With the general election campaign in full swing, voters for whom marriage, religious education and freedom of religion are important issues need to inform themselves on these issues. Here is where the three main parties stand. Fine Gael Marriage and Family: Fine Gael says in its manifesto that “it recognises the value of the family...
A couple of weeks ago France’s equivalent of the Supreme Court found that the country’s ban on same-sex marriage did not violate the French Constitution. Vitally, it found that the principle of equality wasn’t breached because the State is entitled to treat different situations in different ways. This is an absolutely crucial point. Everyone believes...
Writing in The Irish Independent last week, former chief economist for the Central Bank, Tom O’Connell, said one of the reasons no-one shouted ‘stop’ during the property boom is that the boards of the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator were stuffed with people who didn’t ask the hard questions. He wrote: “With one political...
Before becoming Prime Minister, David Cameron had many good things to say about marriage and the family. Since becoming PM, however, he has been disappointing in this regard. It is said this is because his Chancellor doesn’t care whether marriage is promoted or not, and his coalition partner, Nick Clegg is actively hostile. In any...
Aggressive atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and their media enablers like to claim that religion is “dangerous”, that it spreads prejudice and leads to societal division. Religion can have these effects, as can other ideologies and philosophies, including atheism, but there is lots of evidence to knock down such claims. For example, a...
The Family Platform is an EU body with a brief to review and research the situation of the family across the EU and recommend policy. The other day, it issued a major new report called ‘Foresight Report: Facts and Precondition of Wellbeing of Families’. As might be expected, the document is shot through with politically...
The BBC reports today about two Brazilian women who each gave birth to a baby boy in the same hospital but were sent home with the wrong child. The BBC calls it “every mother’s nightmare”. The mistake came to light a year later and the women swapped their children following a court order. Obviously it...
The US State Department has rowed back on its controversial decision to remove the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from passports and replace them with ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B’. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (pictured) presumably ordered the pull back to avoid the political damage that would presumably have resulted. A number of pro-family groups...
Under the Civil Partnership Act, a civil registrar can go to prison for up to six months for refusing to officiate at a same-sex civil partnership ceremony on conscientious grounds. A court in Saskatchewan this week took a more nuanced approach than our Government. So did gay rights supporter, John Culhane. The court considered whether...
Iona Institute director, David Quinn, appeared on RTE’s The Spirit Level on Sunday to debate the ethics of surrogate motherhood and Assisted Human Reproduction more generally. The debate takes place near the beginning of the show and lasts about 15 minutes. Click here to download it.
