A heterosexual couple have won the right to enter a civil partnership after the UK Supreme Court ruled in their favour. The couple sued the State as legislation allows only same-sex couples engage in civil partnership. They claimed the government’s position was “incompatible with equality law” and the Supreme Court in London has now ruled they are being discriminated against. Their lawyer had told the Court they have “deep-rooted and genuine ideological objections to marriage” and were “not alone” in their views. Barrister Karon Monaghan QC said matrimony was “historically heteronormative and patriarchal” and the couple’s objections were “not frivolous”.

Since marriage was redefined in the UK, same-sex couples can choose whether to enter a civil partnership or to marry. But this has not been possible for opposite sex couples which led Ms Steinfeld and Mr Keidan to claim the law was discriminatory. They, and all other such couples, may now legally enter into a civil partnership instead of marriage.

A bill to make euthanasia legal in Spain is to be considered by the lower house of parliament in Madrid. Drafted by the governing Socialist Party (PSOE), the bill would make euthanasia a new personal right that would be available through Spain’s public healthcare system. It has the support of all the main parties except for the opposition Popular Party (PP).

If the bill becomes law, adults with a terminal illness and those with serious and chronic disabilities could request assisted suicide from the public healthcare system.

PP spokeswoman Pilar Cortés called it “a sad day.”

“To talk about euthanasia is to talk about failure, to admit a political, professional and medical defeat,” she said. Cortés considered it “a failure of society” that politics is incapable of “offering solutions other than dying.”

She also claimed that “given time, exceptional situations will turn into habitual situations” because it will be seen as “a cheaper solution” than palliative care. She said that in The Netherlands there are around 1,000 cases of involuntary euthanasia a year.

The leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, has assured members of the LGBT community of her respect and asked that they respect her views on marriage in return. Ms Foster spoke at a PinkNews reception at Stormont and told the crowd: “Just because we disagree on marriage does not mean that I don’t value the LGBT community.”

She added: “It is not a zero-sum game. All I ask in return is that my, and our views, are also respected if not agreed with.”

Ms Foster told the gathering at Stormont she wanted to acknowledge and recognise the people who identify as LGBT even as she doesn’t define anyone by their sexuality, just as she doesn’t define anyone by their race or religion.

She continued: “I wanted to use this platform to encourage meaningful engagement rather than megaphone diplomacy. As a mature democracy, we must all enter into a new spirit of respectfulness and understand that we will not always agree but we will always try to treat each other with good manners and grace. For my part, I believe I can hold to my principled position, particularly in relation to the definition of marriage, whilst respecting the diversity across our society.”

In news that has sent shockwaves through the US political establishment, US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement. Kennedy has been a swing vote among the Court’s nine justices and his vote often decided contentious cases on a slim 5-4 margin. Although appointed by a Republican President, he was reliably liberal on social issues such as abortion and gay-marriage. It is now up to President Trump to nominate his successor who will also need to be confirmed by a simple majority vote in the US Senate, a chamber that currently has a Republican majority. Trump is expected to pick a candidate who would curb the Court’s tendency toward ‘judicial activism’ where judges have ended up ‘making law’ instead of just ‘interpreting it’. The most egregious example of this in the past fifty years was the landmark Roe v Wade case that overturned state-law in all fifty US States and imposed an extreme abortion regime on the whole country. There is a chance now that Kennedy’s successor would tilt the Court to a pro-life majority and overturn or amend Roe v Wade. This would return abortion law to the normal democratic processes, allowing parliaments in each State to decide for themselves what law to adopt, rather than being dictated by a Court impervious to institutional checks and balances.

In a bizarre juxtaposition, the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has backed calls for major changes to the Church’s doctrinal and disciplinary stances even as he cautioned that Church and State should be separate. He was responding to the row that erupted between his Culture Minister, Josepha Madigan, and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin. Minister Madigan, the leader of Fine Gael’s campaign for repeal of the 8th, had helped conduct a prayer service in lieu of mass last Saturday when a priest in her local parish was a no-show, and then she followed up with media appearances calling for the introduction of women priests. She was rebuked the following day by the Archbishop who said her pushing of an agenda was inappropriate. Mr Varadkar entered the row yesterday by telling journalists at the National Economic Dialogue in Dublin Castle that he believed in equality in all things and in equality in the workplace. He added that this would include allowing priests to marry and permitting women to become priests. However the Taoiseach also said he strongly believed in the separation of church and State. “This [women priests] is not something the Government is going to be legislating for.”

The Government cannot force pro-life pregnancy centers in the US to advertise abortion services the US Supreme Court ruled yesterday. A State law in California required pregnancy centers that do not perform abortions to display a notice advertising programs that provide free or low-cost abortions for eligible women. The notice had to include a phone number for a county office that would refer women to Planned Parenthood or other abortion providers. Pro-life groups sued to block implementation of the law and yesterday the Supreme Court agreed with them with Justice Thomas saying that the law is “likely” unconstitutional as an infringement on free speech.

The Court’s libertarian, swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is normally liberal on social issues, wrote a striking concurring opinion. He said the California law is a “paradigmatic example of the serious threat presented when government seeks to impose its own message in the place of individual speech, thought, and expression.”

“For here the State requires primarily pro-life pregnancy centers to promote the State’s own preferred message advertising abortions. This compels individuals to contradict their most deeply held beliefs, beliefs grounded in basic philosophical, ethical, or religious precepts, or all of these.”

The State will allow the birth certs of children to be changed so that the same-sex partner of a child’s biological parent can also be named on the birth certs as a parent even though they are not the birth parent of the child. The intention to commence the relevant provisions of the Children and Family Relationships Act 2015  was announced by Minister Simon Harris yesterday and he hopes to rush it through the Oireachtas before the summer recess.

The change would allow the retroactive altering of birth certificates from the past as well as changing the registration of births in the future. It will also enable mandate that the names of people designated as parents will appear on the child’s passport.

Speaking last week, the Minister said: “I assure all members that the Government shares their sense of urgency and wants to resolve the matter. The Deputies are entirely correct. I intend to go to Cabinet very shortly with a view to bringing about a legislative solution that I hope we can work with on a cross-party basis to try to pass it by the summer recess.”

Stalwart pro-life politician Peadar Tóibín has announced he will vote against the Government’s proposed abortion legislation, and he will do so in defiance of his own party’s position. Speaking on LMFM this week, the Meath West Sinn Fein TD accepts that he will lose the party whip because of his actions and, as it will be the second time he has lost it over abortion, he also realises that the sanction will be more severe this time round.

Mr Tóibín said that over the past three years, Sinn Fein has changed its position significantly on abortion “and it is one I have a radical difference of opinion on.” He added that it was the only issue he disagreed with them on and so he hopes to remain in the party. He also confirmed he had made his position known to the party leadership in recent days.

It has also been reported that his former Sinn Fein colleague and fellow No voter in the recent abortion referendum, Carol Nolan, TD, will run in the next election as an independent candidate after she resigned from Sinn Fein due to their uncompromising pro-abortion stance. It won’t be easy for her to retain her seat as every one of the Fine Gael rebels expelled from the party over their votes against the 2013 Abortion Act failed to retain their seats in the subsequent 2016 election.

Restrictions on religion increased around the world in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. Their latest study on the subject show that overall restrictions on religion have increased for the second year in a row. The restrictions that were measured were the result either of government actions or the actions of individuals or societal groups. Key findings included that more than a quarter (28%) of countries had “high” or “very high” levels of government restrictions on religion in 2016, an increase from 25% the year before. The share of countries with “high” or “very high” levels of social hostilities involving religion remained the same at 27%. A growing share of the incidents of government restrictions or social hostilities in 2016 involved political parties or social groups espousing nationalist positions. Overall, the number of countries where various religious groups were harassed either by governments or social groups increased in 2016.

Among the most populous countries in the world, Egypt, Russia, India, Indonesia and Turkey had the highest overall levels of religious restrictions, while China had the highest levels of government restrictions and India the highest levels of social hostilities involving religion.

The issue of assisted suicide is of such import that it should be discussed by the Citizens’ Assembly, according to the joint committee on Justice and Equality. The committee itself had examined the issue in detail but failed to reach a “clear consensus” on whether a new law is needed. It has now recommended referring the issue to a citizens’ assembly before another specially convened Oireachtas committee gives it further consideration. “Given the gravity of the debate, it warrants as rigorous an examination as possible,” the cross-party group concluded.

In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled a man had no right to help his partner to commit suicide but the Chief Justice, Susan Denham, said that nothing in the constitution prevented the Oireachtas from legislating on the matter directly. Assisting a suicide is currently a criminal offence, punishable by a prison sentence of up to 14 years.