Last Friday, Professor John Haldane, during his talk to the Iona Institute, stated that sexual relations in modern societies are now “governed by two principles; the principle of sexual attraction and the principle of sentiment”. He said: “The argument that has evolved from that is very simple. It’s just this: that sexual attraction and love...
During the debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly this week over same-sex marriage, it was suggested that legalising gay marriage could threaten the freedom of Catholic schools to teach the traditional view of marriage. However, Conall McDevitt of the SDLP scoffed at this idea. He asked “Are Catholic schools teaching children about divorce?” In other...
The Dáil debate on the Government’s children’s rights referendum has, sadly, generated precious little light. It was, instead, full of clichés. Instead of a nuanced discussion of the finer points of the wording itself, the debate (and that word is used very loosely in this context) rehashed a series of unfortunate misapprehensions about what the...
In his weekly column in The Irish Times Vincent Browne complains that the proposed children’s rights amendment (CRA) doesn’t go far enough. For example, he maintains that even if passed it will still be too difficult to adopt children in foster care because it will still give too many rights to the natural parents. He...
We’re all familiar with the fact that people are waiting longer and longer to get married, and that cohabitation is more and more common among young people. However, this doesn’t mean most young people no longer want to get married, even though a growing number don’t. According to a new paper by the Institute of...
On Tuesday, RTE aired a documentary in which a gay man examined his options as to how to become a father. The programme, Gay Daddy, followed TV presenter Darren Kennedy as he examined the possible routes by which he could become a father. But it is fair to say that it did not really examine...
On Sunday, David Quinn and Fergus Finlay of children’s charity Barnardos debated the Government’s proposed children’s rights referendum on RTE Radio’s This Week programme. You can listen to the debate here.
It’s a rare thing, these days for a West European politician to “do God”. It’s rarer still when the politician in question does so in a thoughtful, considered way. That’s what makes Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles’ (pictured) article in the Daily Telegraph the other day so interesting. Mr Pickles...
This week the OECD produced figures showing Ireland devotes less time on average to teaching science and maths than other countries, and more time teaching RE. We’re rightly worried about falling literacy and numeracy skills here and some people have concluded that the answer is to spend less time teaching RE. But as David Quinn...
This week the OECD produced figures showing Ireland devotes less time on average to teaching science and maths than other countries, and more time teaching RE. We’re rightly worried about falling literacy and numeracy skills here and some people have concluded that the answer is to spend less time teaching RE. But as David Quinn...
