a civil partnership rather than a marriage, at a cost of up to £4bn. Equalities Minister Maria Miller hopes the promise of a review will buy off votes and give a smoother ride for the same-sex marriage Bill.

“Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it. That’s the belief of the people of France. This redefinition of marriage has been pushed through at great speed without their support. Millions have taken to the streets in protest, but the government has not responded by listening to the people. Instead, it has sought to silence them with police brutality.”

NPR: There’s growing pressure in Australia for the government to legalize gay marriage after New Zealand became the 13th country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage earlier this month.

Christian Concern: David Burrowes, Tim Loughton and Jim Shannon are amongst the MPs who have tabled an amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex) Couples Bill to allow a public vote to be held on the same day as the 2015 general election.

AP: Brazilian notary publics must register same-sex civil unions as marriages if the couple requests it, the country’s National Council of Justice said Tuesday.

Guardian: A group of Conservative MPs has proposed a referendum to allow the public to vote on gay marriage in one of several amendments aimed at watering down the bill to legitimise same-sex weddings. More than 100 MPs may support the call for a referendum, sources said.

CNSNews: Hong Kong’s top court granted a transgender woman the right to marry her boyfriend Monday in a watershed ruling that falls short of allowing same-sex marriage.

LifeSiteNews: Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists has been accused of bias and submitting “seriously flawed” and even “fraudulent” evidence to the government’s consultation on the gay “marriage” bill.

The Times: High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge is unapologetic about his Marriage Foundation’s efforts to keep families together.

Christian Institute: The Government thinks supporters of traditional marriage are just “dinosaurs” who should be “frogmarched” towards a new concept of wedlock, Lord Carey says.

Norbert Blum at WorldCrunch: In a society designed around individual liberty, has marriage become little more than a temporary link-up of working people choosing to spend some free time together? And the kids?

Christian Institute: A pro-family group in New Zealand has been notified that it will lose its charitable status because it campaigned in support of traditional marriage.

Christian Concern: The local election results are showing massive losses for the Conservative party. This was by no means inevitable but David Cameron’s insistence on pursuing the same sex ‘marriage’ agenda has undoubtedly contributed to this dramatic result.

Christian Concern: According to The Times, the Prime Minister has been told that he must uphold traditional Conservative values to prevent core Conservatives from abandoning him for Nigel Farage.

Paul Coleman at Christian Post: Arguments offered in support of the British Government’s push to redefine marriage illustrate the illogical foundation on which the endeavor rests. In fact, the government’s own arguments show the true danger that marriage will face if those trying to redefine it are successful.

First Post: The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saw ministers expressing differing views on the clause which seeks to provide a share to a woman in her husband’s residential property, including inherited and ‘inheritable’ premises, in case of divorce, sources said.

Robert Zaretsky at the NY Times: Tocqueville and Gay Marriage

But why does Catholicism wield such influence in a country where scarcely 5 percent of the population attends church? In their new book, “Le Mystère français,” Emmanuel Todd and Hervé Le Bras map out the persistence of a Catholic mentality in large parts of France despite the withering of religious practice. This “zombie Catholicism,” they observe, reveals itself in professional and domestic differences between husbands and wives, community and family activities, and the vitality of “free schools” (Catholic private schools).

Christian Institute: Yesterday, over 300 local voters protested outside David Cameron’s constituency office in Witney, Oxfordshire, against his plans to redefine marriage.

Christian Institute: The Conservative Party faces losing hundreds of seats at the local elections tomorrow because of the Prime Minister’s plans to redefine marriage, according to a new poll. The survey also shows that many voters are turning to UKIP over the issue.

BBC: A Sinn Fein motion calling on the Northern Ireland Executive to legislate to allow for same sex marriage has been defeated in the assembly by 53 votes to 42.

AP: Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has fired his justice minister, who made comments alleging Germans may be experimenting on Polish embryos from in vitro fertilization procedures

Christian Institute: The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is calling on MLAs to vote against a motion supporting same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland on Monday.

Times of London: Police fought running battles with protesters in central Paris last night after the French parliament approved legislation authorising same-sex couples to marry and to adopt children.

Christian Institute: Same-sex marriage has been legalised in France, under the most unpopular president since the 1950s according to a new poll. Yesterday the socialist-majority National Assembly voted 331-225 in favour of gay marriage and adoption, despite massive public unrest about the issue.

Washington Blade: The Colombian Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples couples in the South American country. Senators opposed the proposal by an 51-17 vote margin a day after they debated it.

Pink News: A court ruling in Rio de Janeiro means that the state is the 11th in Brazil to recognise same-sex marriages, although there are conflicting reports about the way that the judgement will be applied.

AP: Tuesday’s 331-225 vote came in the Socialist majority National Assembly.

Telegraph: Not so in France, where it’s turned incredibly French. It’s surprising to discover that, in a country with a proud tradition of secularism and political liberalism, only a slight majority of Frenchmen support the bill to legalise gay marriage that faces the National Assembly on Tuesday – and opinion is evenly split on a parallel bill to let gay people adopt children. More remarkable still has been the scale of the opposition’s street protests: the largest drew 340,000 to Paris in a demonstration of popular will normally associated with the Left. This has received very limited coverage in the European and American mainstream media, where there also seems to be a veritable blackout about the state’s violent response.

Reuters: Chanting “We don’t want your law, Hollande!”, some 50,000 protesters massed behind a banner reading: “All born of a Mum and a Dad” and said it was undemocratic to bring about such a fundamental social change without holding a …

LifeSiteNews: 77 people changed the institution of marriage in New Zealand from a conjugal union with the potential for generating children and providing them with the nurture of their own mother and father into “a union of 2 people regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity” with the potential for systematically depriving children of their mother or father, or both. All in the name of “love”. Starting in August.

Independent: Scuffles broke out in the French parliament in the early hours of as right-wing opposition to a gay marriage law becomes increasingly strident and ill-tempered.

Christian Institute: A motion supporting same-sex marriage will be debated in the Northern Ireland Assembly later this month – despite MLAs rejecting a similar move in October last year.

Christian Institute: Plans to redefine marriage have “thrown up so many unforeseen difficulties and inequalities” that they should be dropped by David Cameron, Ann Widdecombe has said.

Christian Institute: People feel forced to say they agree with gay marriage because campaigners have created a society where disagreement is “abnormal” according to an atheist commentator.

LifeSiteNews: Since last Friday, public demonstrations against same-sex “marriage” and adoption in France have been escalating, not only in Paris but also in remote provincial towns and even abroad among French expatriates. The Senate’s approval of the gay marriage bill (known as the “loi Taubira,” after the Justice Minister that proposed the text to the legislature) has sparked off a wave of anger, and groups of determined young people all over the country have decided to make their presence felt.

AP: Hundreds of jubilant gay-rights advocates celebrated at New Zealand’s Parliament on Wednesday as the country became the 13th in the world and the first in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage.

Reuters on Yahoo News: Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois told a meeting of French bishops the planned marriage reform, which the government has speeded up amid mounting pressure from opponents, was a sign that society had lost its capacity to integrate different views.

LifeSiteNews: Nearly two years after sportscaster Damian Goddard was fired by Rogers Communications, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed his complaint in which he alleged that he was fired because he had publicly voiced support for the traditional definition of marriage.

NDTV.com: New Zealand is poised to become the first Asia-Pacific nation to legalise same-sex marriage in a parliamentary vote that gay rights advocates on Tuesday hailed as a milestone for equality.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: The constitutional convention backs the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples, the Irish Times reports. With this decision, Ireland seems set to join the fold of countries that want to destroy the institution of marriage by re-defining it beyond recognisability. But it could still be prevented, as a popular referendum will be needed.

Bloomberg: An anti-gay-marriage protest in Paris yesterday turned into a lightning rod for anger over President Francois Hollande’s economic policies.

AFP: France’s National Assembly decided Monday to bring forward the final vote on France’s gay marriage bill to April 23, raising the prospect of more mass demonstrations by opponents in the coming days.

The Age: Larousse, the authoritative French dictionary, has infuriated right-wing MPs after it altered its definition of marriage to a union of “two persons” rather than “between man and woman”.

AP: The French Senate voted Friday to legalize same-sex marriage in France, putting a landmark bill on track to become law by summer.

Wall Street Journal: Uruguayan lawmakers voted to legalize gay marriage, making the South American country the third in the Americas to do so after Canada and Argentina.

The Drudge Report has linked to this InfoWars report: Photo of Gay Man Who Walked Through Muslim Suburb of Paris With Boyfriend Causes Shock.

Reportedly, the victim was in a French Muslim neighborhood known for criminal activity. Yet, many are attempting to blame the crime on those who oppose marriage redefinition. See, e.g, reports on Google News.

Boston Globe: Uruguay’s lawmakers were debating Wednesday night whether to legalize gay marriage.

Guardian: The Church of England has ruled out offering blessings to same-sex couples, insisting that such public gestures belong only to heterosexual marriage.

UPI: A key article of a bill that would allow same-sex unions in France cleared the Senate on a 179-157 vote following 10 hours of floor debate.

Christian Institute: Unnamed Tory MPs have said they are being blackmailed by the Chief Whip for voting against gay marriage. The MPs say their expenses records are being used to “bully” and “victimise” them because they failed to support the Government’s unpopular policy.

BBC: A prominent gay rights activist has been arrested in Zambia after appearing on a live television calling for same-sex relations to be decriminalised.

UKSC Blog: One reason for the absence of legal contest over these issues in the UK is the lack of a mechanism for constitutional challenge to the validity of laws. The powers of parliament not being limited by a written constitution, there has traditionally been no way of testing the propriety of laws against general principles. However, things are slowly changing.

Christian Institute: Legal action could be used to force same-sex marriage on Northern Ireland, according to two groups that back gay marriage.

Catholic Culture: By a 23-8 vote, Uruguay’s senate has approved same-sex marriage. The nation’s lower house, which approved a different same-sex marriage bill, is expected to vote in favor of the senate version, and President José Mujica, an atheist and former guerrilla leader who was elected in 2010, has said he will sign it.

Boston Globe: France’s upper house of parliament has begun debating a bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children, weeks after the divisive reform was passed in the lower house.

Christian Institute: Over two thirds of Christians feel part of a victimised minority and David Cameron is making that worse by redefining marriage, the Coalition for Marriage says. In a new poll commissioned by the group, almost eight in ten said the Prime Minister’s same-sex marriage plan will lead to those who back traditional marriage facing the sack.

Zambia Daily Mail: What Zambians find unacceptable is the new surge, influenced by foreign cultures, to make what is considered unnatural and abhorrent look right and to be accommodated as a human right. For sure, African societies refuse to grant legitimacy to what is regarded as anti-social and unnatural acts. In this, they are fortified by the Christian or Muslim teachings, describing homosexuality as an abomination.

Christian Concern: One of Britain’s most influential family lawyers has attacked the Coalition’s same-sex ‘marriage’ plans, saying they go against principles established for thousands of years. Baroness Butler-Sloss said plans to redefine marriage would lead to the destruction of the meaning of marriage without giving same sex couples any significant new rights.

Buzz Feed: Key votes on same-sex couples’ marriage rights are scheduled within days in Uruguay and Colombia.

C-FAM: In the current case before the Court on Proposition 8, which will decide whether the people of California were within their rights to place man-woman marriage in the California Constitution, claims of evolving international standards are being made.

LifeSiteNews: A small breakaway church group has been banned from using a meeting room at a hotel in Aberdeen over their opposition to same-sex “marriage” and homosexual activity. The Gilcomston church were turned away from the Copthorne Hotel, where they were to hold their first communion service on March 10th , the Christian Institute reports.

Religion Clause Blog: The Prime Minister said that the government also has a mandate to legislate civil unions.

NBC: Paris riot police fought back crowds who pushed their way onto Paris’ landmark Champs-Elysees avenue as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

Oakville.com: ”Groups like the U.S.-based Alliance Defending Freedom, says Paradis, have established a foothold in Europe to advocate strongly against abortion and LGBT rights.“The problem for national LGBT activists is that if they raise the human rights argument that has been so powerful in America, it gets thrown back in their faces — ‘You are just part of the western world, forcing outside values on us,’” she says.

LifeSiteNews: A total of 107,000 signatures have been collected for a petition that will be brought by campaigners to the Finnish parliament asking the Nordic country to install “gay marriage,” including adoption rights.

After addressing the meeting as being of RLP in Turkey and also bring a panel with the facts about the Civil Liberties fundamental for the world, (the example of Cuba, Venezuela, Pakistan, Presbyterian missionaries arrested in Senegal, among other news) , the Program Radio ANAJURE in the day received its second journalist correspondent LifeSiteNews, Matthew Hoffman, and Dr. Piero Tozzi (ADF / USA) who discussed errors and successes of the movement pro-life and pro-family in the U.S. and Brazil.

Christian Institute (includes video): The politician who masterminded the gay marriage campaign in Holland says that ‘group marriage’ is now being discussed in the country.

Christian Institute: The Scottish Government consultation looking into the details of its Bill to redefine marriage closes today. Respond here. Members of the public have until 5pm today to respond to questions on the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill.

Leicester Mercury: In November, there will be a vote in the European Parliament on the Stockholm Program which compels member states to recognise and uphold the “effect of civil status documents of another EU state”. The report deals with the issue of cross-border harmonisation within the European Union and implies an EU-wide de facto recognition of same-sex marriage.

YLE.fi:A drive to gather the 50,000 signatories required to take a gender-neutral marriage bill to parliament reached its target in just one day. The accumulation of the required support means that lawmakers must now consider a bill which was previously blocked at the committee stage.

Christian Institute: A church in Aberdeen was blocked from holding a Sunday service in a hotel function room because of the church’s beliefs about sex and marriage.

Telegraph: The laws on Royal succession should be changed to deal with the children of a lesbian Queen in a gay marriage who conceives using donor sperm, the House of Lords has heard.

Christian Institute: The Government said yesterday it will think about the need to protect public sector chaplains who disagree with its plans to redefine marriage.

Christian Institute: The Government’s Bill to redefine marriage has taken a new twist, with an amendment tabled to allow heterosexual couples to have civil partnerships instead of marriage. But supporters of traditional marriage say it will further undermine marriage, and it shows the Government has opened a Pandora’s Box which they can’t control.

SMH.com.au: Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott are to be placed under renewed pressure to support gay marriage rights with the Greens intent on making the popular reform a key election issue.