Scottish officials have drawn up a “baffling” list of 21 sexualities for Scots to choose from in the 2021 census.
Civil servants said terms including skoliosexual, gynephilic and demiromantic will be understood.
However, the census chiefs faced ridicule after putting forward such a wide array of sexuality choices and Edinburgh University’s Dr Kath Murray said the huge list could “blur” data.
National Records of Scotland revealed in a letter to MSPs they planned to expand the four basic categories initially proposed — straight or heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual and other.
The 21 “other” options for census respondents are mooted as androphilic, androsexual, asexual, bicurious, bisexual, demiromantic, demisexual, fluid, gay, gynephilic, gynesexual, homosexual, heterosexual, lesbian, pansexual, polysexual, queer, questioning, skoliosexual, straight and unsure.
Mocking the descriptions, a Tory spokesman said: “Most Scots will think it’s ridiculous to have 21 options under this question, when ‘other’ would have taken care of the vast majority. Clearly the general public wouldn’t even know where to begin with some of these descriptions. People will be baffled.”
A Government scheme to provide contraception free of charge could cost €100m and might not work, according to a new report.
The report of a working group, set up earlier this year by Health Minister Simon Harris in the wake of the liberalisation of abortion laws, said the notion there is a “sizeable” affordability challenge across the population in terms of accessing contraception remains unproven.
Simply making contraception free for users would not necessarily reduce the number of crisis pregnancies or help promote the uptake of more effective contraceptive methods, the group warns. There is a “very real risk” that removing the cost barrier would simply displace private expenditure and represent an “ineffective use of scarce resources” without actually modifying behaviour or improving health benefits, it notes.
Nonetheless, even a “relatively marginal improvement in access and contraception use” would have some health advantages in terms of avoiding the negative consequences of crisis pregnancies, it argues.
The working group also found contraception use in Ireland is “high and stable” and difficulty accessing contraception is a challenge only “at the margins in overall population terms”.
Ashley Bratcher, lead actress in the pro-life movie ‘Unplanned’, will be the keynote speaker at the Pro Life Campaign’s National Conference this weekend.
The conference will be held in the RDS, Dublin, this Saturday from 1 to 4:30pm and is free to all. The public have shown almost unprecedented interest with over 800 participants already registered. Unplanned has been showing in Irish cinemas in recent weeks.
The movie Unplanned told the true story of one woman’s journey from managing an abortion clinic to becoming one of America’s most effective pro-life voices.
Eilis Mulroy of the pro-Life Campaign said Unplanned is changing hearts and minds and getting people thinking. “We are thrilled that Ashley Bratcher will be the keynote speaker at our conference in the RDS on Saturday. There will also be a special screening of the movie at the conference with Ashley present,” she said.
“And there will be a Q&A session after the screening where attendees will have the opportunity to hear about Ashley’s own very personal story related to the abortion issue. ‘Unplanned’ addresses a side of the abortion debate that people certainly need to hear given all the changes that have recently taken place in Ireland regarding the issue.”
A Dundalk Church had a lucky escape last week when a priest extinguished a fire set by arsonists.
According to a report in the Dundalk Democrat, a pot at the front door of Holy Redeemer church was set alight at 10:45pm last Wednesday.
Luckily however, a local priest spotted the blaze and extinguished it before it enveloped the church
Nonetheless, some damage was done to the front door, the walls and the overhanging roof.
A priest in a South Carolina church has caused ripples by denying communion to the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Former Vice-president and lifelong Catholic, Joe Biden, was campaigning in South Carolina on Sunday, and attended 9am mass at St. Anthony’s Church in Florence.
However, parish priest Fr. Robert Morey denied him communion because of his public support for abortion rights.
Fr Morey, who was a lawyer for 14 years before becoming a priest, said Holy Communion “signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church”.
“Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching,” the priest added.
While Christians in Iraq and Syria suffer in the aftermath of Islamic State genocide, a new “hot spot” of persecution has emerged in South and East Asia, a recent report finds.
“The situation for Christians has deteriorated most in South and East Asia: this is now the regional hot spot for persecution, taking over that dubious honour from the Middle East,” stated a report on global Christian persecution by the group Aid to the Church in Need, a pontifical foundation that provides relief to Christians in 140 countries, including Ireland.
ACN released its biennial study of the global persecution of Christians last week. The 2019 report “Persecuted and Forgotten?” compiled information on acts of harassment, violence, and discrimination committed against Christians over the span of 25 months from July 2017 through July 2019; details on the persecution were gathered by ACN on fact-finding trips.
One of the report’s chief conclusions was that of all persecuted Christians, “Christian women suffer the most, with reports of abductions, forced conversions and sex attacks.”
The report focused on 12 countries where Christian persecution was most severe: Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, China, the Philippines, and North Korea.
The opening of a new community school in a busy commuter belt area of Co Meath has been deferred because it did not enrol any pupils.
The Department of Education fast-tracked the construction of Dunshaughlin Community National School, run by the Education Training Board, earlier this year based on its demographic projections which indicated there was an urgent need for a new school.
However, the eight-classroom school did not open in September as planned, due to a lack of enrolments.
A teacher who was hired has since been redeployed, while a new school principal is processing enrolments for the coming year.
It was one of 42 new schools announced by the Government which are being built between now and 2022.
An employment gap between mothers and fathers widens within three years of having children, even though only half of men initially earn more than their partner, research has shown.
Researchers at the universities of Bristol and Essex tracked the employment status of 2,281 new mothers over three years and 1,199 mothers over five years for the study, undertaken for the government equalities office.
About 90 per cent of new fathers were working full time or were self- employed three years after the birth of their child, compared with 27.8 per cent of mothers. More men also advanced their careers through promotion: 26 per cent of fathers were in a more senior role five years on from parenthood compared with 13 per cent of mothers.
The academics found that women with degrees were twice as likely to return to work full time as mothers with lower qualifications.
A large study found that men were the main or sole earners in 54 per cent of couples a year before they had children, with 31 per cent earning equal amounts and women the chief breadwinner in 14 per cent of households.
However, three years after having children, men were the sole or main breadwinners in 69 per cent of families and fathers and mothers earned similar amounts in only 20 per cent of couples.
Serious consideration should be given to granting automatic guardian rights to unmarried fathers, an Oireachtas Committee has recommended.
The Joint Committee on Justice and Equality had heard evidence that family law conflict is often exacerbated by unmarried fathers not having automatic guardianship rights in respect of their children, even if their name is registered on the birth certificate. The report says, “Only mothers have automatic rights to guardianship in these cases and, by contrast, married parents are automatically joint guardians with equal rights in relation to the child. Not only does this ignore the realities of modern family life in Ireland, it also creates inequality in terms of parental rights and responsibilities; and this in turn often results in separating parents taking the adversarial route through court, leading to tension and conflict between parties, with the child caught in the maelstrom”.
Members of the Committee agreed with the view that unmarried fathers should be given automatic guardianship rights, though it was recognised that practical issues could arise, for instance, where a father is not involved, or does not wish to be involved, with the child. Automatic guardianship exists for unmarried fathers in Northern Ireland,
The Committee’s report on reform of the family law system, published on Thursday, makes 38 recommendations.
Christianity’s disappearance from parts of the Middle East can only be stopped if the international community acts now, according to a new report launched in Westminster Wednesday.
The 2019 “Persecuted and Forgotten?” report, produced by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), warns of Christianity vanishing from towns and cities in the region, as – despite the defeat of Daesh (ISIS) – the impact of genocide has led to haemorrhaging numbers of the faithful.
There were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq before 2003 but by mid-2019, they had fallen to well below 150,000 and perhaps even less than 120,000 – a decline of up to 90% within a generation.
In Syria Christian numbers have fallen by two thirds since the conflict began in 2011.
The ACN report notes that the international community has shown unprecedented concern about the persecution of the region’s Christians, but failed to provide the aid required to ensure its survival during that period covered by the report (2017-19).
The Report also found that the persecution of Christians has worsened the most in South and East Asia – noting that, in 2018, 477 anti-Christian incidents were reported in India.
In the same region, 300 people died – and more than 500 were injured – in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday 2019 when jihadists bombed sites including three churches.
In a number of African countries Christians were threatened by Islamists seeking to eliminate the Church – either by use of force or by dishonest means, including bribing people to convert.
In Nigeria’s north and the ‘Middle Belt’ regions, militants continued a reign of terror against Christians and Muslims alike -3,731 Christians were reportedly killed in 2018.
While in other parts of the African continent, the main threat to Christians came from the state – over a 12-month period, more than 70 churches were attacked in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains with 32 burnt down.
