A British homosexual couple feels „forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognise” them. The Marriage Act contains legal provisions to protect churches which chose not to conduct same-sex weddings from being sued.
A gathering of “Les Veilleurs”, a peaceful manifestation group in favour of the traditional family of was disturbed by shouting from students and radical LGBT activists. Anti-Catholic insults were yelled as “Les Veilleurs” gathered to pray and sing together as they do every Tuesday evening before the prefecture in Montpellier.
Citizens of the French city of Angers are confronted with stickers on traffic signs saying: “CATHO RAS-LE-BOL” (=Catholicism – enough annoyance). The credit is claimed by a group called “Comité anti-Catholique Angevin” (= anti-Catholic committee of Angers).
Anti-religion groups have created a climate hostile to frank discourse. Besides defamation campaigns and negative stereotyping, hate incidents have come to the Observatory’s notice. Activists physically prevented a professor to enter an auditorium to voice deviating views. Anti-religion slogans and images are often used in hurtful manners, such as the public destruction of crosses, the image of Jesus as a crucified pig, or slogans such as “We are here to hurt your feelings” or “If Mary had had an abortion, we would have been spared people like you”.
Organisations may base their work on whatever beliefs or convictions - but to receive public funding, they must not object to current legislation. This creates a problem for Christian organisations especially with regard to objecting to medical procedures.
The parliament of Denmark voted to force the established Evangelical Lutheran Church to perform same-sex “marriage” ceremonies inside their sanctuaries, although one-third of all the denomination’s priests say they will not participate in such rituals. The Danish parliament voted by an overwhelming 85-24 margin to compel churches to carry out unions for same-sex couples that are identical to heterosexual marriage celebrations.
The state is very strict with regard to political correctness in schools. It is very difficult for Christian teachers to debate with their pupils about abortion. One of the most striking cases was Philippe Hisnard, a French Catholic teacher who was revoked and suspended from teaching because he organised a debate about abortion in a class of “civic education”.
Home-schooling is severely limited in Slovakia. In fact, it is allowed only for pupils of 1st - 4th class in basic schools, for disabled children, or for children in custody and who are not able to go to school for longer than two months for health reasons. Permission for “individual education” must be granted by the director of the district school of the pupil. Another major problem is that the person who teaches the pupils must have a pedagogical university qualification. As a consequence, home-schooling is very rare in Slovakia.
Spanish educational law includes a set of mandatory subjects under the generic category of Education for Citizenship which are indoctrinatory and violates the rights of parents. The Education for Citizenship curriculum is mandatory for primary and secondary education (children ages 10-16), and must be implemented into all Spanish schools (public and private).
According to the Education Act (2010:800) home-schooling is practically forbidden in Sweden. Home-schooling is allowed only when exceptional circumstances apply, which is hardly ever granted. According to the preparatory work of the government bill, permissions should be granted with great restraint, stating explicitly that religious and philosophical reasons are not to be considered as exceptional circumstances.
At a primary school in Vienna crucifixes had to be taken off the walls because a mother felt that they were a “religious paternalism”. This was possible when it turned out that less than half of the pupils are registered as Christians. For the first time since National Socialism crucifixes were banned from class rooms.
In the course of a debate on the health care reform in the National Assembly of Austria, the spokesman of physicians of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Andreas Karlsböck criticised Health Minister Alois Stöger of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) because he had discouraged or even prohibited the use of the common German greeting “Grüß Gott” (a greeting which literally means “Greet God”) in the Department of Health.
A classroom ban on a Christian school teacher who condemned the “homosexual lifestyle” in front of year 11 pupils aged 15 and 16, has been upheld by the High Court. Science teacher, Robert Haye’s appeal against the decision to ban him indefinitely was rejected by the judge. After telling his class that the way homosexual people lived was a “sin”, according to the bible, he was sacked and prohibited from teaching at any school.
A Christian foundation for working with youth surprisingly lost its license to serve coffee and soda on the grounds that the youth centre was a gastronomical enterprise running on deficit and other permits would be necessary for non-profit activities. This was perceived as a governmental anti-Christian repression and is now debated in court.
A child at a Catholic school in France was punished for refusing to memorise a verse of the Koran in January 2013. At the school of Notre Dame de St Mihiel in the Meuse, Lorraine, a pupil refused to memorise a verse of the Koran as a part of a class on Islam. Two mothers arranged a meeting with the teacher to explain their disagreement with the punishment. Instead of removing the punishment or allowing the student to opt-out of the class the school director informed the mother of the punished child that she considers removing the child from the school.
(October 2006 - January 2013)In October 2006 an employee, Ms Eweida, was banned from wearing a cross on a necklace by British Airways, UK. Court ruling in January 2008 upheld prohibition for Christians, but not for other religions' symbols. On January 15th, 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ms Eweida's rights had been violated.
The rights of homosexual couples trumped those of Christians, according to a ruling of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The European Court of Human Rights dismissed the Christian applicant Gary McFarlane and left the balancing out of rights to national appreciation.
Lillian Ladele, a Christian registrar, was disciplined because of her stance on civil partnerships. The European Court of Human Rights dismissed Ladele’s application on January 15th, 2013 and left the balancing out of rights to the national authorities.
On January 15th, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the four UK Freedom of Religion cases: one was ruled in favour and three against. The decision of the Court is not yet final and can be appealed to the Grand Chamber of the Court.
When Pope Benedict XVI gave his weekly Sunday address on January 13, 2013, on St. Peter's Square, four women of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen took off their shirts to reveal the slogan they had written on their bare skin, "In Gay We Trust". This took place while the pope lead the Angelus prayer. The women screamed "Homophobes shut up" as they were taken away from St Peter's square by the Italian police.
In the January edition of the Diocesan newspaper, the Bishop of Trieste had published an article restating the Church’s teaching on homosexual unions. Because of this, on the 12th of January about two hundred homosexual activist demonstrated in front of his home effectively barricading him in for the afternoon.
A new ruling by a High Court judge says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs, considering that „many Christians work on Sundays".
People in the Denizli, Diyarbakir, Sinop and Hatay provinces attending worship services were being threatened and warned about further participation by plain-clothes policemen. The Police also requested information about other people attending.
On a school trip to the nearby Cathedral of Saint-Jus, students of the local school Therese Leon Blum where warned against making the sign of the cross upon entering the Cathedral. As a punishment, the teacher mentioned three hours of after-hours at school. One of the parents wrote to the council to complaint but did not receive a response.
The Christian community The Reichenberg Fellowship and its German Institute for Youth and Society have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry that the parliamentary group of the Green Party has directed at the state government of the German state of Hessen on October 19.
Three masked fans of the Russian punk-band “Pussy Riot” disrupted the Sunday Mass in Cologne’s Cathedral as a sign of solidarity to members of the punk-band who had been convicted of causing disturbances in a church in earlier this year.
The International Gideons are known for distributing pocket Bibles for free - mostly at schools, hospitals, hotels and medical practices. They were denied to further distribute Bibles at public schools in Berlin by the ministry of education and cultural affairs.
“Christians are threatened” said a resident of the Roma neighborhood in Iztok, a suburb in Pazardjik (Bulgaria) in the television program "Fatherland Front" (Otechestven front) with Martin Karbovski.
Parents rights are commonly understood to include the right to chose the form of education of one’s children, including the possibility of non-institutional education, such as the so-called homeschooling. Not so in Germany.
Germany’s strict federal laws on compulsory school attendance do not allow any opt out with regard to sexual education.
Prime minister David Cameron thinks that faith schools should not be allowed to teach that homosexuality is a sin, according to a quote featured by the Daily Mail.
French member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe proposed a report on the protection of children against 'sectarian drifts' which possibly collides with the parents' right to religious education of their choice.
The Austrian Initiative “Religion is a private matter” seeks to deprive the Russian-orthodox Church in Vienna of its legal personality because of its involvement in the “Pussy Riot” case.
On July 28th, 2012 there were demonstrations against a newly opened church in Denizli. The church did not shut down but security matters were increased and no one got hurt.
The Salzburg-based NGO „Infoladen“ calls for violence against Christians when expressing pro-life views. In July they called for a counter-demonstration against a pro-life manifestation. „Let’s make their 1000-crosses-manifestation a disaster!“ and „Sink the 1000 crosses!“ are some of the slogans on their website.
A French retired doctor faced police investigation for trial because of giving a woman who intended an abortion knitted baby shoes and a medallion. In France “moral and psychological pressure” seen as an “hindrance of abortion” is punishable.
About 10 MPs of the anti-clerical “Palikot Movement” seek to enforce the removal of the Cross in the Polish Parliament by legal proceedings at the Administrative Court.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church is forced to marry same sex couples after vote of Danish Parliament.
The General Medical Council’s Investigation Committee has reprimanded a Christian doctor for sharing his faith with a patient at the end of a private consultation.
The city council of Alcala adopted a motion banning bishop Juan Antonia Reig Pla from official city events. The motion answers the bishop's remarks criticizing homosexual lifestyle.
Christian doctor who was sacked for emailing a prayer to his colleagues has lost his clam for unfair dismissal, after an Employment Tribunal ruled that there was “no need” for religious references to be made at work.
The Irish Justice Minister has introduced a 5-year prison sentences for priests who fail to report sex abuse of minors if they hear about it in the confessional.
Secular campaigners have launched an attack on the Roman Catholic Church for urging its secondary schools to back the current legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.
Reformed-baptist parents, who wanted to homeschool their three children, lost in the regional administrational court of Baden-Würtemberg in Mannheim. The parents wanted to homeschool to protect their children from a form of „emancipation“ they did not favor, as well as in order to teach them Christian sexual ethics.
The Catholic Schützenverein voted in March 450 to 28 to not to allow homosexual or lesbian „kings“ or „queens“ to preside activities together with their partners. The German federal anti-discrimination commission screened this decision and declared it to be in disrespect of the law.
About fifteen people came to St Eloi’s church to insult parishioners at the end of Sunday Mass. It is not the first time this Catholic church is targeted by anti-Christian acts, as it had already been covered whith tags and anti-Christian posters.
A 12-year-old boy, Hussein, witnessed his Christian faith by wearing a silver cross necklace in school. Muslim classmates taunted and spat on him. When the boy threatened to report one of the bullies, the bully's father threatened to "kill him". He says he also received a beating by his religion teacher.
A new provocative action was carried out by the occupying regime in Cyprus when Bishop of Karpasia Mr. Christoforos was not allowed to enter the occupied area from the barricade of Astromeritis village. Later, he was also prohibited to go into one area of Agios Dometios. The bishop was stopped without explanation.
A homosexual activist disrupted a Mass held in a parish in Teignmouth, Devon, with a video camera last week as a priest prepared to read a letter from the country’s bishops conference opposing government efforts to legalize same-sex “marriage.”
Hackers claiming ties to the group Anonymous are taking credit after the Vatican website went down Wednesday. They displayed the following message: “Anonymous decided today to besiege your site in response to the doctrine, to the liturgies, to the absurd and anachronistic concepts that your for-profit organization spreads around the world."