A church in Northern Ireland, which had a newspaper ad banned for using the biblical word ‘sodomy’, has had the ban overturned in the High Court. The court ruled that the advertising regulator’s decision in 2008 to ban the ad, sponsored by Sandown Free Presbyterian Church in Belfast, was a breach of the church’s rights...
Family structure and religion are factors that significantly influence whether or not a woman has an unwed pregnancy, according to a new report from the Family Research Council in the US Drs Patrick Fagan and Scott Talkington of the FRC’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute (Marri) analysed data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of...
Religion is set for extinction in nine countries, including Ireland, if present trends continue, according to a new study. The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation in those countries. However, the study is contradicted by demographers who say that religious groups are set to “inherit the earth”. According to results,...
A leading Catholic bishop in Scotland has challenged UK Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured) to state publicly that he does not believe Christian sexual morality is bigotry and to launch an inquiry examining the effect of equality laws upon churchgoers. The Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Devine, sent a letter to 10 Downing Street last week...
Local education officials in the US state of Pennsylvania have banned a schoolchild from handing out invitations to classmates for a Christmas party held in a church. The officials say allowing the invitations would breach its rules against promoting Christianity. However the same school has allowed flyers for St Valentine’s Day dances and Halloween. US...
The long-term health effects of broken families can often be devastating for children’s health, according to a new book on how long people in the US live. ‘The Longevity Project’, which looks at the secret of long life, says that parental divorce during childhood is the single strongest predictor of early death in adulthood. The...
Italy has won its appeal before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against an earlier ECHR ruling which banned the display of Crucifixes in school classrooms. The Grand Chamber found that Italy’s law obliging schools to place the Crucifix in classrooms did not breach the European Convention on Human Rights....
The numbers buying the Morning After Pill (MAP) have increased significantly since it became available over the counter for the first time a month ago, it has been reported. The managing director of over 70 Unicare and Doc-Morris pharmacies, Cormac Tobin, told the Irish Daily Mail said that, in his pharmacies, demand for the MAP...
Marriage between a man and a woman is a fundamental good in society which deserves unique legal protection protection under the Constitution, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said. It is the first time he has directly addressed this issue and it comes as the new Government plans a ‘constitutional convention’ which will look, among other things,...
The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has said that any referendum on childrens’ rights should “ include an express reference that the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration and be justiciable”. In its report to the United Nations on Ireland’s human rights record as part of the UN’s process of Universal...
