The Iona Blog

Crushing opposition to ‘sexual liberation’

Here’s a blog on the US website First Things highlighting an increasing trend on US campuses whereby those who believe in traditional sexual morality are being subjected to intimidation and direct sanction, including dismissal. It instances the case of Ken Howell who was sacked from his university (he has been provisionally reinstated) for teaching Catholic...

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How radicals tried to sexually ‘liberate’ children

Derek Scally has written a revealing article in today’s Irish Times about what he calls “a little-known detour in the 1968 student revolution”, a project to sexually “liberate” children. Incredibly, as late as 1980 the German Green Party debated a motion aiming to “liberalise sex between children and adults”. The project of the ‘68ers’ was...

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Switched at birth, reunited as adults; how biology matters

Family diversity advocates insist that it really makes no difference to a child whether or not they are raised by their own biological parents so long as they are raised by at least one loving parent, whether that parent figure is biologically related to the child or not.   Among other things this view ignores...

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Waters on children’s referendum

John Waters (pictured) has a provocative column on the proposed children’s rights referendum in today’s Irish Times. Among the useful points he raises is the fact that, while the State arrogates to itself the right to revise the proposed wording, in order to protect its right to make policy, it refuses to grant the right...

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Case shows Constitution not to blame for failure to help vulnerable children

A new report on the death of a seven-year-old girl, Khyra Ishaq (pictured), due to months of abuse at the hands of her mother and her boyfriend Junaid suggests that social services in her home town of Birmingham could have prevented the tragedy. The report finds that her death could have been prevented, and occurred...

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Barnardos’ confusing approach to the HSE and children’s rights

On Thursday, Norah Gibbons, Director of Advocacy for children’s group Barnardos described the HSE as not fit for the purpose of looking after children’s welfare. It is a depressing, if unsurprising analysis given what we now know about the fate of too many of the children in the care of the HSE. Furthemore, Ms Gibbons’...

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The USSR, Irish politics and the Constitution

At the McGill summer school this week, Justice Adrian Hardiman made a very interesting and telling comparison between certain legal practices in the old Soviet Union and the impatience of certain groups in Ireland with the Constitution. Some people, he suggested, looked fondly to the days when Soviet judges regarded their jobs as the application...

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“This child will have no mother”

Here’s an article about two homosexual men who went through the process of finding an egg donor, written by one of  the men involved. Despite the fact the author is clearly in favour of the practice, a number of disturbing details emerge. Probably the most shocking is this assertion by an anonymous member of staff...

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Minister Ahern on Christianity and the family

Recent pronouncements by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern on the influence religious values should play in the life of a legislator have been depressing to say the least, but yesterday he seemed to contradict himself, although not in the way you might expect. In fact, he added insult to injury. As you may recall, a few...

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The shape of things to come

A professor of religious studies has been fired by the University of Illinois for informing a student attending his course on Catholicism that the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts violate natural moral law. To put it another way, Dr Kenneth Howell was fired for explaining Catholicism to a student studying….Catholicism. The implications are deeply...

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