Tag Archives: Global: Marriage and Family

The Courier-Mail: THE national legislature will on Monday become the Pink Parliament with a total of four gay marriage bills being up for consideration.

Friday Fax: C-Fam: Last week UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told African nations to repeal criminal laws that sanction homosexual conduct and to stop discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

JURIST: The Parliament of Uganda [official website] on Tuesday reintroduced legislation that would criminalize certain homosexual activities.

Catholic Culture: The nation’s constitutional court has not yet ruled on an appeal that claims the 2005 law is unconstitutional.

The Guardian: General Synod puts off split over ordination of female prelates by delaying legislation for fine tuning until final approval in July.

The Christian Institute: Nearly two thirds, 60 per cent, of the public think that the curbs should be scrapped.

Christian Concern: Andrea Minichiello Williams spoke to the General Synod today (6 Feb), challenging the Church of England to take a stand for traditional marriage before it is too late.

Asia Times Online: Now we know that computers don’t help children learn and that drugs don’t help them concentrate, because the establishment mandarins who sold us the computers and drugs have conceded failure. In the January 29 New York Times, [1] a prominent professor of child development shows that attention-deficit-disorder drugs only harm the three million children who take them. One out of 10 American children have been diagnosed with so-called Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and most of them have been medicated. [2] Some months ago, the Times reported that test scores lagged in school districts that invested massively in digital education.

Religion Clause: Authorities in Gothenburg have formally notified the Namdars that they will be fined the equivalent of $2400 (US) per week if they do not enroll their children in a Swedish school by Feb. 1.

Christian Concern: A culture of sexual license and promiscuity in the UK is costing the taxpayer approximately £100 billion per year, according to findings by the Jubilee Centre. In a paper entitled “Free sex: Who pays? Moral hazard and sexual ethics” . . .

BBC News: Labour’s Johann Lamont, the Tories’ Ruth Davidson, the Lib Dems’ Willie Rennie and Scottish Green Patrick Harvie are united on the issue.

NYTimes.com: The young Afghan woman gave birth to a third girl three months ago — to a husband, the authorities say, who had been demanding a boy.

The Christian Institute (includes video): Marriage must remain a union between one man and one woman, the Archbishop of York has warned.

Christian Concern: Girls as young as nine are being forced to marry in mosques in Islington, according to the findings of a leading women’s rights group.

Andrew Brown at the Guardian.co.uk: In the end, the church may have to choose between communion and establishment. Sentamu has often, loudly, and rightly defended “Britishness” and British traditions. And if it comes to a choice between the Anglican Communion and the Church of England, British history, and British tradition, would then demand that the Anglican Communion be told, politely, to go away and commune with itself: that the archbishop of Lagos has no more jurisdiction in this country than the bishop of Rome.

News from The Associated Press: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says African nations should stop treating gays as “second-class citizens, or even criminals”.

CBC News (includes video): A Montreal couple and their son were convicted Sunday of first-degree murder in the deaths of four family members in a case the judge called “despicable,” “heinous” and stemming from “a completely twisted concept of honour.”

The Guaridan The Observer: Viola Caon left her Italian home to find work. Now she returns to see how her former classmates are faring… and in the week that shocking figures showed how badly Europe’s youth is being hit by the unemployment crisis, we also talk to hard-hit twentysomethings in Athens and Madrid . . .

Turtle Bay and Beyond: A recent oped advocating for US ratification prompted ParentalRights.org president Michael Farris to warn of renewed calls for President Obama to move to ratify before November.

The Christian Institute: The Government is set to stop men who are married to multiple women from claiming extra benefits payments. Last year it emerged that the number of polygamous relationships among British Muslims is increasing.

LifeSiteNews.com: The petition was begun in response to a new initiative by French socialists, who are promising voters to institute homosexual “marriage” if they are chosen in the upcoming presidential elections.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 5:50 mins

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on the Zeb Bell Show. | MP3 audio 17:10 mins

C-Fam Friday Fax: Hungarian leaders have passed a law protecting the traditional family, defying ongoing criticism that their new constitution would curtail abortion and homosexuality.

The Christian Institute: David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham in London, backed the right of parents to smack their children and criticised those who claim it is abuse, commenting: “There’s a big difference between abuse and parenting.”

The Christian Institute: A pagan woman who lives with her lover and his wife, but denies it is a polygamous arrangement, has won a ‘right to family life’ immigration case.

Acipresna.com: (translated to English from Spanish by Google): Reassess and highlight the values ​​of family inspires a genuine human development is one of the conclusions of the International Symposium entitled “Why go for the family ? ” held on 18 January in the city of Chiclayo, a city in northern Peru . . . The symposium, organized by the Family Grows (CreceFam), was attended by Dr. Piero Tozzi, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund of the United States, which addressed the theme of “family status in the global context.”

Turtle Bay and Beyond – International Law, Policy, and Institutions: For years and years, the European Commission has been funding the activities of ILGA-Europe, a homosexualist lobby that, under the pretext of “fighting discrimination”, actually promotes a radical agenda and notoriously maintains close links to groups promoting pedophilia. Although this wasn’t exactly kept as a state secret, it somehow has escaped the attention of the wider public.

Education News: One in five children from broken homes lose one parent from their lives for good, official figures reveal.

LifeSiteNews.com: The Mexican Supreme Court ruled this week in a 7-4 vote that the states of Jalisco and Baja California do not have a legitimate legal interest in their suit challenging Mexico City’s homosexual “marriage” law, which also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.

Telegraph: Ministers are to bring to an end an “absurd” benefits regime which has seen husbands with multiple wives able to claim extra welfare payments.

Religion Clause: Blackmore claims that Bountiful split from the U.S. based FLDS church in 2002 and that its residents make up a separate religious congregation so that income from businesses in the community should be spread for tax purposes over all the residents. Canadian tax officials, on the other hand, say that Blackmore is merely the patriarch of a large polygamous family

News from The Associated Press: South Africa’s government human rights agency said Tuesday it is investigating whether the Zulu king made comments that could increase anti-homosexual sentiment in a country where gays face hatred and attacks despite liberal laws ensuring their rights.

The Christian Institute: The number of weddings taking place in the Church of England has seen its biggest annual increase for a decade.

The Christian Institute: Parliament’s biggest bar is “virtually a gay bar now”, a homosexual Labour MP has said.

The New American: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a U.S.-based conservative legal advocacy group, noted that Edholm’s recommendation comes at a time when home school families in Sweden are under severe assault. The ADF, in partnership with another U.S. group, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), has come to the legal aid of a Swedish home school family whose nine-year-old son was abducted by the Swedish government in 2009. According to an ADF press release, Swedish officials “seized the child because they believe home schooling is an inappropriate way to raise a child and insist the government should raise [him] instead, even though home-schooling was legal in Sweden at the time he was taken into custody.

Catholic Culture: An Irish Labor Party leader told the Irish Catholic that “religious ethos has no place in the educational system of a modern republic.”

Religion Clause Blog: Now according to yesterday’s Globe and Mail, Vancouver lawyer Peter Wilson has been named new special prosecutor by the British Columbia Criminal Justice Branch to look into sexual offenses against minors in the FLDS town of Bountiful. However his mandate does not include looking into polygamy charges.

Updated News: A long-standing tradition that sees some schools handing out bibles to students should be scrapped, says a P.E.I. parent.

LifeSiteNews.com: As France moves towards the next presidential election a little more than three months away, a new poll indicates that a strong majority of French citizens now support a key element in the anti-family agenda of the French left: the creation of homosexual “marriage.”

BellinghamHerald.com: From U.N. chambers to the halls of the State Department, global pressure on countries to protect the rights of homosexuals and transgender people is rising.

WorldNetDaily: The HSLDA also works with the Alliance Defense Fund to challenge such violations of parental rights. Roger Kiska, a European-based attorney working with the ADF, warned, “Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children’s education without government interference. Swedish policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children. Those standards include the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents, all of which recognize that parents have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska is an ADF attorney stationed in Europe who has brought numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights on family issues, including homeschooling. He says that the European Court of Human Rights has not been particularly supportive of homeschoolers. “The ECHR is giving aid and comfort to Sweden’s repressive home education policies. But ECHR jurisprudence and Swedish, as well as German, policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children,” Kiska said. “The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents all recognize that parents of children have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive. We are committed to working with HSLDA and others to vindicate this right. We will stand with families like the Johanssons and Himmelstrands until we win.”

Boston.com: Cuba’s first daughter says island lawmakers will consider legalizing same-sex civil unions this year.

Christian Newswire: The Home School Legal Defense Association and Alliance Defense Fund and have applied to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of one family whose child was abducted by the government in 2009 and have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of another family fined an amount equivalent to $26,000.

Radio Prague (includes audio): A woman’s right to give birth at home is back in the spotlight in the Czech Republic, as a group of pregnant women intend to file a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Czech state makes planned home births virtually impossible; there are midwives qualified to deliver babies at home, but they lack official registration and insurance companies won’t cover them.

Christian Concern: Conservative MP’s are planning what could be the biggest ever backbench rebellion faced by Prime Minister David Cameron over his stated intention to legislate for full homosexual marriage.

TheSpec: Don’t expect to find any gay-straight alliances in the city’s Catholic schools — at least, not any groups that go by that name. “We commend any initiatives and efforts to reduce bullying,” said Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board chair Pat Daly

ADF, HSLDA say changes would violate int’l legal standards on human rights

Doctors Lounge: In the study in the January issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 78 teens with lesbian mothers living in the United States took an online survey about their quality of life. The researchers compared these with surveys completed by teens with heterosexual parents. | Study available for purchase online – abstract here.

MaltaToday.com.mt: GRM to present political parties with position paper on legal framework for gay marriages.

Guardian.co.uk: Last year the Church of England published a legal opinion that makes it quite clear that it believes it is legal to discriminate against John, not because he is gay, since he is also celibate, but because he is not in the least bit ashamed of being gay. That is what sticks in the craw of the conservative evangelicals who oppose him.

The Christian Institute: The former head of the Scottish Conservative Party has told constituents he will not be supporting the redefinition of marriage. Edinburgh MSP David McLetchie . . .

National Post: The Harper government is working quickly to change the law so that the marriages of the thousands of gay couples who travel to Canada to wed are legally recognized in this country. “We want to make it very clear that in our government’s view, these marriages should be valid,” a senior government official told Postmedia News on Friday.

LifeSiteNews.com: European Union officials are making their disapproval of Hungary’s recent constitutional changes felt by threatening to withhold financial support if it does not remove its new amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, according to one Hungarian source.

ADF Attorney Benjamin Bull Townhall : While we sit in our soft chairs watching big screen TVs and complaining that microwave popcorn takes too long to cook, activists backing the homosexual agenda relentlessly march on. Availing themselves of avenues that are notably left of center, both culturally and politically, they incrementally pursue and secure special treatment under the guise of “rights” and “equality.” And while we’ve seen this happen at many levels of government—both state and national—we err greatly if we fail to see the inroads being made on an international level as well.

A report says the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Canada has served notice that thousands of same-sex couples who flocked to Canada from abroad since 2004 to get married are not legally wed.

Religion Clause: Now however in the town of Morinville where all public schools are operated by the Greater St. Albert Catholic schools, it is the Catholic school board that is the subject of parental complaints about the ability to opt out. At least 5 non-Catholic parents have filed complaints with the Alberta Human Rights Commission claiming that their non-Catholic children were forced to receive religious instruction, without the ability to opt out.

Daily Mail: Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.

Ceskapozice.cz (report contains graphic birthing images): Czech law unfairly denies coverage for homebirths, insurers don’t reimburse cost of hiring midwives, say women filing suit at ECtHR

The Christian Institute: Writing in the online edition of Xtra Vancouver, Robin Perelle blasted parents with traditional beliefs saying “your outdated morals are no longer acceptable, and we will teach your kids the new norms”.

The Washington Post: Activists launched a rare legal case Tuesday aimed at fostering gay rights in Malaysia by challenging a police ban on an anti-homophobia arts festival.

LifeSiteNews.com: A campaign waged by homosexuals in Spain to suppress a book about reparative therapy for homosexuality has backfired, generating media coverage that has drawn new attention to the formerly ignored work.

LifeSiteNews.com: In his first public statement since controversy broke last year, the Winnipeg Catholic school principal who was fired in November after promoting the 40 Days for Life campaign argues that he was used as a “scapegoat” by Church and school leaders to escape negative media attention.

Religion Clause: In 2007, the Australian government began offering schools up to $20,000 per year to fund chaplaincy services.

MercatorNet: It is not the time — or the place — for the Conservative Party to legislate for same-sex marriage

News from The Associated Press: Forty-two percent of children in India younger than 5 are underweight and nearly 60 percent are stunted, a new survey found.

The Christian Institute: More British children are being raised by single parents because the tax and benefit system “encourages transient shack-ups”.

Reuters: Pope Benedict said Monday that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined “the future of humanity itself.”

Turtle Bay and Beyond – International Law, Policy, and Institutions: Currently, USAID is now in the process of creating briefs such as the “Human Rights Considerations in Addressing HIV among Men who Have Sex with Men” and funding related programs in accordance with the Presidential directive.

Turtle Bay and Beyond – International Law, Policy, and Institutions: It was predictable that Spain’s parliamentary elections last November would end in victory for Spain’s conservative People’s Party after the abject failure of the Spanish Socialist Party in combating rising unemployment and languid economic growth during the economic crisis.

LifeSiteNews.com: ILGA is an advocacy group promoting homosexual rights. They were notoriously denied UN accreditation for years because of their connection to groups that promote pedophilia.

CBC News: Scientists at the University of Turin and the University of Manchester say they have developed a new method to analyze personality differences between the sexes, which suggests the differences are much greater than previously thought.

LifeSiteNews.com: A referendum initiated by the Slovenian Civilian Initiative for Family and the Rights of Children (CIFRC) challenging the Slovenian Family Code adopted in June 2011, which gives same-sex couples the right to ‘marriage’ and adoption of children, was approved by the Slovenian Constitutional Court on December 27, 2011.

Fox News Latino: Cancun and other resort areas on the Mexican Caribbean will have a new attraction for gay and lesbian couples from the United States, Canada and Europe, allowing them to legalize their unions thanks to a quirk in the local civil code, activist Patricia Novelo told Efe.