The Equality Authority has called on the Government to legalise same-sex marriage. Speaking at the launch of the group’s annual report for 2010, Angela Kerins (pictured), the chairwoman of the Authority said she welcomed the passage of the civil partnership bill last year, according to the Irish Times. The bill gave same-sex couples who register...
Two atheist parents are threatening to pull their seven-year-old daughter out of the Brownies because the Brownie pledge asks members to do their best “to love God”. The pledge says: “I promise that I will do my best, to love my God, to serve the Queen and my country, to help other people and to...
Officials in San Francisco are proposing a new city ordinance to target pro-life pregnancy centres, alleging that such centres are engaged in misleading counseling and advertising. Advocates for the centres say the proposal aims at prohibiting crisis pregnancy centres from using the word “abortion,” in what are known as internet tags or key words, to...
New guidelines by the regulating body for pharmacists in the UK mean that Christian pharmacists could face the sack if they refuse to sell the morning-after pill. Many pharmacists have conscientious moral objections to dispensing ‘emergency contraception’ and have in the past refused to do so because the drugs can work as abortifaecients. In Ireland,...
The recent commitment given by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to protect religious liberty in the workplace has been put in doubt by one of its own commissioners. Angela Mason, fomer head of gay activist group Stonewall and a member of the EHRC has said commission will break its promise to support...
A Christian electrician who faced the sack in April for displaying a small palm cross in his company van has now been suspended from work, reportedly for speaking out in the media. Earlier this year Colin Atkinson, who works at Wakefield and District Housing (WDH), faced losing his job over the small cross in a row...
Politics without faith runs the risk of violating the fundamental human rights of citizens, a leading Vatican official has said Cardinal Raymond Burke, head of the Vatican’s highest court, said that all goverments “should guarantee the free exercise of religion, which aims to protect the teaching and practice of religious faith for the sake of...
Latin America countries are being pressurised by the UN to liberalise their abortion laws through a process called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Ireland is to be reviewed in October. The process involves a review of the human rights record of a given country by the UPR Working Group which consists of the 47 members...
Toronto Catholic District School Board faces losing 4,000 families from its schools over a controversial ‘equality’ policy which it passed as part of a government equality and inclusive education strategy. The Coptic Orthodox Churches in the Canadian city are threatening to withdraw families who attend schools in the district if it does not amend the...
There are nearly twice as many men on the live register of unemployed people as women, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The figures show that, in July, there were 300,460 men on the live register, compared to 166,364 women. In May, Finola Bruton warned that men were being hit...
