The Romanian parliament has passed a resolution to hold a referendum on the country’s marriage laws. If passed, the referendum would amend the country’s constitution to define marriage as a union between “a man and a woman.” At present marriage is defined simply as a union of “spouses.”
Over 3 million citizens had signed a petition in 2016 to hold this referendum. The upper house of Romania’s parliament approved the referendum in a 107-13 vote on Sept. 11. The lower house of parliament approved the referendum last year. The vote could take place as early as Oct. 7, and could bar any effort to recognize same-sex unions.
The Romanian Orthodox Church has backed the referendum, as have the smaller Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic Churches.
Local and international LGBT advocacy groups have criticised the referendum, as have several dozen members of the European Parliament.
About half of the EU’s 28 countries recognize same-sex “marriage” and others recognize same-sex civil partnerships.
The existence of publicly-funded denominational education has been called into question with a leading campaigner calling for sweeping Constitutional changes aimed at severely diluting the rights of faith schools and other religious bodies. Writing in The Irish Independent, the former head of Equate, which campaigned against the rights of faith schools, called for a Citizens’ Assembly to consider eliminating the role of the Churches in education as a prelude to a referendum on the matter.
“The days of the Church dictating policy in education should be over. The days when Church bodies decide how young people are taught potentially life-saving sexual health issues – or what non-Christian students are taught during religion class – should be over,” wrote Michael Barron.
He zoned in on the key parts of the Constitution that undergird the rights of faith schools, Articles 44.2.5 and 44.2.6 of the Constitution, which, he says, “protect the rights of religious organisations to manage their own affairs, maintain institutions and to maintain property for specific purposes.”
He proposes a referendum that would authorise the Oireachtas “to nationalise essential State services such as schools and hospitals.”
Those who saw the recent visit of Pope Francis as presaging the end of the Catholic Church in Ireland have no idea what the Church is, the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.
“The Church is not just an institution of a cluster of social institutions. It is above all the place where we learn to know Jesus as the one who revealed to us who God is, a God of mercy and compassion,” he said. This was “a God who offers us forgiveness and new beginnings. In the Church we experience hope and renewal.” Archbishop Martin was speaking at Mass in Lourdes where he is leading 2,000 people in the annual Dublin diocesan pilgrimage. The pilgrimage includes 177 sick people, 45 nurses and eight doctor volunteers as well as 300 young people assisting them. There are also pilgrims from 20 parishes and for the first time 133 teenage volunteers from 25 different secondary schools.
“We look towards the future of the Church in Dublin and in Ireland. There were those who could only see in the visit of Pope Francis what they considered the end of the church as they saw it. The problem is that many of those commentators had really lost the understanding of what the Church is,” Dr Martin said.
The possibility of large-scale human tragedy is dawning on the legal profession as the Government enacts legislation to name the ‘commissioning persons’ as parents on the birth certs of donor conceived children, rather than the natural, genetic parents. In a major article in the Law Society Gazette, Mary Hallissey writes that the creation of such ‘legal fictions’ have left child law experts aghast that birth certs will now sidestep the truth of a child’s origins and deliberately falsify legal documents.
Furthermore, the Department of Employment and Social Protection confirmed to the Gazette that the format of Irish birth certificates will change. The words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are expected to be replaced with ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two’.
Children’s ombudsman Niall Muldoon is quoted as saying that every child born through donor-assisted reproduction should have full, accurate information on their lineage and birth, including the identity of any gamete donors or surrogates. He said this is a basic aspect of human dignity and it is an injustice to ignore it.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the article says, is also abundantly clear on “the right of every child to its genetic identity, and to know and be cared for by its natural parents”.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) is reported as pointing out that the right to information about one’s identity is “a fundamental human right,” and the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling that “everyone must be able to establish the substance of his or her identity”.
The article says it beggars belief that the law should effect this change now given the parallels with the abuse of the adoption system through fictionalised birth certs. Susan Lohan of the Adoption Rights Alliance said there are “layers and layers of parallels” to past adoption scenarios: “How can eradicating a child’s identity ever be in their best interests?” she asks.
“Have we learnt nothing about the sense of genetic bewilderment that these children feel? If a child is interacting with the State with this fictional piece of paper, it’s going to make any future search for them by their family of origin nigh on impossible.”
She feels that past law has largely been more concerned with protecting the feelings of adoptive parents, and that the same mistakes are being made again with regard to donor-conceived children. She notes the irony that we seem more particular about our bloodstock industry than the sense of self of Irish children.
At the same time, other experts such as Dr Geoffrey Shannon believes a child’s right to its identity is vindicated by the creation of a national register of donor-conceived children which will hold information about the child’s genetic parents and siblings. The child will be allowed to request access to this information once he reaches the age of 18, though the parents of the child are under no obligation to pass on to the child the fact that he is donor-conceived.
According to psychologist Emma O’Friel, however, there is no correct way to legislate for this because it is a harmful practice that causes psychological distress and puts some children into a discriminatory position.
“It is wrong to allow children to be removed from their biological parents for no other reason than the desire of an unrelated person. No one would choose this as a start in life – the temporal and geographical dislocation of a child – so why are we doing it?” she asks.
The UK is considering a radical overhaul of its divorce laws to remove fault-based divorce altogether and to vastly reduce the waiting time for no-fault divorce.
Under the current law in England and Wales, unless people can prove their marriage has broken down due to adultery, unreasonable behaviour or desertion, the only way to obtain a divorce without a spouse’s consent is to live apart for five years.
The government’s proposals could see the concept of fault, or blame, removed from the process and spouses would lose the right to contest a divorce, as part of the reform.
The Ministry of Justice will launch a consultation on how long one party needs to wait before becoming entitled to a divorce, suggesting a minimum of six months.
There will be some who fear such a system will undermine marriage, but many believe it could remove a layer of stress and anxiety from one of life’s most traumatic experiences.
Ironically, while the stated goal of the reform is to cut down on antagonism in the divorce proceedings, it could also increase the sense of injustice experienced by a spouse divorced against his or her will in a relatively short period of time.
A man who now identifies as a woman wants past convictions as a sex worker erased as they reveal his biological sex. The person who now goes by the name of ‘Helen’ is to launch a judicial review to remove two convictions for “importuning as a man”.
“I do not wish my gender history to be more widely known and do not wish to disclose my trans status to employers,” he said.
Trans people with a gender recognition certificate are usually legally entitled to keep their birth gender secret, but according to Helen’s barrister the disclosure of offences that revealed Helen’s birth gender in criminal record checks was “severe and discriminatory interference with Helen’s right to respect for her private life”.
However, Nicola Williams, of Fair Play for Women, said any change would open up a “huge loophole” whereby sex offenders could transition to “wipe out” their crimes.
Health Minister Simon Harris must not force doctors opposed to abortion to refer women seeking terminations to other physicians, former Taoiseach John Bruton said at the annual dinner of the Pro-Life Campaign.
At the dinner on Saturday night, which was attended by more than 700 people, Mr Bruton pointed out that the Abortion Bill proposed by Minister for Health Simon Harris requires doctors who object to abortion to “make arrangements to transfer the care” of the woman to a doctor who would execute the abortion.
“This is aiding and abetting the abortion, and there is no conscience clause here,” said Mr Bruton. Besides being unjust, Mr Bruton said the clause was unnecessary as the Government have the option of simply publishing a list of doctors who would carry out abortions. Otherwise, he fears “that doctors who are known to oppose abortion will be targeted under this clause by people wishing to catch them out and put them under threat of criminal prosecution because of their religious or human rights beliefs.
Mr Bruton was also sharply critical of Mr Harris’s speech to the Dáil following the result of the referendum. “He spoke of the referendum result inaugurating what he called ‘a brighter Ireland’. It will not be a bright Ireland for the little babies who will have their lives ended before being allowed to see the light of a single Irish day.
“He spoke of the referendum meaning that we are ‘maturing into a tolerant, non-judgemental, inclusive Republic’. The Minister’s own speech was rather judgmental, and not particularly tolerant of those who sincerely disagree with him on the issue of abortion.”
The Supreme Court on Friday decided that there were no grounds to hear an appeal of the High Court’s rejection of a challenge to the abortion referendum result. This removes the last impediment to finalising the result of the referendum. Once the returning officer Barry Ryan certifies the final result, President Michael D Higgins is expected to sign the abortion referendum bill into law next week, deleting the constitutional ban on abortion and paving the way for the government to introduce legislation allowing for abortion to the Dáil in the coming weeks.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Frank Clarke, Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell and Mr Justice Peter Charleton met privately in chambers on Thursday to consider the appeal. They said there were essentially two grounds of appeal. The first concerned the engagement of members of the government on the Yes side of the referendum campaign and certain claims about what was said by government members during the campaign. The second ground concerned alleged irregularities in the registration of voters and conduct of the referendum.
Rejecting both these arguments, the Justices ruled the petition had not met the constitutional criteria for an appeal as it did not show stateable grounds that raised issues of general public importance nor did it establish that an appeal was necessary in the interests of justice. They also order the plaintiff to pay the costs of the case.
Meanwhile, doctors in Ireland could be allowed directly refer women to the UK for abortions until the new abortion law is implemented early next year, Minister for Health Simon Harris has signaled.
The visit of Pope Francis to Ireland momentarily released Catholics from the shackles of an imposed silence to briefly celebrate their faith in a way not seen since 1979, said the Bishop of Limerick.
Speaking at a retreat for Syro-Malabar Christians in Limerick, Bishop Brendan Leahy said the weekend of the Pope’s visit showed a depth of faith and celebration, joy and solemnity tinged with the realities of the abuse scandals. He said it was not 1979 in terms of the numbers that celebrated as the Church has gone through humiliation and purification, “yet one undeniable constant between now and 1979 was the sense of celebration of our faith.”
He continued: “It was everywhere I turned. At a time when many have – for one reason or another, not least the scandals that have hit the church – shied away from public expressions of faith, people felt released from shackles for the weekend. The freedom and joy as they celebrated being part of God’s kingdom was remarkable and not seen since 1979 in this country.
Christian families in India who were forced to stop attending church after Hindu radicals threatened to beat and kill them have vowed to continue worshipping in secret.
One priest who leads a congregation in India’s Madhya Pradesh State, told International Christian Concern that 15 families have stopped going to his church in recent months after facing threats and intimidation at the hands of Hindu radicals.”The radicals say they will beat and kill my church members if they continue to attend the services,” said Pastor Singh
Shankar Damor, a 37-year-old from Kardubadi village near Jhabua, told ICC his family stopped attending church because they were under serious threat of physical attack. “In a meeting last May in the village of Kardubadi, the Christians were told that we should not attend any church and should not even pray in our homes,” Shankar explained. “When we complained to the village diktat, the entire village stopped associating with us. No one attended our weddings and we were totally cut off from the people of the village.”
He added: “In that same month, when my family was praying in our house, someone from the village called the police and I was taken to the police station on false charges of forced conversions,” Shankar said. “The police beat me brutally and harassed me while in custody.”
India ranks as the 11th worst nation in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA’s 2018 World Watch List. While religious freedom is supposed to be a constitutional right in the country, several Indian states have implemented anti-conversion laws, making it illegal for anyone to use force or allurement to convert others to another religion. Such laws are often abused by Hindu radicals to file false complaints against pastors and pressure Christians not to share their faith.
