These articles were first published in our August edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
A campaign was launched in June encouraging Christians to read more books. We skim news headlines, we scroll social media feeds, we study product reviews. We’re reading all the time. But we are not reading deeply things that will cause us to think.
Details on the Renew Your Mind online short film and its accompanying book can be found at thegoodbook.co.uk/renew
Women’s rights campaigners who reject transgender ideology were placed on the Co-operative Bank’s banned list, alongside an individual with links to an ‘oppressive overseas regime’, it was reported in June.
The unnamed feminist organisation was declined banking services because it had views at odds with Co-op policies on diversity and inclusion. Women’s rights campaigner Venice Allan said it was ‘highly inappropriate’ for the bank to penalise organisations for ‘sticking to the correct definition of a woman’.
A legal challenge to introduce gender-neutral passports in the UK was rejected by the High Court in June.
Christie Elan-Cane claimed that the process for UK passports was ‘inherently discriminatory’ and breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The judge said he was ‘not satisfied’ that ‘the current policy of HM Passport Office is unlawful’. However, he went on to say that government departments should consider whether ‘the recording of an individual’s sex and/or gender in official and other documentation is justified’.
Following a failed attempt to introduce assisted suicide in Guernsey, a campaign began in June for the introduction of assisted suicide in Jersey.
Pro-assisted suicide campaigner Tanya Tupper contacted all election candidates in the build-up to Jersey’s election, and asked if they would support legalisation of that practice. 19 candidates who were elected as Members of the new Assembly said that they would. A further 11 did not respond, while 14 Members were elected unopposed and thus not surveyed.
On 27 June, the Supreme Court backed the case of a couple seeking to change the law on heterosexual civil partnerships.
Judges ruled in favour of the case brought by Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who argued that not allowing for heterosexual civil partnerships was incompatible with human-rights law.
Assisted suicide will remain illegal in the UK following a June ruling from the Court of Appeal.
In the ruling, judges fully upheld an earlier judgment which said the current law was compatible with human-rights legislation. It had stated that Parliament could legitimately defend laws which ‘avoid creating a slippery slope leading to incremental expansion’. Campaign group Care Not Killing responded to the ruling by calling for improved access to both palliative care and mental health support.
Lord Ahmad was appointed as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief in early July.
The appointment underscores her commitment to tackling religious prejudice in all its forms and follows recent announcement of a further £1 million funding for places of worship that have been subjected to hate crime attacks. Lord Ahmad said: ‘In too many parts of the world, religious minorities are persecuted, discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens. As a man of faith, I feel this very keenly.’