Teenage pregnancies have fallen to their lowest rate in over 20 years, annual statistics published today show.

The 2008 ONS conception statistics show that, despite a slight rise in 2007, the action from the Government's teenage pregnancy strategy has led to a decline in pregnancies among under 16 and 18 year olds.

The statistics also show:

- The rate of under 16 year olds falling pregnant decreased by 5.7 per cent between 2007 and 2008.
- Since 1998 there has been a 13.3 per cent reduction in the number of under 18s conceiving, and encouraging reductions in more than 120 local authorities and at every age range.
- England's under-18 conception rate for final quarter 2008 was 5.4 per cent lower than the same quarter 2007 and is the lowest fourth quarter rate since 1993, showing promise for the 2009 data due next year.

Coinciding with the statistics and to further the progress made in recent years, Children's Minister Dawn Primarolo and Public Health Minister Gillian Merron today launched Teenage Pregnancy Strategy: Beyond 2010. This action plan outlines new measures to tackle the root causes of teenage pregnancy, building on the successes of the last 10 years.

A new scheme to pilot one-to-one sexual health and contraception consultations for 16 year olds along with more support for parents, increasing help for teachers and improving school-based health services are among the announcements being made today.

Labels: contraception, culture, out-of-wedlock births, sex education, teenage pregnancy, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 1:39 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

It was the perfect, joyous advert for a Government-backed scheme linking the children of sperm donors – two daughters of the same man meeting for the first time.

But in a terrible mistake that casts new doubt on DNA profiling, it turns out they weren’t related at all...

The embrace was as heart-warming as it was remarkable. Two women from opposite ends of the globe became the first British children of an anonymous sperm donor to meet face-to-face.

Keeley Hall, from Perth, Western Australia, and Elizabeth Howard, from Cambridge, had been among the first to register with UK Donor Link, a Government-funded database set up in 2004.

They had been told that their DNA was one of the organisation’s first ‘matches’: they were half-sisters. Overjoyed, they told of the many resemblances between them – their similar eyes and hair, their shared love of languages – and how they already felt like sisters.

But The Mail on Sunday can now reveal that the two women are almost certainly not related at all. In a terrible and distressing mistake, UKDL brought two entirely unrelated women together and told them they were sisters.

Labels: donor conception, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 4:40 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Married parents are ten times more likely to stay together than cohabiting couples with children, according to research.

The study also showed cohabiting has become a less stable form of relationship compared with 18 years ago, with couples more likely to separate.

Figures show that in 1992, 70 per cent of couples who had children after they were married stayed together until their child's 16th birthday.

This increased to 75 per cent in 2006, showing that marriage has become a more stable family background for youngsters.

However, only 36 per cent of cohabiting parents stayed together until their son or daughter reached 16 in 1992. By 2006, just 7 per cent of couples who were unmarried when their child was born were still cohabiting by their 16th birthday.

This figure excludes those couples who were just living together when their child was born and later got married.

Around three in five couples who stop cohabiting decide to marry. Of these just 17 per cent are still together by the time their child is 16, the report says.

The study, Cohabitation in the 21st Century, from Christian thinktank the Jubilee Centre also shows that the cost of family breakdown is £41.7billion -- equivalent to £1,350 for every taxpayer each year.

Labels: cohabitation, Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:39 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Featuring Nick Herbert, MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Conservative Party, United Kingdom; Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish Blog, The Atlantic; and Maggie Gallagher, President, National Organization for Marriage.

Labels: Andrew Sullivan, conservatism, culture, gay marriage, Maggie Gallagher, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 9:27 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A total of 232,990 couples wed in 2008, down 1% on the year before, Office for National Statistics figures showed.

For every 1,000 adult men, 21.8 married in 2008, compared with 22.4 in 2007. For women aged over 16 it was 19.6 per 1,000, down from 20.2 the year before.

The Church of England said marriage was now seen as the crown of a relationship rather than a gateway to adulthood. ...

The think tank Civitas said that despite the drop in marriage rates, more than 60% of young unmarried parents surveyed in 2007 actually wanted to marry.

It said young people wanted certain things in place before saying "I do", with the top three being a partner to whom they wanted to commit, financial stability and home ownership.

A spokesperson said: "The question is, will people who want to marry succeed in doing so? Or are high rates of unmarried parenting indicators of thwarted aspirations?"

Resolution, a group of family lawyers, said the legal benefits of tying the knot should be extended to cohabiting but unmarried couples.

Labels: cohabitation, culture, Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 2:11 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The father will be allowed to take time off work to replace the last three months of his partner's nine-month maternity leave.

He would be eligible during the three month period to statutory Government pay of £123 a week.

After nine months, fathers will even have the right the stay off work unpaid for another three months.

Ministers believe it will allow mothers who earn more than their partners to return earlier to work than has otherwise been possible.

Government data has shown that around 350,000 expectant mothers a year are at work. Around two thirds return to work.

It represents a victory for Harriet Harman, the Equalities Minister, who has championed the cause in a bitter Cabinet battle with Lord Mandelson who has fought for business to be spared the extra administrative and financial burden.

Under the current laws, fathers are allowed two weeks paternity leave when their child is born. That will continue, but after the mother has spent six months of leave she can then return to work and allow the father to take the remaining three month’s statutory paid leave and up to six months in total off work.

The new paternity changes will come into force in April next year and parents will be able to use the new transferable right to leave for children born after that date.

Labels: Fathers, United Kingdom, work/family policy

posted by Eve at 10:10 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

In 2008, the divorce rate in England and Wales fell to 11.5 divorcing people per 1,000 married population compared with the 2007 figure of 11.8, a fall of 2.5 per cent. The divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1979 when it was 11.2.

For the fourth consecutive year, both men and women in their late twenties had the highest divorce rates of all five-year age groups. In 2008 there were 26.3 divorces per 1,000 married men aged 25 to 29 and 27.8 divorces per 1,000 married women aged 25 to 29. This compared with 16.8 divorces per 1,000 married men aged 45 to 49 and 14.6 divorces per 1,000 married women aged 45 to 49 in 2008.

Labels: divorce, Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 12:24 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...But then my eyes lowered and I became transfixed by the sight of the boy’s tiny pink fingers gripping his father’s huge, workman-like fist. And I almost wanted to burst into song.

I think my life changed at that moment.

That’s love, folks. Simple really. A proud dad, an adored little boy and a beautiful display of dependence and responsibility. It was the epiphany I had needed and I emerged with a dashing new haircut and a desire to procreate.

Gays have children these days, of course they do, and not always to accessorise an outfit. Some gay couples adopt; others follow twisting paths to biological parenthood, often quite expensively, with the involvement of test tubes and cash changing hands. It is, really, a sort of snook to the system of nature. Shooting for the net without the chore of running with the ball. It’s just not for me.

And lately I have, almost imperceptibly, been laying the groundwork to make parenthood happen in the old-fashioned way. I have been flirting with someone at my local pub, thinking about her at odd times, making excuses to call her and wondering if she likes me. It’s rather strange.

This will come as a shock to — among others — my male former partner of ten years, gay pals from my former media career, my rabidly heterosexual chums in the aviation industry and, not least, my family (who rather hoped I was going through a phase — albeit for about 20 years). Well, it’s come as a shock to me, too.

I once attended the nuptials of a gay male friend to a girl with whom he had unexpectedly fallen head over heels in love. It was a curious affair: the wedding party was peopled with his ex-lovers — including me, the best man and even the vicar. There is a risk that a wedding guest list of mine could have the same casting issues.

Labels: culture, Fathers, homosexuality, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 3:48 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Kirsty Young begins a history of how British families have changed since the Second World War by looking at marriage.

Using vibrant archive footage and bittersweet interviews, she examines how, from the 1940s to the late 1960s, marriage was transformed from a sometimes stifling institution into a more equal relationship. She discovers that although many marriages are now happier, the growing tide of divorce continues unstemmed.

Labels: Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 10:37 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Since the launch of Webcameron, when David Cameron allowed a “homemade” video of himself to be broadcast online, the Conservative leader has made it clear that the Tories are the party for families, and that they back marriage. In a speech in March at the Welsh Conservative Conference, he affirmed this, saying: “We want to see a more responsible society, where people behave in a decent and civilised way, where they understand their obligations to others, to their neighbours, to their country. And above all, to their family. Families are the most important institution in our society. We have to do everything in our power to strengthen them.”

Now Labour, recognising the success of this idea, are to publish a green paper in January supporting wedlock and conceding that children fare better when parents stay together. “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,” Ed Balls told the Sunday Times.

Labels: family policy, government interest in marriage, Marriage, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 11:56 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A new report by the British think-tank Demos has hit the headlines, with its claim that ‘Parents are the principal architects of a fairer society’. Based on research from the Millennium Cohort Study, the report argues that how children are parented has a more significant impact upon their future life chances than just about anything else, including poverty and the social class into which they are born (1).

You might wonder whether the world really needs another report blaming particular parenting styles for every evident problem in late capitalist society. Across the British political spectrum, policy continually seeks to clobber parents over the head with the assertion that the future of Britain rests or falls according to whether they feed their children too many sweets or read to them for the requisite number of minutes at bedtime.

So when Jen Lexmond and Richard Reeves, authors of the Demos report, respond to concerns about interference by the ‘nanny state’ by arguing that ‘if there is one area where government intervention is justified, it is in precisely the area of life signalled by the term “nannying” – the development of children’s capabilities’, they are pushing at doors opened by New Labour, and held open by the Tories. Nothing new there.

However, Lexmond and Reeves at least try to go beyond the emotional blackmail that informs most parenting policy, which simply asserts that if you don’t adopt the right kind of parenting behaviours with your children they will die of obesity or end up on the social scrapheap, with no qualifications and a million mental disorders. Their report, Building Character, is an attempt to wrestle with the problem of how we bring up children with a sense of self and agency, who can achieve things in life and develop a responsibility to people and projects outside of themselves.

This is an important question, and one that preoccupies parents as much as policy-wonks. I have often found myself ploughing through the latest piece of official parenting advice and wondering to what end it all leads. The idea that rearing children is just about maximising their ‘happiness’, or stopping them from becoming fat, or enabling them to take a few calculated risks, might all make some sense on a personal, daily level, but it seems thoroughly inadequate in terms of a generational project.

When we say ‘children are the future’, we don’t just mean that they will outlive us, but that they will be the ones running society and making history. To that extent, it really is not enough that they are happy or that they have high self-esteem – they have to be able to cope with adversity and think outside of themselves, in order to shape the world around them. This is where character comes into play, and where adults’ role in helping to ‘build character’ is crucially important.

Unfortunately, while Demos’ enthusiasm for addressing this issue is refreshing, its narrow focus on parenting styles and outcomes among young children means that the report ends up peddling the same old mixture of common sense and nonsense.

Labels: children, culture, parenting, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 4:10 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Pupils in England will be given classes in sex and relationships from the age of five under Government plans to cut teenage pregnancies.

Children will learn about parts of the body, the facts of life and puberty in primary school. At secondary school, they will be taught about pregnancy, contraception, HIV and homosexual relationships, it was disclosed.

All mothers and fathers will be able to keep children out on moral and religious grounds but will lose the right of withdraw when they turn 15. The ruling will affect 600,000 pupils a year.

The controversial move is designed to ensure pupils get at least 12 months of sex education before finishing compulsory schooling. ...

Faith schools will also be forced to teach all aspects of the new-style curriculum, including same-sex relationships, contraception and abortion, although ministers insisted they could stage lessons within the “tenets of their faith”.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said: “You can teach the promotion of marriage, you can teach that you shouldn't have sex outside of marriage, what you can't do is deny young people information about contraception outside of marriage.

“The same arises in homosexuality. Some faiths have a view about what in religious terms is right and wrong – what they can’t do though is not teach the importance of tolerance.”

Labels: schools, sex education, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 2:18 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Law Commission wants to end rules dating back more than 80 years and give most partners who do not marry the same rights as bereaved spouses.

The body admitted the proposal will be "controversial" but insisted current laws "reflect some of the social conditions and attitudes of a different era" and need to be in line with "modern families".

But the plans will reignite concerns that the significance of traditional families is being weakened.

Under the current law, cohabitees have no automatic right to inherit their partner's assets if they die without leaving a will, despite many believing they do.

Instead the estate goes to the children of the deceased or other family members if there are no children.

An unmarried partner would have to go to court to claim from the estate which causes "great financial and emotional cost", the Commission said.

In comparison, a married spouse or civil partner automatically inherits everything or receives a large portion of very high value estates.

In a major review of intestate rules, which govern what happens if someone dies without a will, the Commission proposes bringing some unmarried couples on a par with married ones.

The consultation suggests those who lived together for at least five years should have equal rights to those of a spouse while those who were together for between two and five years should receive half of what a spouse would. ...

Professor Elizabeth Cooke, the Commissioner who led the review, said: "When a family member dies, the process of grieving and of adjustment to change can be made far worse by uncertainty and anxiety about money for belongings.

"It is vital that the law remains relevant and up to date, reflecting the reality of modern society and the reasonable expectations of those who have been bereaved."

Labels: cohabitation, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 4:44 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government's target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately.

And if that makes sense, why not start cutting population everywhere? Are condoms not the greenest technology of all?

World population is forecast to peak at 9.2bn by 2050. According to a report by the LSE for the Optimum Population Trust, the lobbying body currently asking parents to "Stop at Two", it would cost $220m to provide the family planning that would reduce the 2050 population by half a billion, preventing the emission of 34 gigatonnes of carbon. Introducing low-carbon technology for the same result would cost more than $1 trillion. ...

So the richer a country gets, the more pressing the need for it to curb its population. The only nation to have taken steps to do this is China – and the way it went about enforcing the notorious one child policy is one of the reasons the rest of us are so horrified by the notion of state intervention. Yet China now has 300-400 million fewer people. It was certainly the most successful governmental attempt to preserve the world's resources so far.

But lowering birth rate need not be so draconian. Experience shows it is most effectively done by ensuring women's equality and improving their education, while providing cheap contraception. Birth rate, gender equality, education and poverty are inextricably linked.

Labels: contraception, culture, demographics, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 9:15 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A ground-breaking series of studies, published next month, show liberal attitudes towards the make-up of the family, religion and cultural integration among the modern generation of girls and young women.

The survey, which questioned a representative sample of 1,109 seven to 21 year-olds across the UK, found that a third of girls in the younger age group thought they would be "grown up" by the age of 15, while 90 per cent of 16 to 21-year-olds regarded themselves as "grown up".

Girls were generally positive about marriage but less than half thought it should come before parenthood. One in four thought it was "OK to get married several times", rising to a third in the 16 to 21 age range.

One finding suggested that some teenagers actively plan to become single mothers. Of the girls questioned who had left schools and were unemployed, almost half (45 per cent) expected to have a baby before they were 21.

Labels: adolescence, childhood, children, culture, family structure, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births, remarriage, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 3:28 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Tories are to go ahead with their plans to recognise marriage in the tax system, the shadow minister for families said today.

Maria Miller said the Conservative party "unashamedly supports families and unashamedly supports marriage", rallying around the tax pledge, a policy that has come in for criticism from liberal members of the Tory party and opposition parties but remains one of David Cameron's highest profile promises.

The Conservative leader is known to regard the policy highly but senior Tories and pressure groups are uncertain that the best way of supporting families is necessarily through recognising marriage because unmarried couples would also receive the tax break under Conservative proposals.

Speaking at the Tory conference in Manchester, Miller indicated no weakening of resolve. This afternoon she said: "It is not because we want to go back to any 1950s ideals of family life. It's because it's empirically proven that marriage provides a stable framework for our lives. With the evidence right in front of us, it's madness not to support marriage. That's why we're committed to introducing the recognition of marriage in the tax and benefit system.

"In turbulent times, it's our family who we turn to. The family, not the state, is our best support system."

Labels: cohabitation, family policy, government interest in marriage, Marriage, tax policy, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 10:16 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A pregnant mother will have to give birth to another couple's baby after a blunder by an IVF clinic.

Carolyn Savage had the wrong embryos implanted into her and will have to give the boy up to his biological parents as soon as he is born.

Yesterday Mrs Savage, 40, who was expecting her fourth child with husband Sean, said: 'The hardest part is going to be the delivery. I remember communicating with the [unnamed] mother of this child as to what I was envisioning and hoping for." ...

The couple decided not to have an abortion because of their religious beliefs, and have met the other couple and arranged a handover.

Labels: Artificial Reproductive Technology, motherhood, pregnancy, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 2:36 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...For example, from the point of view of Church, a proper family must have a marriage in it – as I have just said, we have had this repeated over and over. As I have said elsewhere, I am more interested these days in the concept of the sacrament of relationships, rather than merely marriage, but this is certainly a bridge too far for our own Church. So, we do get a clear idea from Church, even if we don’t subscribe to it, of what family is, or isn’t!

The State is much more open to other forms and is perhaps driven by other considerations, not least the views of the electorate. But it is ironic that the State appears to be much more pastoral and compassionate in its acceptance of what family is. The fact that there are all kinds of benefits available for different family forms, and legal imperatives to support families suggests that the State is even more concerned for families than Church. ...

The cohabitation of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s bears no resemblance, other than in purely external form, to the current cohabitation of hetersexuals. Where wedding ring and suburban housing once were consequences of marriage, the modern day wedding ring is a mortgage, children, and a personal and private decision to be together. Duncan Dormor writes well on this phenomenon in his book, Just Cohabiting, where he suggests that modern cohabitation is akin to Mediaeval betrothal.

Add to this the increasing openness, and tolerance, of same-sex unions and the picture of today’s family society starts to come into focus. The Civil Partnerships legislation in this country was somewhat ground-breaking in giving gays and lesbians similar legal rights to heterosexual partnership. The real consequence of this is the legal acceptance, and partial social acceptance, of this family form.

We know, nevertheless, that there are many who are outrightly opposed to same-sex unions having any legal status. Our own Church is particularly active in some areas on this front, perhaps missing the point that when we look at intimate relationships, we should be less concerned, as Church, with the purely civil, and focus on sacrament that is more about the expression of the presence of God mediated through commitment, consent and covenant. Where this exists in married couples, in cohabiting heterosexual couples and same-sex couples, there is sacrament, I believe.

Labels: Catholic Church, civil unions, cohabitation, gay marriage, marriage counseling, religion, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 7:23 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Church of England is offering couples a two-for-one service - marriage for them and baptisms for their children.

The church says it is recognizing the changing reality of British families. Statistics show that 44 per cent of children in Britain are born to unmarried women. ...

The church said it was responding to demand, but still believed the best place for sex was within marriage.

Labels: Church of England, culture, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, religion, sex, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 7:21 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a “right” to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.

The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for “safe sex” and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment.

The document, called Pleasure, has been drawn up by NHS Sheffield, although it is also being circulated outside the city.

Alongside the slogan “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away”, it says: “Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?”

Labels: adolescence, premarital sex, sex, sex education, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 7:17 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Conservative leader David Cameron has been accused of contributing to the closure of Roman Catholic adoption agencies in order to win homosexual voters.

In 2007 Mr Cameron voted for new ‘gay rights’ laws forcing adoption groups to consider gay couples as potential adopters without any protection for religious agencies.

Newspaper columnist Gerald Warner says the Conservative leader had “calculated that it was worthwhile insulting Catholics (8 per cent of the electorate) to please homosexuals (0.8 per cent) because he believed (correctly) that the former do not constitute a bloc vote and imagined (incorrectly) that the latter do”.

The new laws have now seen most of these agencies – known for their work with ‘hard to place’ children – either cut ties with the Roman Catholic Church or drop out of adoption work.

Labels: adoption, Catholic Church, discrimination law, religious liberty, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 7:11 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

In Britain last Thursday, the House of Lords, by a vote of 186-133, deleted from the proposed Coroners and Justice Bill section 61 which would have done away with a statutory free speech defense to the crime of inciting homophobic hatred. The defense is found in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 which outlaws inciting hatred on the ground of sexual orientation, but goes on to provide:

In this Part, for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be
threatening or intended to stir up hatred.

Labels: homosexuality, religious liberty, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 7:07 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Couples would be required by law to "reflect" on their marriage and explore the possibility of reconciliation, under plans put forward by Iain Duncan Smith's Centre for Social Justice.

In a key report being studied by David Cameron, the group also proposes more rights for people to keep the assets they owned before they were married if they later got divorced.

New rights for cohabiting couples, proposed by the equality minister Harriet Harman would be scrapped.

Divorce in England and Wales is currently granted on the basis of the irretrievable breakdown of marriage, on one of five so-called “grounds” – adultery; unreasonable behaviour; desertion; two years’ separation with consent; or five years’ separation without consent.

The new proposals are for a three-month delay before divorce proceedings could begin.

The proposals form part of a major new report called Every Family Matters which aims to bolster family life with new legal measures. ...

A system of state-sponsored relationship counselling is proposed which is based on a scheme in Australia where struggling couples attend Family Relationship Centres.

The proposed British version would be called "family relationship hubs" and couples would be required to attend them by law if they wanted to divorce.

In addition, all couples preparing to marry would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the hubs, although the report stops short of making this compulsory.

It also calls for an overhaul of the law on how assets are divided when couples divorce to better reflect "marital sacrifices".

Labels: cohabitation, divorce, divorce reform, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 5:21 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Homosexuals can "lay equal claim to their married heterosexual counterparts when bringing up children in stable relationships" the head of the highly regarded British Catholic marriage counselling service, Marriage Care, will tell a gathering of homosexualist activists this weekend.

Marriage Care is registered as a Catholic charity whose president is the sitting Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, who is represented on the board by Fr. Michael Cooley. The organization, formed after the Second World War, calls itself "a Christian organisation, developed from within the Catholic community." The group operates from 80 locations and 53 relationship counselling centres in England and Wales.

Terry Prendergast, Chief Executive of Marriage Care, is to be keynote speaker at the annual conference of the homosexualist organisation Quest, a group that is trying to convince the Catholic Church to abandon its "policies" on sexuality and the nature of marriage. Prendergast will call upon the Catholic Church to "rethink" the nature of the family this weekend.

"Statistically, children do best in a family where the adult relationship is steady, stable and loving," Prendergast will tell the group in his prepared remarks. "Note that I stress adult, not married, since there is no evidence that suggests that children do best with heterosexual couples," he will add.

In a press release, Quest said it was looking forward to the appearance of Prendergast at its annual conference this coming weekend, the theme of which is "We Are Family: New Thinking for the Twenty First Century." Quest describes Prendergast's upcoming talk as focusing on the "romantic image" built up by the Church of a "golden age of the nuclear family" which excludes those who "do not fit." These, the group says, include single parent families, "and also co-habiting and same-sex families." ...

Terry Prendergast told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview that a significant source of the group's funding and other support comes from Catholic dioceses, one of which pays the rent for offices, and from individual parishes across the country. But, he said, the group's purpose is not necessarily to uphold the Catholic teaching on marriage and family.

Labels: Catholic Church, cohabitation, gay marriage, Marriage, marriage counseling, religion, single parenting, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 11:15 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A government watchdog decided that Canterbury in Kent does enough to promote homosexual culture, rejecting a complaint by local activists.

The Local Government Ombudsman – who asked for the city's council to provide evidence of how it supported the gay community – said it was satisfied the pink pound was being catered for.

As part of the investigation, the council had to prove its inclusiveness by giving details of "touring plays and musicals, for example, which would be of interest to the LGBT community".

And it had to show that it had "put forward suggestions for small events that it might help fund, as well as proposals for other events such as exhibitions".

Labels: culture, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 5:31 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The results of an official investigation into the effects of gay adoption in Scotland will not be made public, the Scottish Government has said.

Laws allowing same-sex couples to adopt were passed in 2006 and the Scottish Government now wants to allow gay fostering.

Ministers instigated an investigation into the effects of gay adoption on children last month.

It has now emerged that the results will not be published, sparking concerns that they may contain findings which would alarm the public.

The Scottish Government claims the findings are for ‘in-house’ use and therefore do not need to be disclosed. ...

The issue of gay adoption returned to the fore last month after Edinburgh City Council told a couple who protested against their grandchildren being adopted by two gay men that they would not see the children again unless they dropped their opposition.

Labels: adoption, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:20 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT