An experienced paediatrician is to lose her place on an adoption panel because she doesn’t think adoption by same-sex couples is best for children. Dr Sheila Matthews, who has worked with parents and children for 18 years, was told by Northamptonshire County Council that her beliefs on gay adoption were incompatible with equality legislation and...
Leading gay rights campaigner Peter Tachell has welcomed the decision of the House of Lords to keep a free speech protection in a controversial ‘anti-hate’ law. Tatchell was commenting after the House of Lords voted to reject a Government bid to remove the free speech protection. The protection makes clear that under the new law...
A London teacher who was suspended and threatened with the sack for expressing his Christian beliefs at work will be back at work next term. Kwabena Peat, 54, was suspended after he complained that a staff training day was used to promote homosexual rights, and to marginalise and label those who disagreed with homosexual practice....
Handing over schools currently run by the Church to “complex State bureaucracies whose efficiency has certainly yet to be proven” is not the way forward for Irish education, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said. Speaking on Sunday at the McGill Summer School, Dr Martin said that the situation in which the Church took over responsibility for...
Most unmarried couples who live together aren’t trying to test their relationship, according to a new US study of dating and cohabitation. The finding seems to contradict the popular view of cohabitation as a trial marriage. Only one in ten cohabiting couples see their relationship in these terms. It is one of the early results...
A prominent secular British MP has attempted to use the Equality Bill to force the Scout Association to scrap the age-old tradition of new entrants pledging allegiance to God. Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris says the Scout Association is discriminating against children and leaders who do not believe in God by requiring them to...
The world’s oldest mother, who conceived at 66 through anonymous sperm and egg donations has died, leaving her twin sons orphaned, according to a report in the London Times. The news has sparked fresh controversy over fertility treatment for older women. María Carmen del Bousada de Lara, a single mother, died from cancer two years...
Minister Dermot Ahern has said that he doesn’t “bring whatever religion I have to the table” when he is legislating. His remarks came after a priest in his constituency criticised his Civil Partnership Bill as “harmful to the common good”. In a sermon at the weekend, Fr John Hogan of St Mary’s Church, Drogheda, said...
Mounting equality laws have made Britain a “cold place for Christians”, according to a senior Bishop. The Bishop of Winchester, Rt Revd Michael Scott-Joynt, made his comments in a foreword for a new report published by CARE (Christian Action Research and Education). The Bishop wrote: “The sad fact is that Britain – which owes so...
Knowledge of the Bible in England and Wales is declining, with many ignorant of its most significant characters and events, according to a new survey. The National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 found that while most people own Bibles, only five per cent could name all the Ten Commandments and 62 per cent didn’t know the...
