The US Supreme Court has refused to hear a collection of
legal challenges to the principle of gay marriage, instead allowing individual
states to decide. This is likely to increase dissatisfaction with gay marriage
in states where voters have rejected it but the bans have been overturned by
the courts for being unconstitutional (Alaska is the latest state where this
has happened). A Supreme Court decision might have settled the issue of the
constitutionality of both banning gay marriage and of permitting it.
A retrospective blog on the Egyptian revolution has concluded
that “religious illiteracy” was a primary cause of the British media ignoring
the mass burning of Coptic churches in August 2013. The blog writer said: “As usual the media had been siding with the
political opposition, in true British fashion, assuming them to be the under-dog
in a game of two sides. They had ignored the complicating third and fourth
factors: the persecuted [Christian] Copts, and browbeaten [Muslim] Sufis,
either ignorant of their existence or embarrassed about siding with Christians
or more esoteric religion.” The church burnings were perpetrated by the
“political opposition,” a fact eventually highlighted in a Spectator cover
piece based on reports from an (agnostic) American foreign correspondent.
Nick Clegg has stated his opposition to legislation
permitting assisted suicide, although he acknowledges that he is in the
minority in his party on this issue. He has a Dutch mother, and he said before
becoming Deputy Prime Minister that he was aware that the Netherlands has a
permissive culture in which people go beyond the law on assisted suicide. The
Liberal Democrat conference has also voted in favour of removing the
requirement for schools to hold a daily act of Christian worship, but rejected
a motion to ban faith-based selection in state schools after an intervention by Business Secretary Vince Cable.
The Muslim community in Bolton has raised ₤30,000 for the
widow of Alan Henning, the aid worker who was executed by Islamic State in
Iraq. The mosque had already held a prayer vigil for Henning the previous
month. Henning was not even from Bolton, but from nearby Eccles.
The consultation on abortion being run by the Northern
Ireland’s Department of Justice is not being supported by the province’s new
Health Minister, who is staunchly pro-life. “I am not one of those people who
leaves their personal views at the doors of the Assembly,” said the minister.
Boko Haram has released twenty seven hostages who had been
captured, and held, in north Cameroon.
They included ten Chinese construction workers and the wife of
Cameroon’s vice-president. Although Boko Haram’s stated goal is to establish an
Islamic state in Nigeria, they often cross the border into Cameroon.
In sport, the biggest surprise of the week came in football’s
European Championship qualifiers when Poland beat Germany 2-0. Poland had 3
shots on target in the whole game; Germany had eight in the first half alone. Two teams from the group, which also includes
Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, will qualify for the finals.
And finally, a South African man who started dating an
American missionary, because he was impressed by how she cared for children,
arranged a special surprise for her when he flew to Kansas City to visit her.
As the plane emptied, every single passenger agreed to hand his girlfriend a
flower; he was the last one off the plane, and he proposed to her. When she
said Yes, United Airlines played a song
he had written for her over the P.A.
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