A clear majority of women, 60 per cent, are opposed to tax individualisation, according to an Irish Times/Behaviour and Attitudes poll released on Saturday. The poll showed that 14 per cent of women were extremely concerned about the issue, 24 per cent were very concerned, while 24 per cent were somewhat concerned.

The US state of New Jersey has stripped the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of its tax-exempt status for part of its property, it was announced last week. The Methodist camp made the news earlier this year after it refused, for religious reasons, to allow a lesbian couple to hold a "civil-union" ceremony at a pavilion on the camp's property.

Schools operating Catholics-first enrolment policies are not breaking the law, according to legal advice received by the Catholic Primary School Managers Association (CPSMA). The body says that Catholic schools are in compliance with both Irish and European equality legislation.

Almost half (42 per cent) of women work outside the home work because of economic necessity, and not choice, according to a new Irish Times poll. More than half, 53 per cent, did work out of choice. However, it is not known what proportion of each figure consists of women with dependent children.

A lesbian mother in Australia is battling to stop the gay father of her child from having his homosexual lover declared one of the child’s parents.

The highest court in the US state of Maryland has upheld a 34-year-old state law banning same-sex marriage, rejecting an attempt by 19 gay men and lesbians to win the right to marry. The decision reversed an earlier ruling by a lower court.

More than half of Americans who might have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversaries since 2000 were divorced, separated or widowed before reaching that milestone, according to the latest US census data, released last week.

The proposed referendum on children's rights may be held next year, even thought there is still no agreement on the controversial topic of the age of sexual consent, the Taoiseach has said. Mr Ahern said the referendum could be held on the same day as a vote to ratify the new European Union treaty.

The Irish Government has filed arguments with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in support of the UK government against a pair of elderly spinsters who are challenging the UK's tax inheritance rules.

The unmarried father who is seeking the return of his twin boys to Ireland has won an Irish court order declaring that their removal from Ireland was unlawful. The boys, both two, were taken out of Ireland in January by their mother, without the father's consent or knowledge. The man, known as Mr G, is hoping to have them returned to the State by the end of the month.

Faith groups are lining up with the UK Government to argue that religious schools make a positive contribution to community cohesion in England. A joint document, from groups representing the five faith groups in the state sector, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu and the Government, said that faith schools were "valuable, engaged partners" in education and in the wider society.

The document, Faith in the System, was launched in London yesterday by Education Secretary Ed Balls. Those attending the launch heard that faith organisations had "a long and noble tradition" in education - pre-dating state schools - from medieval times, through the Reformation, to the present day.

At present, about a third of all State-funded, or ‘maintained’ schools in England are faith schools - about 6,850 out of some 21,000. They set out to dispel fears about faith schools, and signal an expansion of the sector with Muslim state schools especially being in short supply.

In the document, the Government recognised this shortfall, saying that there were “few faith school places in the maintained sector available to Muslim, Sikh and Hindu children compared to the provision available for Christian and Jewish families."

The document follows a government retreat last year on plans to force new religious schools to take a quarter of their intake from pupils of other religions or those with no affiliation. It also comes at a time when schools are facing a new statutory requirement to promote cohesion and integration in their local communities. Ed Balls, the Children, Schools and Families Secretary, said that he wanted to remove “unnecessary barriers” to the creation of more faith schools. He was particularly keen to see more joint faith schools, run by more than one religious community.

However, critics have voiced doubts about the Government's plans. Prominent teachers' union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), questioned whether faith schools do provide for "interaction between different faiths and communities". ATL General secretary Mary Bousted said: "We question whether faith schools, particularly those where staff and children are chosen on a faith basis, provide an environment for 'interaction between different faiths and communities'.

And Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society said that faith schools worked against social cohesion. "These plans are a betrayal of both pupils and parents who are either non-religious or non-practising, who heavily outnumber those who are practising."

Tory politicians, however, have welcomed the document. Shadow education minister Nick Gibb said Faith in the System was "an excellent document". Faith schools played an admirable role in providing choice for parents within the state education system, he said. "Their position needs to be strengthened and modernised in our increasingly multicultural society.

A new family research body, with 20 full-time staff and and PhD students, has been launched today by President Mary McAleese. The Child and Family Research Centre says it aims to “improve outcomes for children and their families and advance practice and policy in Ireland”.

Educate Together, a group promoting multi-denominational education, has backed Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in the row over school places in Dublin. Paul Rowe, a spokesman for the group said that the Catholic enrollment policy was not responsible for the acute shortage of school places in parts of north county Dublin.

Fathers who do not live with their children are to get more equal access to them, Social and Family Affairs Minister Martin Cullen has promised. A growing number of fathers are reporting problems with establishing relationships with their children because of lack of visitation rights.

Poor planning by State agencies, not Church enrolment policy, is to blame for the shortage of school places in north and west Dublin, according to Dr Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin.

Polk County in Iowa is to appeal against a lower court ruling that the state's ban on same sex marriage is unconstitutional. Judge Robert Hanson ruled last Thursday that the ban, passed by legislature in 1998, breached the due process and equal treatment provisions of the state's constitution.

Irish farmers fear losing their farms in the wake of divorce. A new poll by Macra na Feirme, an organisation representing young farmers, has revealed that a massive 80 per cent of farmers believe that prenuptial agreements should be recognised in Ireland.

People who think about God are three times as generous as those who do not, according to psychology researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In a study to be published in next month's issue of Psychological Science Journal, researchers investigated how thinking about God and notions of a higher power influenced positive social behaviour. Specifically, the researchers looked at cooperation with others and generosity to strangers.

The number of divorces in the UK is at its lowest for 22-years, according to statistics that suggest that married couples don't see it is a quick fix any longer.

The Supreme Court in the US state of Maine has opened the way for gay adoption. On Thursday it overturned a lower court decision and allowed a lesbian couple to adopt two siblings who were their foster children. And in Colorado, a lesbian couple have become the first to avail of the state's new law allowing gay couples to adopt.