Displaying items by tag: United Kingdom

As reported last week, five Northern Ireland supreme court judges are currently considering the Ashers Bakery case - see Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell backs Ashers even though he disagrees with their views because he said it’s wrong to compel people to say things they don’t agree with. It is not merely a ‘gay cake case’; what is on trial is society’s attitude to tolerance and the freedom to disagree. Will Muslim bakers be compelled to bake a Charlie Hebdo cake ridiculing their faith? Will lesbian T-shirt makers have to produce T-shirts saying ‘Gay marriage is an abomination’? Will Catholic printers have to print leaflets denouncing the Pope? If Ashers Bakery loses, then everyone loses. The case shows how ‘equality’ is being used to silence anyone who disagrees - with devastating consequences for free speech.

Guernsey wants to introduce a law which will allow terminally ill people to end their life. The island is due to debate a ‘requête’ and vote (equivalent to a Westminster private member’s bill), which if approved could pave the way to assisted dying. The British Medical Association opposes assisted dying and supports current legal frameworks allowing compassionate and ethical care for the dying to die with dignity. Guernsey doctors must be registered with the General Medical Council in the UK in order to practise medicine on the island. The GMC states it is a criminal offence for anyone to encourage or assist a person to commit suicide. As doctors need to remain GMC members to work in Guernsey, it is difficult to know how they could do so if there was a unilateral change in legislation there.

The House of Lords, by 245 votes to 218, has voted for the UK effectively to remain in the EU's single market after Brexit, even though neither the government nor the Labour leadership backed the move. Ministers warned that staying in the European Economic Area (EEA) would not give the UK ‘control of our borders or our laws’. The issue will now return to the Commons, where pro-EU MPs said they were hopeful of getting the support needed to prevent the changes being overturned. Under what is known as the ‘Norway model’ (Norway is one of three countries outside the EU which belong to the EEA) free movement laws would also apply, so that EU citizens could move to all EEA countries to work and live. The government's Brexit bill also suffered a series of other defeats in the Lords.

Between 8 May and 12 June those attending parliament’s weekly chapel services will be looking at the gospel of John and the different stories of ‘Encounters with Jesus’. Please pray for the speakers as they prepare. Pray for increasing numbers of parliamentarians and staff to attend regularly, be inspired to invite others and be strengthened in their faith. There are several Bible study groups meeting every week; pray that the members of all these groups will continue to grow in their love for Jesus and be better equipped to live out their faith in Parliament. Pray and thank God for the new Wednesday Bible study group, now firmly established with a committed core group attending regularly. Also please pray for the preparations for the national parliamentary prayer breakfast on 19 June, with the topic ‘What can Christianity offer our society in the 21st century?’

Sally, now 20, believes her mental distress should have been spotted years before she received treatment that helped her. She says she became ill when she first started secondary school. Teachers noticed, describing her as ‘an odd child’, but in the end Sally had to ask her doctor for help herself. She was 16 and on the edge of suicide before she got any effective treatment. The charity Young Minds says it is not uncommon for families to have to wait 18 months even to get an assessment for their child, let alone treatment. In December, the government announced plans to overhaul children's mental health care in England, with proposals limiting waiting time to four weeks and allowing children to access mental health support in schools. Now a report from MPs has branded the strategy ‘unambitious’, providing no help to most of the children who need it. But ministers reject this suggestion, saying their proposals will transform the system.

Thy Kingdom Come 2018 will see thousands around the world, praying for friends, neighbours, colleagues and workmates to come to know Jesus Christ. Churches, chaplaincies, prayer houses, 24/7 prayer rooms and schools are using a range of fresh ideas from the Thy Kingdom Come website. It also has ideas for retreats, special events, booklets, posters, bands etc. to be used throughout the ten day event, plus inspirational videos and blogs on topics including how to pray for others, how to get started in prayer, and encouraging others in prayer. Pray for many more individuals and groups to be involved this year. Pray for the planning of events across the UK and farther afield. Pray for all the preparation that will take place after the planning. Most of all pray that millions will do whatever they hear God telling them to do.

The Financial times recently asked what Sajid Javid’s becoming home secretary means for Brexit. Some suggest that his appointment on Monday, Tuesday’s Lords vote preventing a ‘no deal walk away’, and Wednesday’s customs union defeat (see next article) create additional challenges for our Prime Minister and her government at this strategic time. Pray for God to strengthen, clarify and bless every communication, written and spoken, between London, Ireland and Europe. May confusion in departments be replaced with precise fact finding, mistrust replaced with confident expectations, turmoil replaced with peace, and God to strengthen all who are weary from heavy workloads. Ask God to exchange blame strategies for honest appraisal where it’s due and inaccuracies for wise revisions, and inject integrity into current circumstances.

A crisis Cabinet meeting failed to back Theresa May's plan for a ‘customs partnership’ with Brussels. Key Brexit sub-committee members tried to thrash out a model for the UK's future trade links with Brussels in two hours of tense discussions that ended in deadlock. Insiders said that Sajid Javid had been instrumental in rejecting her plan. Mrs May ordered ministers and officials to carry out ‘further work’ on two options and return with revised proposals at a later date. Whitehall sources reported that six ministers oppose her option and want a looser customs arrangement with Brussels. Boris Johnson urged Mrs May to stick to the principles of her keynote speech at the Mansion House earlier this year which clearly stated that Britain would not form any customs union with the EU after Brexit. International trade secretary Liam Fox said the customs partnership was ‘not compatible’ with Brexit.

In 2015 the Government refused the appeal of the Anjuman-E-Islahul-Mislimeen Trust against Newham Council’s decision to refuse them planning permission for the development of the largest place of worship in Britain. The court of appeal refused to permit a ‘statutory review’ of that decision, then refused Islamist Tablighi Jammat’s (TJ) last-ditch legal attempt to overturn the injunction against them. By rights TJ should put in a new planning application for mixed use, remove the temporary mosque, and stop using the site as a place of worship. However, TJ are going to the European court of human rights (ECHR) to try to keep alive their dream of a mega-mosque in West Ham. On Saturday 5 May Christians will attend an open-air prayer meeting overlooking the proposed site.

Ashers Bakery in Northern Ireland, which was found to have discriminated by refusing to make a ‘gay cake’, had their appeal heard by the supreme court on 1 and 2 May. They challenged the 2014 ruling over their decision not to make a cake iced with the slogan ‘Support Gay Marriage’. Appeal court judges upheld the original decision in 2016. The Christian owners of the bakery argued, ‘We didn't say no because of the customer; we'd served him before, we'd serve him again. It was because of the message. But some people want the law to make us support something with which we disagree.’ Their QC David Scoffield said, ‘They have been penalised by the state for failing to create and provide a product bearing an explicit slogan “Support Gay Marriage”, to which they had an objection of conscience.’