Tag Archives: Global: Marriage and Family

Interfax: “Representatives of the Russian gay community intend to continue demanding that the Moscow administration allow their rallies, Moscow gay pride parade organizer Nikolay Alexeyev told Interfax.”

“For the first time there are more single Canadian adults than married Canadians, a new report says. Canadians are also working longer hours, and spending less time with their families — and the families they have are less likely to be the traditional nuclear family.”

Pink Paper: “The unicameral Chamber of Deputies of the Mexican state of Baja California, voted 18-1 to amend the state constitution to prohibit recognition of same-sex marriages.”

Zenit: “Benedict XVI is urging the bishops of Europe to work for the defense of the family and human life, and to fight against intolerance and discrimination of Christians.”

Yahoo (AFP): “A Pakistani woman has died in Italy after her husband beat her with a brick for opposing the arranged marriage of her daughter, triggering a wave of outrage among Italian politicians on Monday.”

The Christian Institute: “Homosexuals and bisexuals should be portrayed more frequently and more authentically on the BBC, according to a controversial new report commissioned by the broadcaster. However, the report also revealed that almost one in five viewers is either ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘very uncomfortable’ with homosexual scenes.”

Eugene Volokh writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “This apparently happened in July, but I only heard about it a few weeks ago. Here is part of a summary from an advocacy group, the European Centre for Law and Justice: . . . ‘The media group was fined 100,000 Euros for airing a promotional advertisement in defense of traditional family.’”

LifeSiteNews: “Already dubbed ‘Red Ed’ by the media, Edward Miliband, the newly elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party, has indicated his intention of continuing the anti-family and anti-life policies established for the party under former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.”

Business Day: “Up to 40,000 Nigerian girls are being forced to work as prostitutes in Mali ‘slave camps’, Nigerian officials have said. The girls have often been promised jobs in Europe but ended up in brothels in the capital or mining towns, said the government’s anti-trafficking agency. The brothels are run by older Nigerian women who prevent them from leaving and take all their earnings.”

The Moscow News: “Following Yury Luzhkov’s dismissal, gay activists have been allowed to stage a demonstration. On Oct. 1 they will picket Swissair, the airline that removed Gay Pride organiser activist Nikolai Alexeyev from their flight as he tried to go to Geneva before he was reportedly abducted and harassed by police.”

allAfrica.com: “Archbishop elect, Onesphore Rwaje, who is set to succeed Anglican Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini in January, 2011, has vowed to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps by taking a firm stand against homosexuality.”

Iona Institute: “Guidelines to Catholic schools on how best to integrate students of other faiths have been issued by the Joint Managerial Body/Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools (JMB/AMCSS). Among the recommendations is that, depending on the number of students of other faiths in the school, a decision should be made as to whether a prayer room is specifically a Catholic place of worship or welcome to those of all faiths.”

Scotsman.com: ” . . . [Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon] said: ‘This legislation is not striking at arranged marriages which are an established part of Muslim culture where there’s consent on both sides.’”

ABC News: “An amendment to Tasmania’s Relationship Act was passed unopposed in the state’s Upper House, meaning marriages performed in countries where it’s legal will now be recognised in Tasmania.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Egyptian Supreme Administrative Court has issued a decision requiring Orthodox Coptic Pope Shenouda III to pay damages of approximately 19,500 Egyptian pounds to church member Magdi William who sued the Coptic Church over its refusal to issue a certificate to re-marry after he divorced his wife.”

For background information, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/country-egypt+global-marriage-and-family/

LifeSiteNews: “Last Monday, when the head of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales (CBEW) told a BBC interviewer that the U.K. bishops had not opposed the creation of legal civil partnerships for homosexuals, he was speaking from a longstanding policy that was published in 2005. But a source close to the CBEW has told LifeSiteNews.com that that policy was rejected by the Vatican for not being in line with Catholic teaching. The UK bishops, however, have implemented it without change, ignoring Vatican-mandated corrections.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “Prime Minister Julia Gillard has ruled out Labor MPs being allowed a conscience vote on a new move to allow same-sex marriage.”

Catholic News Agency: “Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City and archdiocesan spokesman, Father Hugo Valdemar, have rejected a request by the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination (NCPD) to reach a settlement with the plaintiffs who have filed a lawsuit against the clergy members for speaking out against gay ‘marriage.’”

Metro.co.uk: “The woman, known as JM, was awarded £2,550 in damages and £15,275 in costs after the European Court of Human Rights ruled there was no justification for the discrimination . . . Her child maintenance payments to her ex-husband were assessed in 2001 – but she was told a reduction if the absent parent had entered into a new relationship, whether married or not, did not apply to same-sex couples . . . ‘her maintenance obligation towards her children had been assessed differently on account of the nature of her new relationship.’”

Case of J.M. v. The United Kingdom (Application no. 37060/06)

The Christian Institute: “Critics have raised concerns about Mr Miliband’s stance on traditional marriage after he pledged last month to redefine marriage and impose it on society . . . Mr Miliband says he is ‘angry’ that there is a free speech law that allows people to express their opposition to homosexual conduct.”

Zenit: “The Holy See is stressing the necessary role of parents in the lives of their children, especially in the area of education on sexuality. This was one of the points underlined by the Holy See delegation to the 2010 U.N. World Youth Conference in Leon, which took place Aug. 23-26.”

Middle East Online: “For a generation of women left widowed or unmarried by conflict, and for a generation of men who are unwilling or unable to take them as wives, mutta has emerged as a controversial alternative to conventional wedlock. ‘Today’s youth find it harder to afford marriage and build a family,’ said Adel. ‘Mutta marriages facilitate physical relationships. They are easily available to whoever that goes looking for them.’”

Sydney Morning Herald: “When same-sex marriage is debated, many people assume it can only be brought about by the federal Parliament. They do so because marriage is regulated by the Commonwealth, not the states. This belief is misplaced. Not only can the states pass laws for same-sex marriage, but some argue the Commonwealth is unable to do so.”

LifeSiteNews (link includes relevant audio of the interview): “A day after the departure of Pope Benedict XVI from Britain, his senior archbishop, the unofficial head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, told a BBC interviewer that the English bishops had purposely refused to oppose legalizing homosexual civil partnerships . . . ‘In this country, we were very nuanced. We did not oppose gay civil partnerships. We recognized that in English law there might be a case for those. What we persistently said is that these are not the same as marriage.’”

Eurasia Review: “A group of women’s rights activists delivered a petition with five thousand signatures to the Iranian parliament urging the legislative body to ‘bar polygamy.’ ILNA reports that the petition was delivered by 40 women who called on the parliament to halt all efforts in ‘promoting temporary marriages and polygamy.’”

Bay Windows (GLBT Newspaper): “The Global Forum on MSM & HIV has called on Nepal’s Home Ministry to issue ‘third sex’ citizenship cards to transgender people in accord with a 2007 Supreme Court decision.”

The Manly Daily: “Warringah could soon follow the lead of City of Sydney Council in creating a ‘commitment register’ that would recognise both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. Cr Jason Falinski has put forward the proposal, which would allow unmarried couples to register their commitment to each other through a process managed by council.”

Telegraph: “While recognising that he was simplifying the Church’s position, Dr Williams said in an interview: ‘There’s no problem about a gay person who’s a bishop. It’s about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe.’” AP: Archbishop of Canterbury: Gay rows wounding church

The Christian Institute: “A study has shown rates of HIV in France are 200 times higher in homosexual men than amongst heterosexuals. Scientists from the French National Institute for Public Health Surveillance found that nearly half of the 7,000 people newly infected with HIV in the country in 2008 were gay men.”

Syed Tazkir Inam, Role of Supreme Court in Protection of Muslim Divorced Women (February 24, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1681527

“With the passage of time, mankind has clamoured for special privilege and treatment, and societies across the world have looked towards the courts for benevolent interventions. For this purpose sociological jurisprudence has come a long way from being a theoretical stream towards being consulted for mass reforms by the courts. The Supreme Court of India has played a major role, as the final arbiter of the Constitution. In its performance of this role the Supreme court of India has bring about equality and social change, building way for an advanced and modern outlook. The perspective has been entirely societal oriented and therefore ‘social change,’ has been made the focal point. The approach is to analyze the decisions of the Court, as the reflection of its opinion and contribution towards the attainment of this egalitarian objective. Supreme Court has even played a major role in the upliftment of the conditions of women in India through its landmark judgements.”

“Just one and a half per cent of the UK population is gay or bisexual, far lower than previous estimates suggested, the first official survey on sexual identity has revealed.”

Matthew Hoffman writing at LifeSiteNews: “The ‘culture of death’ — Pope John Paul II’s term for the international pro-abortion and anti-family movement, is now winning serious victories in Latin America. After decades of failure, the efforts of big international abortionist organizations and their well-financed proxies are increasingly converting ruling elites to their pro-death position.”

AP on Yahoo News: “French commuters squeezed onto limited trains or fought for rare parking spots Thursday as a second round of strikes against President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age to 62 hobbled trains, planes and schools across the country . . . increasing the retirement age from 60 to 62 and pushing back the age from 65 to 67 for those who want full retirement benefits.”

Courier Mail: “Intimate beauty treatments are becoming popular with girls as boyfriends demand they look like porn stars, the experts say . . . ”Everything they are watching, seeing, doing is about sex. They’re growing up in an R-rated society,” she said.”

Latin American Herald Tribune: “Puerto Rico’s gay community blames island authorities for tolerating an atmosphere of homophobia that might have encouraged the slaying of 10 of their number over the past year.”

Reuters AlertNet: “Police broke up a small protest on Tuesday and detained at least eight gay rights activists calling for the resignation of Moscow’s mayor, who is locked in a battle with the Kremlin over his job after 18 years in office.”

New York Times: “There are no statistics about how many Afghan girls masquerade as boys. But when asked, Afghans of several generations can often tell a story of a female relative, friend, neighbor or co-worker who grew up disguised as a boy. To those who know, these children are often referred to as neither ‘daughter’ nor ‘son’ in conversation, but as ‘bacha posh,’ which literally means ‘dressed up as a boy’ in Dari.”

Politics.uk: “The Liberal Democrats further cemented their distinct party political identity today with vote backing gay marriage. The motion, which passed, would allow straight couples to have civil ceremonies and gay couples to become married. It is sure to anger faith groups, coming just days after the Pope’s visit to the UK, where he spoke out against the country’s ‘aggressive secularism’.”

Ynet: “The numbers of same-sex families who adopted children has doubled during the past year, according to data published Monday by the ministry . . . Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog introduced a reform to adoption regulations, which allowed women to officially adopt the children of their partners . . . The next stage Herzog is planning will also enable male couples to officially adopt the biological child of their partner, born to a surrogate mother in Israel or abroad.”

Typically Spanish: “The judge in First Instance Court 15 in Valencia has decided to annul the entry made in the Consular Civil Registry in Los Angeles, by a Spanish gay male married couple who were registered as the parents of twins. The twins were born legally in the United States by a surrogate mother.”

On Top Magazine: “Three former Dutch colonies are preparing to introduce gay marriage and adoption laws as they come under direct Dutch rule, Radio Netherlands reported . . . The islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatitus are expected to adopt Dutch law . . . Last week, the lower house of the Dutch Parliament approved a bill to legalize gay marriage and adoption for gay and lesbian couples by 2012 in the three socially conservative islands coming under Dutch control.”

Businessweek: “German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle married his long-time partner Michael Mronz, Bild newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information.”

Interfax: “The organizer of Moscow gay pride parades, Nikolay Alexeyev, has said that he was expelled from Russia and that he is currently in Minsk.”

Boston.com (AP): “Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the Jerusalem city government to provide more than $120,000 in funding for a prominent gay community center.”

Thaddeus M. Baklinski writing at LifeSiteNews: “Chief Justice Bauman reserved judgment on the [Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association] CPAA request [to declare whether polyamorists might be prosecuted as a result of a ban on polygamy]. BC Crown Attorney Craig Jones said there is currently no legal or psychological definition of polyamory on which Bauman could base a judgment. Federal Crown Attorney Deborah Strachan said that the CPAA request is tantamount to seeking immunity from future prosecution, which would be a violation of the court’s right to prosecutorial discretion in Canada.” For more information, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/country-canada+topic-polyamory/

“Just over two-thirds of people (67 per cent) believe gay couples should be allowed to marry, according to an Irish Times /Behaviour Attitudes social poll.”

National Post: “The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and the International Federation of Fertility Societies (IFFS) said a survey of reproductive services showed wide disparities between laws and practice in many countries. As a result, patients returning home may face legal or medical problems . . . Both IFFS and ESHRE support the rights of patients to travel to receive fertility treatment, but said in a joint statement that ‘ideally, this should take place in their home country.’”

The Christian Institute: “Robert Kelly, rector at Berwickshire High School in the Scottish town of Duns, said flouting uniform rules by wearing short skirts and half-buttoned blouses would encourage inappropriate thoughts among boys. But some parents thought he was blaming girls for unwanted male attention, and he is now under investigation by the Scottish Borders Council.”

The Christian Institute: “Two thirds of parents in the UK believe children are exposed to unsuitable content on television before the watershed, a survey has shown . . . A further 80 per cent said they felt films and video games with violent or sexual themes can be accessed too easily by children.”

The Christian Institute: “Taxpayers are footing the bill for council officials to go on a ‘diversity’ course which encourages participants to go on an ‘adventure in Lesbianandgayland’. The programme, which has been attended by Brighton and Hove City Council officials, involves imagining a world where it is normal to be homosexual.”

Haaretz: “Ultra-Orthodox network that runs the Beit Yaakov girls school in Immanuel told last year t it must pay a fine of NIS 5,000 for every day they continued to violate court order requiring it to eliminate any vestige of ethnic discrimination . . . ”

Daily Mail: “Schools have wrongly labelled as many as 750,000 children as having special needs to cover up poor teaching, a damning report warns today.”

Nachrichten [modified Google Translation]: “While gay couples can [already] marry [in the registry offices] of some Thuringian[, this is generally not the rule]. Now the Parliament has given it the green light.”

Zenit: “[T]he Church sees with concern the growing attempt to eliminate the Christian concept of marriage and the family from the conscience of society. Marriage is manifested as a lasting union of love between a man and a woman, which is also directed to the transmission of human life. One of its conditions is the willingness of the spouses to relate one to the other forever. Necessary, because of this, is a certain maturity of the person and a fundamental existential and social attitude: a ‘culture of the person’ as my predecessor John Paul II once said. The existence of this culture of the person depends also on social developments.”

Interfax: “Representatives of parent organizations ask authorities to ban gay pride parade planned by sex minorities for September 16-25 in Petersburg.”

LifeSiteNews: “In the lead-up to the pope’s visit, the Catholic bishops have striven to create a positive spin on the situation of the Catholic Church in Britain, but statistics have shown dramatic drops in most indicators of Catholic life since the 1982 visit of Pope John Paul II. Most significant, particularly in the light of Pope Benedict’s emphasis on the value of marriage, has been the precipitous drop in Catholic weddings in all dioceses in the country.”

Malta Independent: “As Members of the European Parliament called for more rights for same-sex couples in Europe, gay rights activist Patrick Attard is uncertain about the proposed cohabitation law, which Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said will be enacted by the end of the year. On Tuesday night, MEPs discussed discrimination against same-sex married couples or those in civil partnerships, mutual recognition of marriages and civil partnerships by same-sex couples, as well as discrimination against same-sex couples and freedom of movement.”

The Globe and Mail: “My two-year-old daughter’s biological father died recently in an accident. The feeling of loss I have experienced in the days since has been unsettling to me, her biological mother. How can you mourn someone you’ve never even met? I am a 36-year-old lesbian. My partner of 12 years and I tried for five years before being blessed with a daughter . . . Yet we have no recourse to grieve.’”

Bloomberg: “Benedict, speaking before paying a historic visit to the U.K. later this week, said the Roman Catholic Church ‘cannot approve of legal initiatives that imply a re-evaluation of the life of the couple and the family.’ The pope, in a reference to legalized marriage among homosexuals, said such laws ‘contribute to the weakening of the principles of natural law” and to “confusion about society’s values.’”

Associated Press: “Two British men charged with making a profit by illegally making sperm available on the Internet have appeared in court . . . Prosecutors said Monday that Woodforth, 43, ran the company from the basement of his home, and the two men did not have a license to procure or distribute sperm, as required by British law.”

Sofia News Agency: “While wedding bells may be ringing daily in Cyprus, in Bulgaria it is more a case of ‘I don’t', where marriage rates are the second lowest in the Europe Union at 3.6%, Eurostat figures show.”

Pink News: “Members of the European Parliament have called for action to ensure gay couples in marriages and civil partnerships are recognised across the continent. While EU member states are required to simplify entry and residence for couples in recognised relationships and the directive does not mention gender, it does not require states to explicitly demand that countries must recognise gay couples in marriages or civil partnerships.”

LifeSiteNews: “Argentinean transvestites are objecting to new legislation proposed to create a third bathroom for their use in commercial establishments, according to local and international reports. The proposed law, advanced by councilwoman Gimena Abonassar of the city of San Martín, is intended to protect women from men who enter their bathrooms dressed as the opposite sex, an increasingly common occurrence in certain countries.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “Barnardos Australia, which has been at the forefront of child welfare for than 120 years, has embraced the legislation passed in the NSW Parliament allowing adoption by same-sex couples and will proceed with three adoptions in line with it . . . Anglicare and CatholicCare, being religious agencies, have an exemption under the act in which they can refuse adoptions by same-sex couples . . . There was a backlash yesterday from the religious right, in particular the Australian Family Association, which is campaigning against the legislation . . . The conservative upper house MP Fred Nile said he would attempt to repeal the legislation when he felt he had the support.”

Bryan Fischer writing at AFA’s Rightly Concerned: “Nicolai Sennels is a Danish psychologist who has done extensive research into a little-known problem in the Muslim world: the disastrous causes of Muslim inbreeding brought about by the marriage of first-cousins. This practice, which has been prohibited in the Judeo-Christian tradition since the days of Moses, was sanctioned by Muhammad and has been going on now for 50 generations (1,400 years) in the Muslim world.”

OneNewsNow: “The U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense group fears a U.N. treaty is causing increasing problems for home schoolers in various countries. The latest example involves four families in Botswana who have been ordered to send their children to public school.”

The Christian Institute: “Britain’s sexualised society has caused two middle-class girls to become call girls and sell their bodies to football stars, a children’s author says. Bel Mooney, writing in the Daily Mail, attacked popular culture that promotes female promiscuity as ‘empowerment’ and perpetuates the ‘happy hooker’ myth. She also warned about the ‘pornification’ of teenage boys whose attitude to sex comes from viewing pornography on the internet.”

UCanNews.com: “A Catholic priest has urged Indian religious leaders to help protect girl children following news of a man leaving his newborn in a gutter. ‘Religious leaders, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu or others,’ must provide their followers ‘with the necessary attitude and courage to save and celebrate the girl child,’ said Jesuit rights activist Father Cedric Prakash.”

Irish Central: “Father Piero Gheddo, a senior Vatican official said the low European birth rate of indigenous European’s along with the influx of Muslim migrants with large families would mean that Europe would soon be dominated by Islam . . . He said ‘If we consider ourselves a Christian country, we should return to the practice of Christian life, which would also solve the problem of empty cradles.’”

LifeSiteNews: “The Slovenian government is planning to legalize same-sex ‘marriage’ and adoption of children by same-sex couples, according to The Slovenian Civilian Initiative for Family and the Rights of Children (CIFRC).”

LifeSiteNews: “A Paraguayan city council member has drawn the wrath of the homosexualist organization Amnesty International by proposing that discussions of homosexuality be eliminated in the local media during prime time.”

Get Reading: “Labour leadership hopeful Diane Abbott made a pledge to Reading’s gay community on Saturday that she would make ‘genuine gay marriage’ a priority.”

The Sydney Morning Herald: “A bill giving same-sex couples the right to adopt has been passed by the NSW parliament, after the Legislative Council voted in support of a last-minute amendment to the legislation. The bill passed [46 in favour and 43 against] its final hurdle in the upper house just after 6.30pm (AEST) on Thursday, after MPs backed the lower house amendment.”

“Is polyamory the new gay? That’s what John Ince and the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association would have us believe . . . It’s an anything-goes kind of relationship, as long as everyone is a consenting adult, participating in a spirit of love and harmony . . . what Ince and the association want is nothing less than the sweeping legal and social reform that occurred in 1967.”

“The European Union says the number of children born out of wedlock in the 27-nation bloc has doubled over the past two decades and now accounts for over one-third of the region’s births.”