News Bulletin 2 March 2012

The head of the BBC Mark Thompson has walked into a storm of controversy by admitting that the broadcaster would never mock Mohammed in the same way that it mocks Jesus — The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said that marriage should not be redefined in law — Ann Widdecombe, has called for contentious issue of redefining marriage to be put to a public vote — Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, has been told that she does not ‘own’ marriage and should listen to the people — The Coalition for Marriage has launched an online petition in support of the current legal definition of marriage and has gained over 66,000 signatures in just 10 days — Christians are facing genuine legal difficulties in Britain, according to a new report which criticises the ‘Equality Act’ for failing to deal with the tensions between different strands of equality — A local council is set to remove a cross from a Crematorium in Bath, to make it more ‘inclusive’ even though no one appears to have ever complained about the Christian symbol — A controversial article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics says that medics should be able to kill newborn babies if they are disabled, too expensive or simply unwanted — Abortion has been trivialised according to Commentator and medical psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple — And the number of marriages in 2010 rose by almost four per cent on the previous year.