A clinical psychologist has warned parents that they need to talk to their children about pornography and teach them not to watch it. Writing in the Irish Independent, David Coleman, an adjunct associate professor at the School of Psychology, UCD, said that pornography can act powerfully on a teenager’s brain so they can get rapidly addicted to it. Furthermore, he said regularly watching pornography “leads inevitably to teens moving on to more extreme forms of pornography to get aroused”. This, in turn changes their sexual “tastes” and they can “become desensitised to things that they previously may have considered disgusting, degrading or dangerous”.
Professor Coleman warns that parents need to educate themselves and recommended a website called “Fight the new drug”. Then, he advised a no-nonsense approach with children: “Much like we need to promote an abstinence message in relation to alcohol to preteens and younger teens, we must do the same with pornography.”
The only NHS transgender clinic in the UK for children is risking a “live experiment” by sending hundreds of kids for life-changing medical interventions without sufficient evidence of its long-term effects, experts have warned.
The Times in London has spoken to five clinicians who resigned from the service because of concerns over the treatment of vulnerable children who come to the clinic presenting as transgender.
They believe that some gay children are being wrongly diagnosed as “transgender” by the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic.
All five former staff were responsible for deciding which trans-identifying youngsters should be given hormone blockers to halt their sexual development from as early as eleven years of age. The vast majority of those who begin blockers go on to irreversible cross-sex hormones once they reach 16.
The NHS specialists warned that vulnerable children and teenagers had been sent down the path towards transition before experts had time to assess the causes of their gender confusion.
An Oxford professor has also raised concerns about the safety of drug therapies used by the clinic, saying the treatments were “supported by low-quality evidence, or in many cases no evidence at all”.
The number of young people referred to the clinic in north London has soared. In 2010 there were 94 referrals. By last year there were 2,519. The youngest was aged three. The five clinicians are among at least 18 clinical staff who have resigned over the past three years.
Several hundred people attended the National launch in Ballyfermot, Dublin, of the new political party Aontú led by Peadar Tóbín TD, who left Sinn Fein because of his pro-life stance.
At the meeting on Saturday, Mr Tóbín said they have now formed 65 Cumann throughout the country. “In three months we have held 40 public meetings throughout the country. No other political party has engaged at such a community level with the people of Ireland for many years. Well over 5,000 people attend those meetings,” he said.
“Many are sick and tired of the membership dis-empowerment of those parties and the disconnect that exists between these leaders and the workers on the ground. This diversity is one of the major strengths of Aontú,” says Mr Tóbín.
The party is also expected to run up to 65 candidates in upcoming local and European elections.
Media coverage of the event has focused on one question from an Irish Times journalist about immigration even though the topic was not even raised during the three hours of speeches at the launch, and is not a central platform of the party. The party released the full audio of the question and answer on social media in order to refute suggestions that they were “anti-immigrant”.
The Archdiocese of Dublin has announced it is postponing a vote on the divestment of schools in North county Dublin after significant resistance was expressed last week by parents and teachers.
It will delay the vote until a survey of parents of pre-school children in the area is published. It also said it is vital that all stakeholders are fully informed of what a change in patronage entails.
The Minister for Education, Joe McHugh also said last week the Department would review the process of divestment.
Meanwhile, one school gave a strong response to the Minister’s remarks. In a letter to the Minister, the board of management of Scoil An Duinnínigh rejected claims that it was scaremongeing over warnings that religious events like Christmas would not be celebrated.
“Christmas is marked along with other festivals in multidenominational schools, but in a Catholic school Christmas is celebrated. The children sing carols, draw and craft religious items, listen to readings from the Bible and so forth,” the letter states.
“Are you guaranteeing that this will continue in school time no matter which patronage body is eventually selected as the one for the divested school?”
It added that it was “frustrated and annoyed” over the divestment process, with “absolutely no information coming from the Government”.
Two separate Church ministries to persons with same-sex attraction have been subject to condemnation by gay-rights advocates in the last few days.
On Saturday protestors demonstrated outside a conference being run by the True Freedom Trust (TFT) in a Baptist church in south Belfast. TFT, which is a member of the Evangelical Alliance, describes itself as “a Christian ministry that offers pastoral support and biblical teaching on same-sex attractions”. The protestors accused the group of advocating so-called “conversion therapy”. However, TFT director Stuart Parker denied this and said it’s “particularly for people who hold to an orthodox position on sexual orientation, what the Bible says about it, and who have chosen themselves to maybe live a celibate life and encourage them in that.”
Meanwhile, former President Mary McAleese launched a broadside against the Catholic ministry Courage, which helps adults, 18 and over, to abstain from acting on same-sex sexual desires.
Ms McAleese, the former Ireland president, said that Courage was “Machievellian, dangerous and deliberately specious”.
The civil proceedings brought against ‘Father Ted’ comedy writer Graham Linehan by a transgender lawyer in the UK, have been dropped. He had been charged with defamation, libel and harassment, for allegedly ‘deliberately misgendering’ and ‘dead-naming’ the lawyer who was born a man but now identifies as a woman.
The proceedings were launched while Linehan was expressing his scepticism of transgender ideology on social media. The crux of his disagreement with activists concerned the phrase ‘trans women are women’. For Linehan, it is something of a courtesy, but is not literally true, whereas for trans-activists, it is literally true.
He said he began talking about the subject when he saw women being driven off twitter, harassed, and even fired from their jobs for criticising gender ideology. He saw it as a form of bullying and thought he would join the fray.
Given it all to do again, he would, he says, do things a little differently. But only a little. “I did not take into account the effect that the constant harassment and smearing and vilifying and suing would have. And it has been tough.”
Parents involved in the row over the potential divestment of a Catholic school in North County Dublin have reacted with fury to their portrayal in the media and political debate.
Cliodna Gilroy, who has two children at St Marnock’s National School, told Dublin Live, “this is being portrayed in the media as though we’re thick as pigsh*t and all we’re worried about is Christmas being cancelled. It’s not that simple. Is it right that my kids could be discriminated against because they’re Catholic?”
She said the ethos of the school means a lot more than religion and added: “So please don’t just assume that the Church – who again have not been present at any meetings parents have had in relation to this – are scaremongering slack-jawed yokels.
“It’s insulting, it’s disingenuous and it’s plain cynical”
Minister for Education, Joe McHugh, put out a statement that Christmas won’t be ignored by other patron bodies. However, Educate Together schools do not hold nativity plays or sing hymns, and neither Educate Together nor ETB schools do sacramental preparation in school time.
Meanwhile, Howth Malahide Area Committee Meeting of Fingal County Council passed a motion calling for parents and stakeholders to be fully consulted.
Labour councillor, Brian McDonough, who proposed the motion, also rapped the Department of Education for failing to properly inform parents and for proposing far too tight a timeframe to make the change.
A Kenyan teacher has received a rapturous welcome home after being presented with the Global Teacher of the Year award by the Oscar winning actor, Hugh Jackman, at a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.
Peter Tabicchi is a Franciscan brother whose religious community was founded by Irish missionaries from Mountbellew Agricultural College, Galway, in 1976.
He teaches Maths and Physics and sustainable agricultural practices in a community ravaged by war and poverty in the Rift Valley of Kenya.
Despite natural disadvantages, his students have won national and international prizes for their science projects.
He said the award is a testament to his students who, he believes, have the potential to solve many of Africa’s problems.
Brother Tabicchi used to spend 80% of his salary on making sure his students could attend school. He has pledged to give the entire one million prize money for winning the award to help local community development.
Chinese authorities have been accused of detaining more than one million ethnic minorities of the Muslim faith in internment camps in the north west of the country.
Callista Gingrich, the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, said that ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other minorities are subjected to repressive surveillance, confiscations of Qurans, torture, sexual abuse and death.
Speaking ahead of an event in Rome to promote religious freedom, she said it is critical that China be pressured to clean up its act.
Reports of the camps have appeared in international media over the last few months.
A week ago, in response to a question from Mattie McGrath TD, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs expressed ‘concern’ about the incarceration by China of up to a million Uighur Muslims, but did not express condemnation.
A bill to hold a referendum to ease the constitutional restrictions on divorce was passed by the Dáil yesterday.
It is planned to excise from the constitution any waiting time for divorce. Currently a couple must be separated for four out of the last five years. The Government wishes to pass a law to cut this to two years. After that, any future Oireachtas can cut if further. The referendum on divorce will take place on May 24th, the same day as the local and European elections.
Minister for Culture Josepha Madigan made the case for the change yesterday. She said that in the 2015 Census 118,000 people declared themselves as separated and “we need to treat them with humanity and compassion”. She said that making divorce easier by reducing the waiting period “will help thousands of couples in Ireland who have suffered marital breakdown.” She had previously wanted a waiting period left in the Constitution.
Solidarity TD Paul Murphy, however, said there should be waiting time. He said there was a right to marry and there should be a “right to divorce without interference or judgment by State or Church”.
