The Iona Institute ~ for Religion and Society
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The Iona Blog
Opinions contained in The Iona Blog are not necessarily those of The Iona Institute. The Iona Blog is open to anyone who broadly shares the views of The Iona Institute. If you wish to post a comment on a relevant topic please email 200 – 400 words to info@ionainstitute.ie and it will be considered for inclusion in the blog.
New poll shows support for same-sex marriage
~A new poll in The Irish Independent today shows a clear majority of the public are in favour of same-sex marriage. Sixty-one percent say they back ‘State recognition of same-sex marriages’, with 27 percent opposed. However, this support is likely to be very soft and would change rapidly in a referendum campaign. Read more...
Eamon Gilmore and religion: what he should have been asked
~The other day Eamon Gilmore was asked point-blank by a voter whether Ireland is ready for an atheist Taoiseach. His answer, in summary, was that religion is a private matter. Read more...
A Guardian writer who sees the uniqueness of traditional marriage
~The Guardian website is the not the first place you would expect to see an acknowledgement of the uniqueness of traditional marriage. In fact, it's probably one of the last places you'd look. But this blog by Guardian political writer Michael White makes exactly that point. Read more...
Easier access to Morning-After-Pill does not reduce rate of unwanted pregnancy
~Incredibly, and without any debate whatever, a new brand of the Morning-After-Pill, or ‘Emergency Birth Control’, has been made available in Irish pharmacies, without prescription, and to any age group. Read more...
Where the parties stand on family, marriage, education
~With the general election campaign in full swing, voters for whom marriage, religious education and freedom of conscience are important issues need to inform themselves on the stances of the main parties on these issues. Read more...
Why French supreme court found ban on same-sex marriage does not breach equality
~A couple of weeks ago France’s equivalent of the Supreme Court found that the country’s ban on same-sex marriage did not violate the French Constitution. Vitally, it found that the principle of equality wasn’t breached because the State is entitled to treat different situations in different ways. Read more...
Failing to ask the tough questions
~Writing in The Irish Independent last week, former chief economist for the Central Bank, Tom O’Connell, said one of the reasons no-one shouted ‘stop’ during the property boom is that the boards of the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator were stuffed with people who didn’t ask the hard questions. Read more...
The People’s Commissar for Enlightenment goes mainstream
~Before becoming Prime Minister, David Cameron had many good things to say about marriage and the family. Since becoming PM, however, he has been disappointing in this regard. It is said this is because his Chancellor doesn’t care whether marriage is promoted or not, and his coalition partner, Nick Clegg is actively hostile. Read more...
The most religious people are the most charitable
~Aggressive atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and their media enablers like to claim that religion is “dangerous”, that it spreads prejudice and leads to societal division. Religion can have these effects, as can other ideologies and philosophies, including atheism, but there is lots of evidence to knock down such claims Read more...
The EU's Family Platform is selectively judgemental
~The Family Platform is an EU body with a brief to review and research the situation of the family across the EU and recommend policy. The other day, it issued a major new report called ‘Foresight Report: Facts and Precondition of Wellbeing of Families’. As might be expected, the document is shot through with politically correct presuppositions about the family. Read more...
Does it matter if you go home with the wrong baby?
~The BBC reports today about two Brazilian women who each gave birth to a baby boy in the same hospital but were sent home with the wrong child. The BBC calls it “every mother’s nightmare”. The mistake came to light a year later and the women swapped their children following a court order. Read more...
US passports will refer to mothers and fathers after all
~The US State Department has rowed back on its controversial decision to remove the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from passports and replace them with ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B’. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (pictured) presumably ordered the pull back to avoid the political damage that would presumably have resulted. Read more...
Civil Registrars and conscience: one gay rights supporter’s compromise
~Under the Civil Partnership Act, a civil registrar can go to prison for up to six months for refusing to officiate at a same-sex civil partnership ceremony on conscientious grounds. A court in Saskatchewan this week took a more nuanced approach than our Government. So did gay rights supporter, John Culhane. Read more...
Iona director debates surrogate motherhood on RTE’s Spirit Level
~Iona Institute director, David Quinn, appeared on RTE’s The Spirit Level on Sunday to debate the ethics of surrogate motherhood and Assisted Human Reproduction more generally. The debate takes place near the beginning of the show and lasts about 15 minutes. Read more...
What one mother will tell her donor-conceived child about his father
~What does a mother tell her child when she has conceived that child via donor sperm, that is, when she has deliberately decided to raise her child alone and without a father? Read more...
Another study finds that religious people have more children
~Last March The Iona Institute hosted a talk by Dr Eric Kaufmann entitled “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?” Based on his book of the same name, Dr Kaufmann's thesis was that, as religious believers tend to have more children, the future of Europe, and the West generally, was likely to be more religious, not less, over the long-term. Read more...
The Taoiseach on religious freedom
~Taoiseach Brian Cowen made some warm remarks about the Pope's message for World Day of Peace last week, echoing his call for the protection of religious freedom. Mr Cowen said that he welcomed “the focus of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on the question of freedom of religion in his message for World Peace Day”. Read more...
Some thoughts on the age of consent
~In recent weeks the issue of the age of consent for sexual activity has twice come up in different guises. First it was the Irish Times lending its weight to proposals by the Law Reform Commission to reduce the age at which minors can access the Pill without parental knowledge to 14 Read more...
Sean has two dads, one mum, and another adult with ‘access’
~Among the other proposals found in the new document of the Law Reform Commission called ‘Report on Legal Aspects of Family Relationships’, is one that would pave the way for the one child having three or more legal parents. Read more...
Unmarried men and the Law Reform Commission
~The Law Reform Commission issued a new paper on family law yesterday and needless to say it would propel us in a still more liberal direction that could only further undermine the social institution proven to be of most benefit to children, namely marriage. Read more...
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