Tag Archives: Global: Marriage and Family

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.

Education News: Teachers are to be issued with a guide on how to deal with ‘sexting’ – the sharing of explicit photos or videos through mobile phones and the internet.

AP: Britain’s fertility regulator says it has found broad public support for in vitro fertilization techniques that allow babies to be created with DNA from three people for couples at risk of passing on potentia

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 Post: A Pakistani court has annulled the forced marriage of a 14-year-old Christian girl to her Muslim abductor

ABC: Puerto Rico’s government is supporting an effort to overturn a ban on gay adoption in the U.S. island territory.

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.

Christian Institute: The Government is considering turning a 700-year-old Parliament chapel into a multi-faith space, so that same-sex weddings can be conducted there if marriage is redefined.

Christian Institute: A local council has been accused of trying to edge out school chaplains, with its Deputy Leader wanting to keep out chaplains who back traditional marriage. Scottish Borders Council Deputy Leader Catriona Bhatia raised concerns about chaplains who may be “anti-gay marriage”.

LifeSiteNews: The UK is ‘woefully under-prepared for the social and economic challenges presented by an ageing society, a House of Lords committee has warned this week.

NY Times: So Ms. Hernández was more than a little tickled when she became the first transgender person to be elected to public office in Cuba, a country whose government once viewed homosexuality as a dangerous aberration and, in the 1960s, packed gay men off to labor camps.

LifeSiteNews: A controversial bill that would add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to Canada’s Human Rights Act and Criminal Code will face the vote in the House of Commons this Wednesday. Critics say that if passed, Bill C-279 will effectively abolish society’s understanding of male and female.

MTPRNews: A bill to remove a state law criminalizing homosexual sex continues its path through the legislature.

LifeSiteNews: [Bishop Jean Laffitte, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family] . . . affirmed what many in the pro-family movment have long believed, that the push for “gay marriage” is not coming exclusively from homosexual lobbyists, but from a more sinister international cadre of highly placed secularist social engineers seeking a radical alteration of the foundational ideas of Western Civilization.

LifeSiteNews: Americans fighting for the defense of marriage here at home have much to learn from the French. The French pro-marriage movement has forced a national conversation on the redefinition of marriage. They’ve flipped public opinion on same-sex marriage: A majority is now opposed to it. And they’ve built support with the general public and attracted many people who are neither conservative nor religious. So how did they do it?

The New American: Alan Sears, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, called Pope Francis “a leader who has stood strongly for the values of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, marriage, and the family, often under very trying circumstances. We appreciate his many strong statements over the years on the protection of marriage and the unborn, and trust he will continue to be a powerful voice on the deep importance of these issues.”

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.

Christian Institute: People concerned that the Scottish Government’s plans to redefine marriage do not adequately protect free speech or civil liberties, have seven days left to respond to a consultation on the issue.

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.

AP: Lawmakers supported the bill 77 to 44 in the second of three votes needed for a bill to be approved. The second vote is typically the most crucial one. The third and final vote is likely to be little more than a formality and could be taken as early as next month.

AP: The German government wants to allow women to use false names when giving birth in hospitals while still ensuring that children born this way can learn the mother’s name after turning 16.

LifeSiteNews: Boris Dittrich, the homosexual activist called the “father” of the political movement in favor of Dutch gay “marriage”, has admitted that group marriages of three or more people, is the next, inevitable logical step in the dismantling of the western world’s traditional marriage laws.

Christian Institute: The poll, conducted by ICM, found 69 per cent agreed that the Tories’ appeal could be boosted by keeping “themselves on the side of traditional families”. That number rises to 84 per cent amongst Tory supporters, but even 62 per cent of Labour and Lib Dem supporters agree.

LifeSiteNews: The Russian Orthodox Church, through its Department for External Church Relations, has issued a statement saying the same-sex “marriage” legislation in France and the UK is a “revolution in the European societies’ understanding of marriage” that will lead to the eventual collapse of those societies.

Christian Institute: The Finnish Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee has rejected a Bill to introduce ‘gender-neutral’ marriage. The committee voted 9-8 against the Bill, which means it will now not be brought before the full Parliament.

Christian Institute: One unnamed local Tory association has seen membership nose-dive from 850 to 550 largely because of gay marriage, the Daily Express reports. It follows news that big money donors have stopped giving to the party because of the Prime Minister’s obsession with the issue.

Spiegel.de: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s quiet attempts to end debate within her party on same-sex marriage are falling short, as a number of her allies in parliament consider joining an opposition-led petition to the government in favor of gay rights.

NY Post: The charter ‘opposed’ discrimination rooted in gender, race, color, creed, political belief or other grounds, with the ‘other grounds’ expected to include gay rights and equal rights for boys and girls to ascend to the throne.

FT.com: Critics say the amendments contain provisions threatening the independence of the judiciary, and potentially violating freedom of religion and the principle of separation of state and church. They narrowly define heterosexual marriage and “marriage and parent-child relationships” as the basis of the family.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: An analysis of Pew Research Center surveys reveals no signs of a marked resurgence of faith among Catholics in France, Germany, Spain and Italy – the four countries with the largest Catholic populations in Western Europe. Yet the picture facing the church is not entirely bleak. French, Italian and Spanish Catholics have reported low but relatively stable levels of religious commitment in recent years. In Germany, too, the overall trend in religious commitment has been fairly stable over the past decade, despite short-lived shifts in the importance German Catholics place on religion.

Altmedia.net.au: With increasing attention brought to polyamorous relationships by members of of the Liberal Party, a formalised Polyamory Action Lobby (PAL) has been founded to combat the image of poly people as relationship bogeymen.

AP: Government statistics in South Sudan show half the girls there aged 15 to 19 are married, with some brides as young as 12 years old.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Placing women in combat is touted today by the Obama administration as its primary accomplishment on International Women Day. Inserting women into the most violent situations in the world turns a War on Women into a War With Women. US [Ambassador to the United Nations] . . .  of State Susan Rice released this statement today.

Christian Concern: Sociologist Dr Patricia Morgan issued a warning to the House of Commons that same-sex ‘marriage’ reinforces the idea that marriage is irrelevant to parenthood.

Mary Langlois at LifeSiteNews: Although the lofty treaties, speeches and other goings-on at the United Nations often seem irrelevant to parents with busy lives, it is increasingly important that we pay attention to some troubling developments that could gravely effect the lives of all U.S. citizens.

Christian Institute: Former Government Minister Ann Widdecombe is urging David Cameron to listen to his own party on the issue of same-sex marriage if he wants to stay in his position beyond the next election.

Washington Post: A lesbian whose adoption request was recently denied by Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court is appealing the ruling.

London Evening Standard: The Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister has also described himself as not an “active believer” in God, although he has said he is committed to bringing up his children in the Catholic faith. His wife is a Catholic.

Christian Newswire: World Congress of Families invites pro-family leaders, activists and scholars to join delegates from over 80 countries at World Congress of Families VII (May 15-18, 2013) at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney . . . Other distinguished speakers include: . . . Roger Kishka (Alliance Defending Freedom) . . .

AP: Germany’s foreign minister says Berlin will fight a European Union proposal to introduce mandatory quotas for the number of women on the boards of private companies.

Doug Cook at MercatorNet: Australian activists for same-sex marriage have always insisted, that it will not lead to polygamy or polyamory. Never, ever, ever. Gay marriage is just like traditional marriage, except for the sex of the spouse. Activist Rodney Croome wrote last year that “studies show most LGBTI people want to be part of a two-person marriage, while partners in polyamorist relationships (most of which begin as heterosexual unions) say they don’t want their relationships recognised as marriages.” Former Greens leader Bob Brown described a push for polyamory as “nonsense”. | Hat tip: Ruth Institute

enowned medical experts and researchers will discuss groundbreaking findings on the most important factors in saving the lives of mothers in childbirth at a policy briefing and press conference Wednesday

ABC: Poland’s first gay and transgender lawmakers will sit on the front bench in Parliament this week in reaction to hostile remarks by former president Lech Walesa.

CBC.ca: A comic book shop franchise in Ottawa is taking a stand for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights by pulling the work of a writer who publicly opposes gay marriage off its shelves.

Jerusalem Post: NRWA says ‘disappointing’ decision comes after Hamas-ruled Gaza imposed ban, run had aimed to raise funds for Gaza children.

Washington Times: Jorge Fernandez Diaz made the comments — that gay unions don’t guarantee “the survival of the species,” United Press International reported — as Spain’s highest court upheld same-sex unions as constitutional. Gay activists were outraged.

DW.de: Senior members of Merkel’s conservative party want to open up on issues related to equal rights for homosexuals. They are looking into taxing same-sex partnerships like married couples. But the party’s base is divided.

Montreal Gazette: I’m happy to see that Quebec has launched a campaign to raise awareness and fight homophobia and transphobia. The province will run TV and radio advertisements, and also has set up a site where people can take a short survey.

LifeSiteNews: Controversy is escalating over the Manitoba NDP government’s proposed anti-bullying law, which would force schools – including independent religious schools – to accommodate homosexual student clubs under the name gay-straight alliance (GSA).

Christian Concern: Christian police chaplain has been forced out of his position after expressing his views on the Government’s proposals to introduce same-sex ‘marriages’ on his personal website.

Christian Institute: The controversial push to redefine marriage is one of the reasons the Conservatives came third in yesterday’s important by-election, critics say.

NY Times: Gay rights have quickly emerged in Germany as a campaign issue in this parliamentary election year, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats struggling to catch up to changing attitudes among voters on issues like gay marriage and adoption.

Christian Institute: Conservative chairmen in Surrey and Gloucestershire have become the latest to resign over the Party’s highly controversial push for same-sex marriage.

Christian Institute: Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon risks losing her Holyrood seat if the SNP continues to press ahead with plans to redefine marriage, a former Party activist has said.

Independent.ie: “A transgender dentist is to launch a fresh legal challenge for a new birth certificate recognising her female gender.”