Australia's government has blocked a free vote on same-sex marriage, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying the issue should be "put to the people" following the next election.
In the News
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August 11th, 2015
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August 10th, 2015
This iniquitous Bill refuses to die. It keeps re-emerging like a Godzilla sequel; forever coming back like the proverbial bad penny – unwanted, unpleasant, unfortunate. We are told that the law as it stands is cruel; condemning, as it does, thousands of people to pain and needless suffering. This Bill will end the trauma: it foreshortens the unbearable life; casting the burden onto eternity. But it isn’t true. This Bill is not compassionate, kind or merciful: in fact, it’s a bunny-boiler of a bill, designed, as it proclaims, “to enable competent adults who are terminally ill to choose to be provided with medically supervised assistance to end their own life” – that is, to oblige doctors to play God, not only in determining absolute life expectancy, but in furnishing the deadly poison and assembling the mechanisms of death.
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August 7th, 2015Jihadis fighting for the Islamic State have seized a key town in central Syria in what is the terror group's most significant advance since capturing the ancient city of Palmyra in May.
The heavily populated town of Qaryatain lies south west of Palmyra, which is home to towering Roman ruins, and is located some 50 miles from the Assad regime-held city of Homs.
ISIS fanatics seized the town earlier this morning after three suicide bombers targeted army checkpoints at the entrance to Qaryatain yesterday....
Activists say it has a mixed population of around 40,000 Sunni Muslims and Christians, as well as thousands of internally displaced people who had fled from Homs. -
August 7th, 2015Christians who oppose gay marriage face prosecution for 'hate crime' under new anti-terrorism laws. I'm sorry, just run that by me again.
So the Government introduces legislation to tackle Islamist hate preachers and the next thing you know it's Christians being put in the dock because they believe marriage should be between a man and a woman? -
August 7th, 2015The opening night of a controversial show by a euthanasia advocate has gone ahead at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, despite intervention from the police and the authorities.The one-man show by Dr Philip Nitschke, Dicing With Dr Death, includes advice on how to commit suicide and the demonstration of his "Destiny" machine.Just hours before showtime Edinburgh Council ruled he wasn't allowed to use compressed gas as part of the act – and minutes before he went on stage, officials examined the device.
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August 7th, 2015Britain is such a godless society that only the puritanical now believe that celebrities’ sexual affairs should be publicly exposed, a judge has said.
The role-model status of a top sportsman who cheated with a fellow celebrity was ruled as no longer sufficient justification for exposing him in the media.
The identities of the former lovers were being widely discussed on social media yesterday in flagrant breach of a High Court order banning The Sun on Sunday from naming them.
The latest in a growing number of privacy injunctions was described by a leading lawyer last night as a swingers’ charter, allowing the wealthy to have affairs without the risk of their spouse being informed. -
August 6th, 2015The head of an organisation that runs three Birmingham schools at the centre of the Trojan Horse scandal is to step down - just months after it was revealed that he was a former disgraced councillor.The Birmingham Mail revealed in May that Waheed Saleem was banned from holding public office for one year after leaking commercially sensitive information about a bid in a council property tender process while serving as a councillor in Walsall in 2004.The 33-year-old was appointed as chairman of the former Park View Education Trust (PVET) in March this year, taking over from respected Waverley School executive head teacher Kamal Hanif who was forced to step down for personal reasons.Mr Hanif, OBE, had taken the place of former chairman Tahir Alam – a leading figure in the Trojan Horse scandal, which involved an alleged plot by hardline Muslims to take over governing bodies.
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August 6th, 2015A coalition of anti-trafficking charities today (Thursday August 6) will launch a new campaign calling on the Scottish Government to do more to help trafficked and exploited children.CARE for Scotland, ECPAT UK and Walk Free are joining forces to launch a wide reaching petition that will put pressure on the Scottish Government to improve the Scottish Government’s Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill in regards to children.The charities are calling on the Government to ensure an effective system of independent guardianship for all trafficked and separated children and to ensure children are not prosecuted for crimes they are forced to commit.
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August 6th, 2015
Prime Minister David Cameron has been presented with De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)’s highest honour in recognition of his fight for same-sex 'marriage'.
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August 6th, 2015The founding pastor of the Hillsong Church in Australia says gay people are welcome in the congregation but are forbidden from holding senior positions.
Brian Houston posted a lengthy blog entitled 'Do I love gay people?' on Wednesday in response to news that an openly gay couple - Survivor contestants Josh Canfield and Reed Kelly - lead a church choir at Hillsong's New York church.
Mr Houston wrote that the church 'welcomes gay people to worship' but will not 'affirm their lifestyle'.