Christians and people of other religions should not "leave their faith at the door" in politics, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.

The vast majority, 93 per cent, of US mothers believe that there is a “father absence” crisis in America, but single mothers are far less likely to have a positive view of a father's role in the family than married mothers, according to a survey carried out by a leading family research institute.

The Archdiocese of Washington DC has pledged to continue fighting to provide services without compromising the Church's stand on same-sex marriage. It has also rejected the so-called ‘San Francisco option’ as a way out of the dispute.

The UK Government is proposing lessons in parenting for 14-year-olds.

A Government quango in the UK is questioning whether pharmacists should still be free to decline distributing the Morning-After-Pill.

Barriers preventing lone parents from working need to be removed, according to OPEN, an organistation representing 80 lone parent groups.

Lone parent benefits may come to an end once a child reaches the age of 13 under a new scheme being suggested by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin. One billion euro is paid out in lone parent allowances each year.

A senior Labour minister in the UK has signalled a major U-turn by the Government on the issue of marriage.

In the run-up to this year's general election, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, has admitted that the party's long-standing ambivalence towards marriage was a mistake.

The party is set to publish a green paper next month outlining new measures to shore up “stable parental relationships”, in a tacit concession that children fare better if their parents stay together.

However, Labour remain opposed to tax advantages for married couples. Ministers say this would discriminate against the 4m children brought up by non-married parents. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has pledged to recognise the importance of marriage through the tax system.

The Conservative Party, which has made marriage and the family the centre of its strategy to mend what it calls “Broken Britain”, have dismissed Labour’s belated acknowledgment of the importance of marriage.

David Willetts, the party’s family spokesman, said: “It is extraordinary that after more than a decade in which Labour has focused exclusively on children, the penny is finally dropping.

“All the evidence is that marriage is strongly linked to greater stability for the child.”

The Tories are preparing their own green paper on promoting family units, setting the scene for an election battle for the parental vote.

Since 1997 Labour has directed resources at children rather than their parents, fearing voters would see attempts to shore up the declining traditional family unit as discriminatory or judgmental.

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, now admits the strategy was a mistake.

“Because we knew it was complicated we ended up not talking about families and talking about children instead. One of the things that we lost a little bit is that actually, while supporting children is very important, adult relationships are very important too,” Balls said.

“In the past I think our family policy was all about children. I think our family policy now is actually about the strength of the adult relationships and that is important for the progress of the children,” he said.

Labour’s change in policy comes amid concern over the number of children brought up in broken homes. One in four now lives in a single-parent family, compared with one in 14 in the early 1970s. Almost half of children are born outside wedlock. Married couples became a minority in Britain this year for the first time since records began.

While Labour will stop short of saying marriage is “superior” to other committed relationships, the new policy will highlight how much better children fare if their parents stay together.

The green paper is expected to suggest more resources for marriage counselling services such as Relate and to propose a change in culture in public services away from “mother and baby” to “mother, father and baby”. Balls is particularly keen to find ways to prevent partnerships from collapsing during the weeks after a baby is born.

Meanwhile Mr Willetts has warned that marriage in the UK is in danger of becoming the exclusive preserve of the middle classes.

He said government policy should aim to tackle social breakdown by restoring marriage as a “more widespread institution”.

The Conservatives are due to publish their ideas on the family in a Green Paper, arguing that the state and voluntary sector can do more to help fathers – especially at the crucial point where the first child is born.

The party will back recognition of marriage in the tax system, as well as providing relationship advice at civil ceremonies.

It is also expected to propose legal changes making it easier for fathers and grandparents to stay in touch when marriages break up.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Mr Willetts said changes in attitudes to marriage were “extremely dangerous”. “The aspiration of marriage is becoming harder to achieve,” he said.

“Instead of it becoming just what you do in your 20s, it has become like scaling Mount Everest, a sort of great moral endeavour – and something that requires a lot of time and money. We think we need to ease some of the pressures.

“I think there are things that have gone deeply wrong with our country. The rate of family break-up is a disaster for children.”

A Swedish court has upheld the right of Swedish authorities to seize a child from a homeschooling Christian couple who were about to leave the country to become missionaries in India. There was no evidence of abuse. One of the complaints against the couple is that the child was not properly vaccinated.

Churches should be “lining up” lawyers to defend themselves against secular legal challenges under the Equality Bill, a Government equalities minister has admitted.

Minister of State for Children Barry Andrews has said he personally supports lowering of the legal age of consent to 16.

Lawyers for a small photography company in New Mexico charged with violating anti-discrimination laws for refusing to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” are planning to appeal a court decision to uphold the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission’s ruling against them.

Doctors and parents groups have added their voices to a growing chorus of opposition to a proposal by the Law Reform Commission (LRC) for children aged as young as 14 to be allowed access to contraception without parental knowledge. The age of consent in Ireland for sex is 17.

Minister of Education Batt O’Keeffe has defended the existence of religious schools, saying that schools with a Christian tradition had played "an outstanding part" in Irish education.

Christmas parties pushing up demand for the morning-after-pill, it is being reported.

The group which represents the principals of Irish primary schools has called for bishops named in the Murphy report to step aside as patrons of schools.

Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe has offered to review funding for Protestant schools after discussions yesterday.

A Jewish school has been found guilty of race discrimination by the UK's Supreme Court for refusing places to pupils it did not consider to be ethnically Jewish.

The International Committee of Young Fine Gael (YFG) has condemned the recent ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that crucifixes should not be displayed in Italian public schools.

The Oireachtas Committee on children’s rights has finalised the wording of an amendment that could be put before the people as early as next year, the chairwoman of the committee, Mary O'Rourke, said yesterday.