The finding of an ESRI study that most cohabiting couples get married shortly after they have their first child confirms what we in the Iona Institute have repeated many times: marriage is mainly about children and even today most people believe this as the actions of cohabiting couples with children testify. The study showed that,...
The guidelines published earlier this week by Minister for Justice Alan Shatter (pictured) on surrogacy utterly failed to flag the fact that the whole area is an ethical minefield. Surrogacy is problematic, involving as it does gestating one woman’s baby in another woman’s womb. There are some very serious concerns connected with it, but Minister...
Last weekend The Irish Times ran an editorial which essentially denied the existence of militant secularism and criticised people like UK Cabinet Minister, Baroness Warsi who say it is trying to push religion to the margins of society. The editorial was fantastical in the extreme, a complete and total denial of reality. In The Irish...
The head of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Philips, has compared Christians who want to protect their conscience rights with Muslims who want to impose Sharia law This is gravely offensive to British Christians, and borderline disgraceful, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Christians in question are merely trying to reach...
A leader in The Irish Times last Saturday took to task those, including British Cabinet Minister Baroness Warsi, who are concerned about the growth of a militant secularism that seeks to push religion to the margins of society. The Irish Times believes there is nothing to worry about, that such concerns are grossly exaggerated. But...
One of the biggest con jobs ever foisted upon us is the notion that secularism is neutral and therefore a secular public square is a fair public square. In fact, a secular public square operates by wiping itself clean of virtually all traces of religion. This is predicated for the most part on the less-than-neutral...
Richard Dawkins’ outfit, the Foundation for Reason and Science (UK), published the results of a poll into the attitudes of British Christians towards politics, science and morality as well as their knowledge of their own faith. Professor Dawkins (pictured) reckons the result buttress his secular agenda, showing as they do the waning influence of religion...
With his back to the wall over his proposal to force religious organisations to cover abortifacients, contraception and sterilisation in their insurance plans, President Barack Obama offered a compromise last Friday that wasn’t really a compromise. He told religious organisations, primarily though not exclusively Catholic, that while their insurance plans would still have to cover...
The story about 13 year old girls being given contraceptive implants without their parents’ knowledge drew the usual justifications from the usual suspects. Natika Halil of the Family Planning Association said the provision of contraception to young people was “a vital part of the Government’s strategy to reduce teenage pregnancy rates in the UK which...
For the last few weeks we have been following the developing row between the Obama Administration and Catholic bishops there over Administration proposals to force Catholic and other religious organisations to extend their insurance cover to contraception, the Morning-After-Pill (an abortifacient) and sterilisation. This is a very big religious freedom issue and even liberal Catholics...
