Tag Archives: Global: Marriage and Family

weden’s highest court is being asked to free an 11-year-old boy whom government officials have held in captivity for four years because his parents home-schooled him. Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association are legal advisors to the parents, who are represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights.

CNA: A group of at least 14,900 French mayors has said it will not perform “gay marriages,” even if the government moves ahead with plans to legalize the practice.

WorldNetDaily: Swedish parents Annie and Christer Johansson have launched what may be their last hope to see their son again – with an appeal to the Supreme Court of Sweden to overturn a lower court’s decision to end their parental rights over homeschooling . . . he HSLDA has been working on Domenic’s case, along with officials from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/homeschool-parents-have-1-shot-to-see-son-again/#vPLSHHFWFSdLzt1K.99

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association have asked the European Court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling their daughter.

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.

Telegraph: Churches are facing a rebellion in the pews over gay marriage, a wide-ranging study of religious attitudes on the issue suggests.

KairosFocus: At least, if we want to understand what is happening in our time as a radical and destructive secularist innovation, the homosexualisation of marriage under false colour of law, proceeds apace across the world like a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut in the name of “equality” and “rights.”

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.

Times of Zambia: Home Affairs Deputy Minister Steven Kampyongo said in an interview yesterday that the Government and Church mother bodies recently held a meeting and it was resolved that the country will not recognise any practice that abrogates the biblical, cultural and social norms of society. “We have just had a detailed consultative meeting with the church and top on the agenda was the issue of gay rights.

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.

Union Bulletin: Vietnam should legalize same-sex marriage immediately, the deputy minister of health was quoted as saying today by local media . . . The National Assembly is scheduled to discuss allowing same-sex marriage when the law is reviewed in May.

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.

The Advocate: A transgender woman in Hong Kong is asking the city’s highest court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that she cannot marry her boyfriend because she was assigned male at birth.

The New Civil Rights Movement: In 2010, Thailand was elected to a seat on the powerful United Nations Human Rights Council. Thailand had a history of abstaining from voting in favor of UN resolutions on sexual orientation and gender identity, …

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.

Education News: One of the UK’s leading Islamic organisations has warned that plans to revise the school history curriculum risk ignoring the Muslim contribution to western civilisation – an omission that will only foster alienation.The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which claims to represent more than 500 Islamic organisations, is calling for “everyone who cares about the education of British schoolchildren” to lobby the Department for Education (DfE) as the end of the consultation period on the plans looms.

Breitbart: I consider the phenomenon called feminism very dangerous,” said the powerful Patriarch Kirill in a speech delivered Tuesday and posted Wednesday on the official Russian Orthodox Church website. “Feminist organisations proclaim a pseudo-freedom of women, which should be manifested outside marriage and family.”

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.

Christian Institute: Gay rights are more important than the belief that children need both a mum and a dad, the equality regulator has suggested. But it says vegetarians do have the right to refuse to clean a fridge that may have contained meat. One MP has called the watchdog a “laughing stock” and another accused it of publishing “frivolous nonsense”.

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 Eponymous Flower: Paris is tolerant. The city was ruled by the left for a year. One thing you must not do: is to be seen walking in the city center in a public park with a hoodie that has the symbol of the mass demonstration for family and against the legalization of gay marriage.

Religion Clause Blog: In Lim Meng Suang v. Attorney General, (Singapore High Ct., April 9, 2013), a Republic of Singapore trial court refused to declare Singapore’s ban on male homosexual conduct to  be unconstitutional.

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.

Reuters: A Supreme Court case that challenges a law requiring anti-prostitution policies for HIV/AIDS programs seeking federal money has generated a split among nonprofit groups that counsel sex workers overseas.

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.

LifeSiteNews: As the French Senate is moving towards the approval of a bill to create homosexual “marriage” and adoption, pro-family Catholics are organizing daily protests on the streets outside, vowing to stay the course despite complaints from the bill’s proponents.

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.

Washington Blade (“the newspaper of record for the LGBT community.”): USAID will work with the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency, the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Institute, the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and Olivia Companies on the LGBT Global Development Partnership that will contribute $11 million over the next four years to advocacy groups in Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala and other developing countries

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.

C-FAM: The Human Rights Council set aside a resolution to protect the family as member states focused instead on a controversial resolution which could expose children to early sexualization and abortion, and would undermine the rights of parents.

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.

LifeSiteNews: A proposal by fertility researchers to “harvest” female gametes, “ova,” from the dead bodies of aborted children to create in vitro embryos in the lab has created a small buzz among the pro-life websites, blogs and Facebook in the last couple of days. But the buzz is over a story that appeared in the Daily Mail nearly ten years ago, about research that has very likely moved along considerably in that time.

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.

Catholic Culture: Metropolitan Hilarion, the Russian Orthodox Church’s chief ecumenical officer, has urged the new Archbishop of Canterbury not to support female bishops or same-sex marriage.

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.

DW.de: France has just taken a big step towards equal rights for homosexuals by allowing same-sex couples to marry. Across the EU, however, acceptance of civil partnerships varies considerably.

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.

Christian Institute: An MP has failed in an attempt to make a ban on smacking part of the Scottish Liberal Democrat’s official party policy. Edinburgh West MP Mike Crockart wanted to scrap the defence of “reasonable chastisement” that allows parents to physically discipline their children. Mr Crockart said he had smacked his own son, but now wanted to outlaw the practice.

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.

AFP on Google: The number of children born outside marriage in Europe has doubled over two decades to 40 percent, with Estonia, Slovenia and France registering almost three out of every five births out of wedlock, EU data showed Tuesday.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: The French Government’s plan to introduce same-sex “marriages” increasingly looks like the act of tyranny of a ruling class that wants to rule against, and not for, the people. But the resistance is growing.

CNSNews: As the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in two same-sex marriage cases, the approaching passage of laws legalizing same-sex marriage in New Zealand and France appear to be prompting a public opinion shift against the change.

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.

BBC: Two in five babies were born outside marriage in the EU in 2011, with numbers more than doubling since 1990, the EU’s statistics agency says.

LifeSiteNews: A recent United Nations report on torture and mistreatment in health care systems around the world singled out lack of access to abortion as a form of “torture,” classifying it as a human rights violation on par with female genital mutilation, forced sterilizations and state-sanctioned beatings.

Erika Bachiochi at Public Discourse: Both sociological evidence and the teachings of Christianity show that religion is a powerful ally for promoting the equality and dignity of women. Adapted from remarks delivered at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Christian Institute: Revd David Robertson warned that the Equality Network labels anyone who disagrees with their position as “homophobic”. Revd Robertson, who leads the SOLAS group, was responding to the £1.6 million that the Equality Network has received from the Scottish Government since 2007.

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

AP: But a national ethics council on March 12 ruled that authorizing sex surrogates would essentially “merchandise the human body” and could leave recipients emotionally vulnerable.

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.

ABC (AP): The legislation passed Wednesday by a vote of 149-137, with the crucial support of 16 Conservatives, including four cabinet ministers. Prime Minister Stephen Harper opposed the bill.

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.

Religion Clause Blog: Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church met in Rome to discuss cooperation in promoting family values, social services and care for the poor, the Moscow Patriarchate said on Wednesday.

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.

BBC: The UK has moved closer to becoming the first country to allow the creation of babies from three people.

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.

Religion Clause Blog: According to France 24, yesterday the Social Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (France’s highest court) ruled that a private nursery school discriminated on the basis of religious belief against a Muslim teacher when it fired her for refusing to remove her hijab while at work.