Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured) is facing the threat of a backbench Tory revolt as up to 100 MPs may line up to oppose government plans to legalise same-sex marriage. According to The Guardian, Tory MPs who have raised concerns about the move with ministers at meetings of the 1922 committee are behind the threat....
New legislation which would make it compulsory for fathers’ names to be registered on their children’s birth certs, whether or not he is married to the child’s mother is being planned by the Government. The Department of Social Protection is planning to include the provision in legislation to be published this year, and it is...
A couple who commissioned a child through a surrogate mother in India and cannot obtain an Irish passport for it are planning to take a case to the Supreme Court after a Circuit Court ruling refused to recognise them as the legal parents of the child. In Ireland only the birth mother of a child...
The “full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists” will be applied to religious communities if same-sex marriage becomes legal across the US, an open letter signed by leaders of some of the largest American religious communities has said. The letter, entitled “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together,”,...
Marrying someone from your own profession is likely to lead to longer working hours for both and a poorer work-life balance, psychologists claim. Those with very different careers tend have a better work-life balance, a new study of 650 academics has found. According to the study, reported in The Daily Telegraph, spouses who work in...
Marriage is still the bedrock of society which promotes love, care and forgiveness in relationships, an senior Church of England bishop has said. Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu (pictured) made the comments following the publication of a report backed by the Anglican church which found one in 11 children was unhappy with their lives....
Former Supreme Court judge, Catherine McGuinness, has been appointed to the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and will monitor of global anti-Christian discrimination as part of her duties. Ireland has been handed the rotating chairmanship of the 56 member transnational body for 2012, and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore will act...
Proposals to scrap child benefit for some earners in the UK are set to changed to protect families with stay-at-home mothers, David Cameron has signalled. Under the current proposals, child benefit is to be removed from any household which has someone earning above the higher-rate tax threshold of £42,745. However, the scheme penalises stay-at home...
The US Supreme Court has upheld the right of Churches in the US to hire and fire their own ministers in a ruling that is being hailed on the most important on religious freedom in several decades. In a ruling yesterday, the rejected the stance taken by President Barack Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)...
The family based on marriage between a man and a woman is “not a simple social convention” but is “the fundamental cell of every society” Pope Benedict (pictured) has said. Speaking this week to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican, he said that the proper education of young people needed appropriate settings. “Among these,...
