Sixty-three of the Nigerian women and girls kidnapped by
Boko Haram in April have escaped and returned to their families. There are also
reports of increased fighting between Boko Haram and the Nigerian army.
In echoes of a recent legal case in the USA, a Christian
bakery in Northern Ireland is facing legal action after it refused to bake a
cake for a gay marriage campaign. Although gay marriage is still illegal in
Northern Ireland, the Equality Commission has written to the bakery telling
them that they have breached equality laws.
A spokesman for the Christian Institute said, “Imagine the uproar if the
Equality Commission told an environmentally conscious baker to produce a cake
saying, ‘Support Fracking’? Or a feminist baker to make a cake saying, ‘Sharia
for UK’?
The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a
resolution that re-affirms the natural family as “the natural and fundamental
unit of society.” Some countries that offer gay marriage, or offer couples in
civil partnerships equal rights to married couples have rejected the
definition, claiming that the resolution
“tries to impose a single model of family.”
One of the largest banks in the USA has been criticised for
a question in its annual employee survey. JP Morgan Chase asked employees whether they
were members of the LGBT community, but the next question asked if the employee
was “an ally of the LGBT community.” The head of the International Community on
Religious Freedom said “The message to all employees is clear: you are expected
to fall in line with the approved and required thinking.” The president of the
National Organisation for Marriage described the question as “the tactics of
intimidation.”
There are concerns of the physical and psychological health
of Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman who has been in solitary
confinement for three and a half years awaiting an appeal against a death
sentence for blasphemy, because any lawyer or judge who takes on her case gets
death threats. There is, however, a glimmer of hope for Christianity in
Pakistan, with Pakistan’s highest court ruling that a national council to
protect minority rights should be formed.
Following the resignation of the CEO of Mozilla Inc. after
he donated $1,000 to a pro-traditional-marriage group, a research group has
been looking at donors to pro-abortion causes. It found that Warren Buffett,
believed to be the world’s fourth richest man, has donated $1.23 billion to
abortion groups over eleven years. A spokesman said, “That’s enough to pay for
2.7 million abortions – equivalent to the entire population of Chicago.”
In sports news, Britain’s “amazing week” of sport has been one
of mixed success. Andy Murray exited Wimbledon in the quarter finals with
hardly any fight, and Mark Cavendish crashed on the first stage of the Tour de
France (in Yorkshire) and is out of the race after dislocating his collarbone.
However, Lewis Hamilton managed to win the British Grand Prix at Silverstone
after his team-mate and main rival, Nico Rosberg, retired with a gearbox problem.
In technology news, Google has put into practice a promise
to ban sexually explicit advertising from it AdWords advertising network. The
ban includes “adult entertainment” and “services that may be interpreted as
providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation.” A spokesman for Google
said, “We don’t allow this content regardless of whether it meets applicable legal
restrictions.”
And finally, two US television producers recently fought a
courtroom battle over who should own the
trademark to the name of a proposed television show. The person who made the later attempt to
register the trademark accused the other of failing to make use of the
trademark. The later registrant won the case on a technicality, much to the
chagrin of the other who felt her evidence had not been heard properly, and so
is now legally free to make a television show entitled, “What Would Jesus Do?”
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