The European Commission has issued a Green paper that aims to make it easier for EU citizens to have their legal status in one country fully recognised in another. For most of us, a major legal status is our marital status, which the EU calls our ‘civil status’ in order to take into account same-sex...
In sociology there is something called the ‘selection effect’. For example, sociologists wonder whether religious people are less likely to divorce because they are religious or is it because the sort of people who are religious are less likely to divorce anyway? The same question applies to marriage. Are married men less likely to abuse...
The Irish Times today editorialises in favour of minors being given the Pill without the consent of their parents. It believes the Government should adopt the recommendation of the Law Reform Commission in this regard and copy the example of the UK. The editorial notes that conflicts can arise between doctors, their ‘patients’ and parents...
A recent survey by the Pew Centre and Time magazine entitled The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families highlights changing US attitudes to marriage and family. The poll shows declining support for marriage, but on the other hand it is constructed in such as way as to maximise support for family diversity ideology....
Sweden is the world’s fairest place for families according to a new report from The Fatherhood Institute in the UK. How do they come to this conclusion, you may ask? In a nutshell, they base it on how equally Swedish men and women divide up work and home duties. You may have noticed that reports...
The Manhattan Declaration is a pro-marriage, pro-life, pro-religious freedom statement signed by dozens of Christian leaders in the United States and by thousands of ordinary Christians. It has inspired similar declarations in other countries, for example the Westminster Declaration and the Canberra Declaration. Inevitably the Manhattan Declaration has been condemned by gay rights groups as...
As noted in the last blog-post, the Government’s four-year plan unveiled this week represents yet another attack on that most despised of all breeds, the stay-at-home married woman. Having already attacked the one-income married family through tax individualisation, the four-year plan will now erode the remaining tax differential between one-income married families and single people....
The new four-year plan unveiled yesterday will impose a heavier burden on one-income married couples than on single people. This is direct attack on stay-at-home mothers and appears to be a sop to the IMF, the European Commission and the OECD all of which want women to enter the workforce and children to be placed...
Robert Putnam of ‘Bowling Alone’ fame has co-authored a new book with David E Campbell called ‘American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us’. Its findings are that religious people are more charitable and non-religious people are more tolerant. Here’s my question, which is better for society, charity or tolerance? Of course, a person can...
I have recently retired after spending thirty five years as a Secondary school teacher in Ireland all of it spent in Catholic schools. I thank you for highlighting the possible dangers contained in the Teaching Council’s Code of Professional Conduct which I feel may not be fully appreciated by Boards of Management or school Principals...
