Tory MPs have staged the biggest rebellion in party history to vote against their own Government’s plans to legalise same-sex marriage. The final tally of vote showed that 134 Conservative MPs voted against the Bill on Tuesday night, with 22 Labour MPs also opposing the Bill. The vote is seen as a major embarassment for...
Children whose parents divorce after they turn seven are more likely to misbehave and perform badly at school, according to a new UK Government-funded study. It also showed that children who are brought up in homes where rules are enforced display strong verbal skills and are more likely to do well in school exams, the...
New Obama administration proposals concerning the Health and Human Services mandate do little to expand religious freedom protections for employers that object to it, a range of campaigners for religious liberty have warned. The mandate requires employers to fund insurance policies which provide abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilisations. Last week, the Obama administration announced its...
Families across Europe are less stable, less likely to be based on marriage and are formed later than in the past, a leading academic has told a conference on the family in Dublin Castle. Professor Juho Härkönen, a sociologist at Stockholm University, told the conference that trends across the European Union meant that families tended...
The new Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a challenge to David Cameron by insisting that marriage should remain “between a man and a woman”. In his first official day as leader of the Church of England, Rt Rev Justin Welby voiced his opposition gay marriage on the eve of the first parliamentary vote on the...
Doctors in the UK will be permitted for the first time to provide medical records to patients who want to travel abroad for an assisted suicide without being struck off , according to new guidelines. Handing over records to patients who then use them to take their own life is “too distant” from encouraging a...
British MPs have backed an amendment to the Equality Act aimed at protecting ‘conscientious beliefs on marriage’, voting 86 to 31 at the first reading of a private member’s Bill. The timing of the vote is highly significant as it comes a week before the second reading of the Government’s Same-Sex Marriage Bill. The Bill...
The welfare state cannot go on doing the job it has done for the past 70 years and the Church should take on some of its role, the Archbishop-elect of Canterbury has said. Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, said the financial crisis and a series of scandals had “toppled the idols” on which...
The genetic parents of twin girls born to a surrogate have rejected the Government’s claim that a birth mother should be the only type of mother under Irish law. The married couple with whom the twins live would face substantial legal hurdles and unprecedented litigation if they tried to adopt the young sisters, the High...
Education minister Ruairi Quinn (pictured) has given Irish bishops an interim deadline of just three months to decide on handing over some Catholic schools to other forms of patronage, according to The Irish Catholic. This means parishes in some parts of the country will only have weeks to identify the schools they want to give...
