In a case which could be replicated in Ireland, a baker in the US state of Iowa may face legal action and has been sent hate mail after she told a lesbian couple that she could not make them a wedding cake on the basis of her religious beliefs. Victoria Childress, who runs a cake...
Children are being sexually abused “in far greater numbers than was ever imagined” according to the UK’s children’s minister Tim Loughton. In a speech to launch the government’s plan to tackle grooming, Mr Loughton warned: “Too many local areas have failed to uncover the true extent of child sexual exploitation in their communities and failed...
Average family take-home pay has been hit by almost €400 a month by the austerity Budgets that began in 2008 new figures show. The figures, compiled by The Irish Tax Institute, show that average family with two children and one income of €55,000 has been hit hard by income tax changes, cuts in child benefit,...
Women’s pay is growing at more than twice the rate of men and will overtake men’s within a decade if current trends in the labour market continue, according to new UK Government figures. The “gender pay gap” – the difference between average salaries of men and women – has fallen to under 10 per cent...
Official guidelines on surrogacy are to be published next month by the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter (pictured). However, he was unable to say when long-promised legislation for the wider area of assisted human reproduction would be published, according to the Irish Times. The aim is to help parents planning to have children via surrogate...
Polygamy is bad for children and bad for women and the law upholding it ban is therefore constitutional, the Chief Justice of British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled. In a decision yesterday, Chief Justice Robert Bauman found that the law banning polygamy is constitutionally sound. Pro-marriage groups, have welcomed the ruling saying it recognises that...
Spanish legislation permitting gay marriage may be revoked by the newly-elected Partido Popular (People’s Party) government, following the weekend’s elections. In 2005, the same year that same-sex marriage was legalised, the party took a case in the Constitutional Court challenging the law. As yet, the Court has not ruled on the case. It was also...
Authorities in the UK are sometimes really are “out to get” Christians in Britain, a senior figure in the Church of England has warned. Revd Dr Malcolm Brown said that many groups agreed that a housing trust’s decision to discipline a Christian employee for comments he made about civil partnerships was “crazy” and “bonkers”. His...
One of the country’s leading children’s rights advocates has said that children conceived through donor sperm or eggs should have the right to access information about their biological parents. Speaking to the Irish Times about the need for regulating the fertility industry, Geoffrey Shannon (pictured), the Government’s special rapporteur on child protection said that use...
“A republic that cannot accommodate the religious convictions of large numbers of its citizens is no republic at all” and is “a contradiction in terms”, the primate of all Ireland, Cardinal Seán Brady (pictured) has said. Speaking at the weekend in St Patrick’s College Maynooth at a graduation ceremony for 134 theology students, Cardinal Brady...
