Europe’s top rights court told Russia on Tuesday it must recognise same-sex marriages, in a ruling likely to have an impact on many other member countries of the Council of Europe.

The European Court of Human Rights sided with three gay couples who had asked for the recognition of their relationships but were denied by Russian authorities. Other countries such as Poland, Ukraine and Hungary also do not extend marriage-like rights to same-sex couples.

The ruling states that countries have an obligation to make the legal protections of marriage available to same-sex couples.

Less than 15 years ago, the Strasbourg-based court concluded in another landmark ruling that the European Convention of Human Rights allows for gay marriage but does not require it. Now the court claims that consensus on the issue has shifted sufficiently that it is no longer optional.

“The Convention is a living instrument which must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions,” the judges wrote.

Of the Council of Europe’s 46 member states, 30 countries offer same-sex couples either marriage or an equal form of legal partnership. The remaining 16 offer no such legal standing for gay couples. It remains to be seen if the other 16 countries comply.

Allowing children to opt out of an updated Junior Cycle sex education syllabus dealing with issues such as pornography and gender identity may prove a challenge that could pit students’ rights against the rights of parents, according to a consultation report.

The comments are contained in a public consultation document by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) on its proposed revamp of the Social Personal and Health Education (SPHE) curriculum for Junior Cycle pupils.

The report noted a wide spectrum of parents’ views, some of whom stated their intent to withdraw their children from all SPHE classes in the event of the full revised specification being implemented.

It said one dimension of this tension is “students’ right to a broad and balanced education, including comprehensive health education, balanced against the right of parents to withdraw their child from SPHE”.

The handling of the Enoch Burke case has caused some concern with teacher unions over aspects of how the case was managed and the grounds on which he was dismissed.

Mr Burke, who was employed as a German and history teacher at Wilson’s Hospital School, in Co Westmeath, was formally dismissed from his post on Friday afternoon following a dispute stemming ultimately from his refusal to use new gender pronouns for a pupil pursuing a gender transition.

The Irish Times is reporting that there is unease over the manner and speed at which he was dismissed. One senior union source expressed concern at whether a precedent could be set in the handling of his case. “We’re not involved in this case in any way, but we are concerned about the wider issue of teachers’ rights and we haven’t seen details about the grounds on which the dismissal took place,” the person said.

Another union source said: “You would wonder at the speed at which the dismissal took place. It took place the day after the disciplinary hearing, which is very unusual. If this goes to an appeal, you can expect that every aspect of the process will be examined in minute detail.”

Sources commented that dismissals in the case of a teacher or principal with no prior conduct or performance issues have typically involved gross misconduct such as theft. “In cases such as performance or conduct, an outcome such as a suspension or retraining would be more likely, especially following a disciplinary appeals panel hearing,” said one source.

In prepared remarks by Kamala Harris on the 50th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she said America is a promise of freedom and liberty: “A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Be clear.  These rights were not bestowed upon us.  They belong to us as Americans”.

However, the text of the Declaration says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

Commenting in the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney noted that in Harris’ speech defending abortion, “she deliberately omitted the declaration’s guarantee of an inalienable right to life. Why? Because if you admit that humans have a right to life, then it becomes pretty hard to defend terminating living humans before they are born”.

“Harris was trying to argue not only that aborting humans is fine but that abortion is ‘a fundamental right, a basic freedom.’ Accordingly, she had to erase the ‘life’ part from her citation of the declaration.”

Department of Health officials have been accused of altering records of a meeting where a junior minister promoted the use of a transgender service for children that some have branded “unsafe”.

Last August 30, the four lead doctors in Ireland’s National Gender Service (NGS) met with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, his junior minister Mary Butler and five officials in the department’s headquarters.

This weekend the NGS doctors complained about the deletion of details from the minutes released by the department on “important matters of patient care, including the safety of children”.​

These included Ms Butler advocating for the use of GenderGP, an online service, as an “alternative” to State-provided care for Irish patients.

The NGS clinicians said GenderGP is an unregulated and unsafe service whose founders had been suspended from the General Medical Council in the UK because of this company’s harmful and illegal activities, and that this company is in breach of Irish Medical Council guidelines.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Ms Butler spoke on her local radio station in Waterford, WLR FM, about her “immense pride” in her transgender son who is in secondary school. Ms Butler, the junior minister responsible for mental health, said: “Supports for children who are trans are not where they should be. They are actually very, very poor here in Ireland. They are extremely poor.”

She said the provision of mental health services was not the main issue but “talk therapies” were important and praised resources provided by Teni and BeLonGTo.

Tens of thousands of marchers filed past the U.S. Capitol on Friday as a public witness that the pro-life movement is continuing the fight against abortion after the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in June.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, told the Register that the next steps are to continue advocacy at the federal level, but even more importantly at state level.

Mancini said that another element of the path forward for the pro-life movement is to “strengthen the safety net for women when they are facing an unexpected pregnancy.”

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly of the Knights of Columbus said that the “day-to-day hard work of the pro-life movement occurs at pregnancy-resource centers and maternity homes in the states,” in order to accompany vulnerable moms and provide them with the resources to choose life. He said the work of the Knights of Columbus in “putting in ultrasounds into these pregnancy centers” is key and “has saved countless thousands of lives.” And he cited the Knights’ new initiative Aid and Support After Pregnancy (ASAP), formed in the wake of the Dobbs decision, as a means to intensify their efforts to partner with pregnancy-resource centers.

Local authorities have fined a father and military veteran for “praying for [his] son, who is deceased” near an abortion facility on Ophir Road, Bournemouth. His son was killed 22 years ago in an abortion clinic.

Smith-Connor stood still and silent on the public street for a few minutes before being approached by “community safety accredited officers”. He had his back to the clinic in order to be mindful of the privacy of staff and attendees of the abortion facility. Video footage shows the council officers asking what he was doing. Smith-Connor informed them that he was “praying for my son, who is deceased”.

A censorship zone or “buffer zone” has been enforced since 13 October 2022. The zone was implemented by local authorities through a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) which criminalises engaging in “an act” or even “attempted act” of “approval/disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means. This includes but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling” within the area surrounding an abortion facility. The PSPO further prohibits religious acts, including reading scripture or crossing oneself.

The Church of England will continue to marry only opposite-sex couples in its churches under new proposals. However, same-sex couples will be allowed to receive a blessing in church.

This comes after MP and leader of the House of Commons Penny Morduant had lobbied her own Bishop for the Anglican

Church to change its teaching.

The proposals were developed by bishops, who form one of three parts of the Church’s governing body known as the General Synod, after the Church of England’s six-year consultation on sexuality and marriage – among other subjects – and will be put to the General Synod at a meeting next month.

The Church of England is central to the wider Anglican communion, which represents more than 85 million people in over 165 countries.

“Same-sex couples would still not be able to get married in a Church of England church,” the statement said, confirming a BBC report overnight that bishops had refused to support a change in teaching to allow priests to marry gay couples.

A plan for creating and policing so-called ‘abortion exclusion zones’ around hospitals and clinics that offer terminations will “hopefully” be published by Government later this year. Critics say such a law attacks freedom of speech, protest and assembly.

Detailed measures are being worked out as part of the Health Termination of Pregnancy Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2022.

Officials said advice on aspects of the legislation was being taken from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and the Office of the Attorney General.

The United Nations (UN) “expressed alarm” after a group of experts investigated the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan amid concerns about forced conversions and marriages of Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs by Muslims.

Voice of America reports, “The group of around 12 independent U.N rights experts includes the special rapporteurs on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, on violence against women and on minority issues, and on contemporary forms of slavery.”

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement saying, “We are deeply troubled to hear that girls as young as 13 are being kidnapped from their families, trafficked to locations far from their homes, made to marry men sometimes twice their age, and coerced to convert to Islam, all in violation of international human rights law.”