An Aontú Cllr in Northern Ireland says he was physically attacked over his pro-life views.
Emmet Doyle, a member of Derry City & Strabane District Council issued a statement following an assault on him on Friday.
“Whilst in the city centre in the early hours of Friday morning I suffered a vicious assault in Waterloo Street,” Cllr Doyle said.
“After entering a food establishment alone, a group of people entered, some of whom I recognised to be members of a group deeply opposed to my stance on the right to life. They engaged me verbally and I left with my order.
“On leaving the premises I was accosted and received a cut to my head, bruises and black eyes. The attack was unprovoked.
He added: “As an elected representative, I passionately defend what I believe in and act on behalf of constituents regardless of their views. . . . Nothing will stop me serving my constituents, I won’t be silenced.”
Three-quarters of people living together as a couple give a high overall rating to their relationship, a new survey says. Less than 10% of people rate their relationship quality poorly. The demographic that rated their relationship satisfaction the highest was those over the age of 55, and those who have been in a relationship for over 30 years.
The survey was carried out by Amarach Research on behalf of Accord, the Catholic bishops’ relationship counselling service.
However, 81% of people agreed that money and financial pressures are the most significant source of pressure for couples today. The ability to buy a home was also flagged by younger couples as one of the main pressures they face.
Overall though, ratings for relationships were very positive in Ireland, with almost 90% of couples rating the level of trust in their relationship as very strong, 80% rating their relationship happiness as very strong, and over 70% rating their quality of communication within their relationship as very strong.
An Irish academic who will conduct research into the impact of Covid on religion has said it appeared the Government in the Republic “dictated” pandemic rules to Churches while in the North there was more “give and take”. The Republic had the longest bans on public worship during the height of the pandemic of any country in Europe. Worshippers could potentially go to prison for violating the ban and one priest was fined for doing so.
The research aims to ascertain whether, or to what extent, the role of religion has changed in Ireland, Poland, Germany and Canada.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Sequence, Dr Ganiel stated Ireland is a “really interesting case” as the Churches are organised on an all-island basis but were interacting with two different jurisdictions.
She said: “In the Republic of Ireland quite often what seemed to appear to be the case was that the Government kind of dictated restrictions to religious groups and there wasn’t a lot of give and take, whereas in Northern Ireland it seemed to be more a relationship of negotiation.
Researchers have found that childless people tend to have more permissive social attitudes and that having children, rather than aging, helps explain why other people tend to become less permissive.
“There is this idea that as you get older you become more conservative from experience and from being bitten by the real world,” said Dr Nick Kerry, co-author of the research from the University of Pennsylvania.
“But it doesn’t seem to be the case. If you look at people who are not parents, you just do not see an age difference.” What changes people’s attitudes instead appears to be having children.
The study potentially offers a fresh take on the decline in birthrates seen in many countries. “I think it could contribute to liberalisation in those countries,” said Kerry. Many countries now have fertility rate well below replacement level.
A Bafta-nominated composer has been suspended from the company he co-founded after expressing his support for JK Rowling and her views on transgender issues.
Christian Henson, 50, shared a video on Twitter of Graham Linehan, the television writer who goes by the name ‘Glinner’, in which he referred to legal action against the Tavistock gender clinic in London.
In a post accompanying Linehan’s video, Henson said: “As a parent I can no longer keep my mouth shut about this. I’m in full support of glinner & @jk_rowling.” His tweet amassed nearly 1,000 retweets and more than 3,000 likes before Henson closed his Twitter account.
This was followed by a statement from Spitfire Audio which said that Henson had stepped down from his role at the company, which he co-founded in 2007.
Meanwhile, an employment tribunal in Nottingham has started hearing the case of a school chaplain who has claimed he was unfairly dismissed from his job after he opposed plans to promote an LGBT acceptance curriculum.
Rev Bernard Randall was made redundant from Trent College, in Derbyshire, at the end of 2021.
He said parts of the programme were incompatible with the Christian ethos of the fee-paying school as some of it was “ideologically loaded and misleading”.
The new Health Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey says she’s “not planning to make any government changes” on abortion laws in the UK, after questions were raised about her past voting record.
Ms Coffey is a practicing Catholic who recently voted against making take-at-home abortion pills, which were introduced during the pandemic, more widely available.
“The law on abortion is settled,” she told ITV News.
“I’m a democrat, my focus is going to be on the ABCD (ambulances, backlogs, care, doctors and dentists), but it’s important we keep focus on what affects the majority of the patients, as well as of course individuals.
“I’m not planning to make any government changes.”
During an interview in June, just after the US Supreme Court made the landmark decision to overturn the Roe vs Wade ruling which gave abortion in the United States constitutional protection, the then Work and Pensions Minister said she’d “prefer that people didn’t have abortions.”
There have been criminal attacks on 63 pro-life organisations, in 26 US states and the District of Columbia, since the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court’s judgement on overturning Roe v Wade.
That’s according to a new report from the Religious Freedom Institute.
There have also been 32 Catholic churches attacked since the Dobbs leak, and in 17 of those attacks it was clearly about abortion.
The attacks, however, predated that event: “Since late May 2020, attacks have occurred against at least 174 Catholic targets in 38 states and the District of Columbia, including arson, desecration and defacement, property destruction, theft, and other state and federal crimes.”
Senior fellow at the National Review Institute, Kathryn Jean Lopez, says the attacks are against religious liberty and pluralism. She adds: “This ought to be taken more seriously by government, law enforcement, and the media”.
A US federal district court has issued an order preventing the state of New York from shutting down a faith-based adoption provider over its religious beliefs.
The New York State Office of Children and Family Services had singled out the nonprofit for its policy, guided by its religious beliefs, of placing children it serves in homes with a married mother and father.
The summary judgment order prohibits OCFS from enforcing state law “insofar as it would compel New Hope to process applications from, or place children for adoption with, same-sex couples or unmarried cohabitating couples, and insofar as it would prevent New Hope from referring such couples to other agencies.”
“The court’s decision is great news for children waiting to be adopted and for the parents partnering with New Hope Family Services to provide loving, stable homes,” said ADF Senior Counsel Roger Brooks. “New Hope is a private religious ministry that doesn’t take a dime from the government. Shutting down an adoption provider for its religious beliefs—needlessly and unconstitutionally reducing the number of agencies willing to help—benefits no one—certainly not children”.
Britain’s new health secretary, Therese Coffey, is a practicing Catholic who has previously voiced opposition to both abortion and assisted suicide.
Announced as part of Prime Minister, Liz Truss’, major cabinet reshuffle, Ms Coffey has also been named deputy prime minister.
Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Coffey told Sky News, “I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve but it’s undoubtedly part of who I am . . . I would prefer that people didn’t have abortions, but I’m not going to condemn people who do.”
The preference for sons in India is no longer translating into a willingness to abort girls.
Sons had been seen as breadwinners who would carry on the family name and perform the last rites for their parents. This has led to the illegal abortion of millions of unborn girls, particularly in northern states like Haryana.
But the latest government data and anecdotal evidence from women and health experts suggests that trend is changing due to education, the success of high-profile Indian women in business and sport and a crackdown on clinics that illegally abort girls.
For the first time, the national family health survey (NFHS) of 2019-21 found that females outnumber males – with 1,020 females for every 1,000 males. In the last NFHS of 2015-16, there were 991 females for every 1,000 males.
There is no official data on sex-selective abortions.
But the U.N. sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, estimates that India lost about 590,000 girl children to pre-natal sex selection every year between 2015 and 2020 and that about 46 million women and girls were missing in India in 2020.
