The typical UK family spends only two hours of “quality time” together a week, according to a new study of household habits. The study also found that the average family watches a collective nine hours of television a day. The study, billed as an alternative “people’s census” was published yesterday. It found that the typical...
The British Minister for Schools, Nick Gibb, has said that the Government is to remove the right of parents to take their children out of classes on sex education. Until now, sex education was part of personal, health, social and economic (PHSE) curricula, which is covered by the parents’ legal right to withdraw children from...
The High Court has rejected an attempt to have a polygamous marriage entered into in Lebanon recognised under Irish law. Ruling on the case, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne, said that while marriage was not defined in the 1995 Act, to interpret it as including polygamous marriage “would be to give it an interpretation which is...
The number of civil partnership dissolutions in the UK rose 44pc in 2010 compared with the previous year to 509, according to the latest figures. The figures from the Office for National Statistics that of the 509 dissolutions granted, 203 were to male couples and 306 were to female couples. The higher number of female...
Elderly people living in sheltered housing have been told to remove religious symbols from shared areas by the organisation in Preston which runs the complex. A letter to the residents from the organisation, Places for People, asked them to become “equality and diversity” champions. The ban has been attacked by both Christian and Muslim religious...
The Government has told the UN that it is reviewing the Constitution in a range of areas, including the family, the place of women in the home, and the current blasphemy provision. In its submission to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the Government says it intends to “convene a Constitutional Convention to consider the...
The US state of Rhode Island has passed a bill which recognises same-sex civil unions, but which contains provisions protecting conscience and religious freedom. Governor Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican US senator, signed the bill into law last weekend. The Irish Civil Partnership Act contained no such provisions. The bill allows religious organisations, charities and...
The right to religious freedom in education does not simply mean freedom from religion and must be understood more broadly than this, the Irish Bishops have said in a submission to the UN Human Rights Council. In a submission to the Universal Periodic Review of the UN, the Council for Education of the Irish Episcopal...
The new Hungarian constitution which upholds the traditional definition of marriage and the right to life, has been attacked in a motion tabled by the Liberal, Social Democrat and far-left GUE/NGL groups in the European Parliament. The new constitution also affirms the role of Christianity in Hungary’s history. The resolution, which is set to be...
The Dutch parliament has voted to ban the ritual method of animal slaughter used by both Muslims and Jews on the grounds that it is cruel to animals. Representatives of both Dutch Muslims and Jews have condemned the prohibition of halal and kosher meat produced in Holland as a violation of their religious freedom. Binyomin...
