* GOOGLE REVERSES BAN ON CHRISTIAN GROUP’S ANTI-ABORTION ADVERT - Google has dropped its ban on anti-abortion adverts after legal action from a Christian group.

The search engine giant had caused controversy by refusing to allow religious organisations to show links to their websites whenever internet users typed in terms relating to abortion.

It was accused of having a "warped value system" for blocking Christian adverts while allowing those created by abortion clinics and pro-choice sites, as well as promotions for extra-marital affairs dating agencies and companies that sell weapons such as Samurai swords.

Google was sued by the Christian Institute, a non-denominational British charity, under the Equality Act 2006 on the grounds that its advertising policy discriminated against Christian groups.

Now the firm, which dominates the internet search market and also owns video-sharing website YouTube, has reversed its policy of not allowing adverts from sites that combine abortion and religious views, after agreeing an out-of-court settlement with the Institute.

From today, whenever internet users type the word "abortion" into Google, a link appears on the right-hand side of the page with the words: "UK Abortion law. Key views and news on abortion law from The Christian Institute."

This is the wording that the Institute had originally wanted to pay Google to appear, and it said it was "delighted" to have won the battle.

Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, said: "I am delighted to tell you that our legal proceedings against Google for blocking our abortion ad have been settled on amicable terms.

"As a result of the court action and other representations made to Google in recent months, Google has reviewed its AdWords policy to enable The Christian Institute and other religious associations to place ads on the subject of abortion in a factual and campaigning way.

"This is an important issue of free speech and religious liberty and we are very pleased with Google’s constructive response to this matter."

A spokesman for Google, which celebrated its 10th anniversary at the weekend and reported revenues of almost £10billion last year, said: "The issue of abortion is an emotive subject and Google does not take a particular side.

"Over the last few months we have been reviewing our abortion ads policy in order to make sure it was fair, up to date and consistent with local customs and practices.

"Following the review we have decided to amend our policy, creating a level playing field and enabling religious associations to place ads on abortion in a factual way."
(Telegraph.co.uk, 17 September 2008) (to index)

* BARONESS WARNOCK SAYS ELDERLY HAVE ‘DUTY TO DIE’ - Baroness Warnock has said that elderly people suffering from dementia are "wasting people’s lives" and "wasting the resources of the National Health Service" and should be allowed to die.

Lady Warnock’s comments, which were published in an interview with the magazine of the Church of Scotland, Life and Work, have been condemned by dementia charities.

She told the magazine: "If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service."

"I’m absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there’s a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they’re a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die.

"Actually I’ve just written an article called ‘A Duty to Die?’ for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there’s nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."

But Neil Hunt, the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: "I am shocked and amazed that Baroness Warnock could disregard the value of the lives of people with dementia so callously.

"With the right care, a person can have good quality of life very late in to dementia. To suggest that people with dementia shouldn’t be entitled to that quality of life or that they should feel that they have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric."

Mike Judge of The Christian Institute said: "Baroness Warnock seems to be saying that a person’s life is only worth continuing if it is valued by other people and, more worryingly, by the state."

"It is appalling to suggest that the elderly should have to consider it a duty to end their own lives in case they become a burden on their families. Surely the real duty lies with their families and with society to care for them."

Baroness Warnock also voted in favour of the creation of animal-human embryos when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was considered by the House of Lords.
(The Christian Institute, 19 September 2008) (to index)

* RC CHURCH FORCED TO DROP ADOPTION WORK IN WALES - The Roman Catholic Church has severed links with its adoption agencies in every one of its Welsh dioceses because of the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs).

The St David’s Children’s Society, which covers the three Welsh dioceses of Cardiff, Menevia and Wrexham, was founded by the Church in 1947.

The Society is the third largest of the 13 Catholic adoption agencies in England and Wales and finds new families for about 35 children a year - about 14 per cent of all cases in Wales.

The adoption agencies follow the Roman Catholic teaching on marriage, and only allow joint adoptions for married couples.

But the SORs mean that adoption groups risk being sued unless they comply with a ‘gay rights’ agenda.
This is the latest in a series of cases where Roman Catholic adoption agencies have faced problems because of the new SORs, which make it unlawful to discriminate in the provision of goods, facilities or services to someone because of their sexual orientation.
When the SORs were brought in, there were strong calls for an exemption to be allowed for agencies with religious objections to placing children with same-sex couples. However, then Prime Minister Tony Blair opted for a compromise in which the agencies were given until the end of 2008 to comply.

Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, told the Catholic Herald that the new law made it "inevitable" that the agencies would find themselves in crisis.
She said: "It is ludicrous. No one is benefiting from this law. Homosexual couples could already adopt, they just couldn’t adopt through Fr O’Flaherty.

"The very difficult placements the Catholic Church was so good at are at risk of being lost and it will be those children who depend most upon this service who are going to suffer."
(The Christian Institute, 19 September 2008) (to index)

* PROF SUGGEST ANSWERING CREATIONISM QUESTIONS, GETS FIRED - A scientist who suggested creationism be discussed in school science classes as a "world view" if students raise questions has been banished from his Royal Society job for advocating the open exchange of information.

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the UK's Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific body, declared that Professor Michael Reiss, who was director of education at Britain's scientific academy as well as an ordained Church of England minister, had "damaged its reputation" and had to leave his post.

An unidentified spokesman for the society told the Daily Telegraph, "Some of Professor Michael Reiss's recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society's Director of Education, were open to misinterpretation.

"While it was not his intention, this has led to damage to the Society's reputation. As a result, Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as Director of Education," the spokesman said. "He is to return, full time, to his position as professor of science education at the Institute of Education."

Reiss had suggested that included in teaching for students should be the idea that evolution is incorrect.
Just "banging on" about the theory of evolution would not be successful in changing the beliefs of devout Christian or Muslim children, he said, suggesting creationism be treated as a "world view."

Atheist Richard Dawkins immediately compared putting a clergyman in charge of education at the Royal Society to a Monty Python sketch, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Reiss said his statements, which came at the British Association Festival of Science, were misinterpreted and he was suggesting not that creationism be taught as a science, but that the issue be discussed if students raise questions.

The scientist, however, also was getting some support.
"I fear that in this action the Royal Society may have only diminished itself," said Lord Winston, the pioneer in fertility research. "This is not a good day for the reputation of science or scientists."
"This individual was arguing that we should engage with and address public misconceptions about science – something that the Royal Society should applaud," he told the newspaper.

Dawkins, who wrote "The God Delusion," however, was adamant.
"If the Society really wants to promote the accommodationist line, a clergyman is the very last advocate they should choose," he told the Daily Telegraph.

The Reiss case was reminiscent of that involving Iowa State University Professor Guillermo Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, an honored assistant professor of astronomy who had been actively working on theories of intelligent design, was denied tenure because of his work, officials have said.

The Des Moines Register then documented e-mails confirming Gonzalez' colleagues wanted him shoved out of their educational system because of his theories that involve an intelligence at work behind the creation of the world.

"I think Gonzalez should know that some of the faculty in his department are not going to count his ID work as a plus for tenure," said one note, from astronomy teacher Bruce Harmon, before the department voted against tenure for Gonzalez. "Quite the opposite."
(WorldNetDaily, 18 September 2008) (to index)