Legislators in Mexico are reportedly backing away from President Enrique Pena Nieto’s proposals on same-sex marriage after a fierce backlash among the electorate. According to reports, major protests have taken place in 26 states, in addition to demonstrations on the issue in the United States, Italy, Spain and even Russia. Faced with the displays of public anger, members of President Nieto’s own Institutional Revolutionary Party have openly declared they will vote against proposed public information campaigns designed to sway the nation in favour of same-sex marriage.
The US state of Washington is to introduce classes on transgender theory in kindergartens. The move means that pre-school children will be introduced to the idea that gender is a social construct rather than a biological reality. Guidelines on the new classes state that children as young as five should “understand there are many ways to express gender”. The guidelines define ‘gender’ as “a social construct based on emotional, behavioural, and cultural characteristics attached to a person’s assigned biological sex”. The Family Policy Institute of Washington has described the education move as “frightening” and warned that students “may have to choose between accepting politically correct talking points or failing assignments and being ostracised by school administrators.”
Christian asylum seekers in Britain are being rejected if they cannot fully recite the Ten Commandments. This is one of the findings made by an all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion and belief which examined the asylum process for migrants arriving in Britain. The group found that staff dealing with applications were employing trivia questions on religion in place of a deeper understanding of belief. “The problem with [the] questions is that if you are not genuine you can learn the answers, and if you are genuine, you may not know the answers,” said Baroness Berridge, the head of the parliamentary group.
A feminist group in Spain has called on the authorities to prosecute a Catholic Cardinal after he defended the traditional family and denounced gender ideology which is the belief that a person’s ‘gender’ can be different from their biological sex. The Feminist Platform of Alicante has accused Cardinal Antonio Canizares of “inciting discrimination and hatred” when, during a sermon he said: “The family is being stalked today, in our culture…We have legislation contrary to the family, the acts of political and social forces, to which are added movements and acts by the gay empire, by ideologies such as radical feminism, or the most insidious of all, gender ideology…When the family is attacked or is diminished, the most sacred forms of human relationship are perverted.”
America’s largest abortion provider Planned Parenthood is pushing for legislation in the state of California that would criminalise journalists who publish undercover stories about abortion clinics. A Bill backed by the group has been placed before state legislators with the aim of imposing a $10,000 fine or three years of imprisonment on reporters writing stories gained by use of undercover audio or video recordings. The Bill comes in the wake of a major video exposé of Planned Parenthood’s practices. The California Newspaper Publishers Association has denounced the Bill as unconstitutional.
A new film containing an assisted suicide storyline has been criticised in Britain. Following its release, ‘Me Before You’, which centres on the relationship between a wheelchair-bound man and his carer, Not Dead Yet, a group which campaigns against assisted suicide, attacked the film’s message that “the lives of disabled people as not worth living”. The group staged a demonstration at the film’s London premiere, while other critics have taken to Twitter to denounce its story content.
Over one third of babies born in Ireland last year was outside marriage, the latest Central Statistics Office reveals. According to the figures, of 65,909 births in 2015, 23,990 (36.4%) were outside marriage, with 59.5% of that cohort being cohabiting couples. The highest percentage of births outside marriage/civil partnership was in Limerick city at 55.7 per cent. The lowest was in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown with 24 per cent. Just over 53 per cent of births outside marriage/civil partnership were to mothers under 30.
