These articles were first published in our June edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
Pupils in mid-April called for a Tayside minister to be axed from a school chaplaincy role after accusing him of being a bigot.
The Revd Mike Goss said he was ‘very disappointed’ after a petition was lodged urging Carnoustie High to sever its links with him, accusing him of being against gay marriage. He described the petition as a ‘tissue of lies’ and said that the allegations were ‘potentially actionable’.
According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, marriage rates for opposite-sex couples in 2015 were the lowest on record, following a gradual long-term decline since the early 1970s.
In 2015, there were only 21.7 marriages per thousand unmarried men and 19.8 marriages per thousand unmarried women, compared with 84 marriages per thousand unmarried men and 63.5 marriages per thousand unmarried women when marriage rates were at their height in 1972.
In late April, Ealing Council introduced a ‘buffer zone’ banning pro-life pavement counsel and prayer from outside Marie Stopes on Mattock Lane.
Despite no credible evidence of inappropriate behaviour, Ealing councillors voted unanimously to ban pro-life activity within 100 metres of Mattock Lane’s clinic. Other councils are looking at following their lead.
In mid-April, a humanist who says she doesn’t believe in God was appointed by the NHS to lead a team of Christian chaplains.
Lindsay van Dijk will lead a team of three priests at the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. Van Dijk said: ‘Anyone within the chaplaincy team goes to patients to lend a listening ear, to provide spiritual and emotional support, and doesn’t specifically say ‘I’m from this faith’ as it’s not important. We’re not there to proselytise our own beliefs.’
It was announced in May that the new President for Christians in Library and Information Services (CLIS) is to be Richard M. Waller.
Until his retirement, Richard worked for the public library service in Wigan and is currently a deacon of the Jireh Baptist Church in Wigan. He has played an active role in the programme of library assistance.
Due to speak at the Northern Men’s Convention on 12 May, Tim Farron MP withdrew a few days before.
He cited promotional material which contained things that saddened him. Organisers said: ‘As a result of the publicity, we have been accused of being homophobic, Islamaphobic and anti immigration [not by Farron Ed]. We recognise that some of the language in our publicity was clumsy … we are sorry that our words caused offence to some; this was in no way our intention.’
A Freedom of Information Request in April asked Ofsted whether they possessed any evidence of church Sunday schools which ‘promote extremism’ and the nature of that evidence.
Ofsted’s reply came on the final deadline of 26 April and revealed that there was no evidence.
Care for Life Guernsey campaign was launched to form a united front to oppose assisted suicide, and call on Members of the States of Deliberation, the Guernsey Unicameral Parliament, to defeat the Requête Petition and Amendment which will be debated on 16 May.
A positive vote will commit the States to introducing an assisted suicide law, so its defeat is crucial.