James Foley, may he rest in peace – as he surely does

On August 21, 2014August 21, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters, Faith MattersLeave a comment

The Islamic State jihadists have executed freelance journalist James Foley and posted a video of his beheading. In doing so they have brought us back 1800 years to remind us of what it sometimes costs to be a Christian and of what any Christian might at any time be called on to do – to sacrifice his life for his faith.

Is Foley a martyr in the truest sense? Surely he is, and is now with God in Heaven. It may take time to verify but you and I can be absolutely sure that the jihadists of the Islamic State gave James Foley the option of saving his life by accepting their utterly false and evil vision of both man and God – just as the Romans tempted the Christian martyrs of their day.

He died brutally at their hands, not because he was an American but because the was a Christian first, who would not abandon his faith

Foley, just 40, became their prisoner two years ago while covering the conflict in Syria. Prior to that he had covered the conflict in Libya and also found himself captive there. In that captivity he revealed to us the depths of his faith in an account which he wrote for a magazine published by his old university, Marquette, in Wisconsin.

James Foley, may he rest in peace, is an example to all Christians and an example to all who would be Christian. He shows us that bearing the Cross of Christ is part of the deal – and that this, even in the age which we consider modern and enlightened, 1800 years after the early Christians were marched into the arenas, may call for the ultimate sacrifice.

Foley wrote this account of a moment in his earlier captivity in Libya, revealing to us the virtues of a true Christian, as well as the meaning and the of faith and prayer.

I began to pray the rosary. It was what my mother and grandmother would have prayed.  I said 10 Hail Marys between each Our Father. It took a long time, almost an hour to count 100 Hail Marys off on my knuckles. And it helped to keep my mind focused.

Clare and I prayed together out loud. It felt energizing to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone. …

One night, 18 days into our captivity, some guards brought me out of the cell. … Upstairs in the warden’s office, a distinguished man in a suit stood and said, “We felt you might want to call your families.”

I said a final prayer and dialed the number. My mom answered the phone. “Mom, Mom, it’s me, Jim.”

“Jimmy, where are you?”

“I’m still in Libya, Mom. I’m sorry about this. So sorry.” …

“They’re having a prayer vigil for you at Marquette. Don’t you feel our prayers?” she asked.

“I do, Mom, I feel them,” and I thought about this for a second. Maybe it was others’ prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat.

The official made a motion. I started to say goodbye. Mom started to cry. “Mom, I’m strong. I’m OK. I should be home by Katie’s graduation,” which was a month away.

“We love you, Jim!” she said. Then I hung up.

I replayed that call hundreds of times in my head — my mother’s voice, the names of my friends, her knowledge of our situation, her absolute belief in the power of prayer. She told me my friends had gathered to do anything they could to help. I knew I wasn’t alone.

My last night in Tripoli, I had my first Internet connection in 44 days and was able to listen to a speech Tom Durkin gave for me at the Marquette vigil. To a church full of friends, alums, priests, students and faculty, I watched the best speech a brother could give for another. It felt like a best man speech and a eulogy in one. It showed tremendous heart and was just a glimpse of the efforts and prayers people were pouring forth. If nothing else, prayer was the glue that enabled my freedom, an inner freedom first and later the miracle of being released during a war in which the regime had no real incentive to free us. It didn’t make sense, but faith did.

Unfounded or well-founded suspicions about the latest pro-abortion narrative?

On August 20, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters4 Comments

Would we be unfairly or unreasonably suspicious – given what we know about the ethical universe inhabited by the Irish Family Planning Association, and its parent organisation, International Planned Parenthood – to surmise the following as part of the scenario for the latest human tragedy emanating from the battle over abortion in that country.

Would it be fair to suspect that we are not been given the full story – even given the restrictions on reporting for legal reasons – in Ireland’s ultra pro-abortion media?

The mainstream media tells us that concerns for the psychological welfare of the young woman at the centre of the tragedy were brought to the HSE at the end of May. By that time she was 16 weeks pregnant. She maintains that she was pregnant as a result of rape before she came to the country and first asked for an abortion when she was eight weeks and four days pregnant, at the beginning of April. She was referred to the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) for counselling.

When told that the cost of travelling for an abortion could be as high as €1,500 at an IFPA counselling session in late May, she said she would rather die than continue with the pregnancy. She was then referred to the HSE.

She says she was suicidal after she was refused a termination under Ireland’s new abortion legislation. She told a reporter that she attempted to take her own life but was interrupted when she was making the attempt.

This begs a lot of questions. What went on in the conversation between the woman and the IFPA in the several weeks prior to her presentation to the HSE? What was the advice given by the IFPA? The IFPA is an organisation whose main activity is to organise facilities for people to prevent birth – either by providing contraceptive services or to facilitate abortion. The latter task has until now been mainly concerned with giving advice on how to procure abortions in Britain. Ireland’s new legislation has now opened the door to them to advise on procuring abortion within the country’s borders. But what advice can they give – under the terms of this legislation? The legislation allows for an abortion up to term for a woman whose live is at risk from suicide. Therefore the “best” advice that the IFPA could give to a woman looking for an abortion is to feign suicidal thoughts – and even better, to feign an attempt at suicide.

If this was the advice of the IFPA, happily it did not work in this case. Because the legislation is muddled the medical people involved could not agree and the woman’s child was delivered by Caesarean section earlier this month, at 25 weeks gestation. If this was not the advice given by the IPFA they can allay our suspicions by publishing a transcript of the conversations in question.

These are horrible thoughts – but we live in horrible times. This is not evidence. It is a strong suspicion about what went on in those conversations over those weeks between people who have no scruples about taking the life of an unborn child. It is founded, reasonably, on a perception of the cultural and ethical norms which are clearly dominant in the universe of a segment of the dramatis personae of this tragedy.

Investigative videos from pro-life organization Live Action show Planned Parenthood facilities in Denver, Colorado offer evidence of disturbing and dangerous advice given to what staffers think are underage girls.

The counsellors lay out in graphic detail a spectrum of sadistic sexual behaviours to the investigators, including “whipping,” “tying up,” and “asphyxiation.”

An example of the kind of thing all this can lead to is the police discovery, in January last, of 16-year-old Jessica Burlew with the corpse of 43-year-old Jason Ash, whom Burlew had strangled to death and mutilated with razor blades in the midst of “a sex game.” More of this organisation’s nefarious activities can be seen here.

Planned Parenthood is an organisation which regularly get plaudits from the current leader of the Western World, Barak Obama. The IFPA occupies the same space. There is no deception, no hypocrisy – their self-proclaimed cause is “women’s health” when in fact the end result of their work is women’s enslavement – to which they will not stoop. Wake-up, world.

Kenny’s Irish Abortion Act on the rocks?

On August 19, 2014August 19, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters2 Comments

In the context of the battle over abortion in Ireland, this radio exchange of views between the legal spokesperson for the Irish Pro Life Campaign, Caroline Simons, and Irish Labour Party Senator, Ivanna Bacik, reveals the cold and callous position which this pro abortion Party takes on the life of the unborn.

Among other things it exposes the deceptoion of the pro abortionists in their persistent use of the term fetus to describe a child in its mother’s womb.. Bacik is at it again in this interview. They clearly want to deny the humanity of the unborn – against all the evidence we now have that the beating heart of the child in the womb is a real human heart. They think that they will in this way dull the public’s perception of this reality.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny thought he had dealt with the abortion controversy with his Orwellian entitled Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 last summer. The deep flaws in the legislation became apparent with the revelations last weekend that because of the crudeness of the provisions of this Act a baby’s life was put at risk when it had to be delivered prematurely.

The PLC deputy chairperson, Cora Sherlock, in a statement yesterday, spoke of the outrage Irish people were feeling at the way the Labour Party – the socialist tail wagging the dog in the coalition government on all matters of social policy – is exploiting a mother and her new-born child in this latest skirmish between those who want to number Ireland among the abortion nations of the world and those who don’t.

Pro-life campaigners in Ireland knew from the start that this legislation was seen by the Labour Party as a stepping-stone to abortion-on-demand. Although theoretically it gives a right to abortion up to the moment of birth they knew that this would be too hit and miss in practice. They want a law which will give water-tight assurance that any person seeking an abortion can have it. Commenting on the calls by the Party for wider access to abortion in the wake of this case, Ms. Sherlock said:

“This is a tragic story for both mother and baby. There is a premature baby clinging to life in a Dublin Hospital as a direct result of last year’s abortion legislation and all some Labour TDs can do is exploit the situation to push for more abortion. It is obscene the way they are using this case to whip up support for their agenda.

“The Labour TDs in question should be ashamed of themselves for knowingly introducing a law that wasn’t evidence-based and that puts the lives of unborn babies at grave risk. The new law was always about introducing abortion and never about providing life-saving treatments. Those who voted for it in the Dáil also chose to ignore all the peer-reviewed evidence pointing to the negative mental health consequences of abortion for women.

“Of course it suits the agenda of pro-choice activists to portray the new law as restrictive. It’s just a ploy to build support for the deletion of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution. Pro-choice advocates talk about the new law not providing for situations like rape and incest but they know this isn’t true. The tragic story that emerged over the weekend proves that the new law is not restrictive. The truth is the psychiatrists on the panel deciding the case wanted to sign off on an abortion even though they knew it was not a treatment for suicidal feelings.

“Pro-choice activists are in effect saying that the baby at the centre of this tragic case should never have been born. It is a chilling and disturbing reminder of the cruel and inhumane reality of legalized abortion.

“Instead of playing politics with this tragedy, we should all be focused on the best outcome for the mother and baby at the centre of this very difficult case.With this tragedy, we should all be focused on the best outcome for the mother and baby at the centre of this very difficult case.”

Back to the killing fields again

On August 18, 2014August 18, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Sean Thomas (Telegraph blogs) gives us a very sobering perspective on what is happening in the ISIS segment of the chaos in the Middle East. He tells it as it is. Is there anyone out there who can tell us what we can do about it? We are so cowed and neutered by the mismanagement of the unseating of Sadam Hussein that we are now likely to just keep doing too little and keep doing it too late.

Just now all we can say is God help the poor innocents facing this monster on the frontline. Tomorrow we will be crying to God for help ourselves. Thomas writes:

We’ve been here before, of course. No, not just with the Nazis. A better comparison for the evil of Isis is actually the Khmer Rouge: the only regime in my lifetime with an equal and obviously demonic complexion.

In many ways Isis are the Khmer Rouge with prayer mats. Both wear, or wore, black, as if to emphasise their nihilism. Both expanded – even exploded – from stupid wars engendered by the West. Both ruthlessly murdered any rival factions, ensuring that they became the sole standard-bearer for fellow travellers.

The parallels go on. The Khmer Rouge used hallucinatory violence as a technique and leitmotif – ripping foetuses from living women, smashing babies against trees – as do Isis, beheading anyone they fancy and tweeting the result, burying women and kids alive. Just as Isis are fiercely, fundamentally religious – slaughtering the infidels, the heathens, the Christians, the Shia, or even tribes of Sunnis who don’t cut the jihadi mustard, so the Khmer Rouge were fiercely, fundamentally atheist – promising to tear down every temple, and throw every single monk into the sea. Which they did.

The two forces are likewise similar in their aims and accomplishments. The Khmer Rouge managed to kill 2 million Cambodians (a third of the nation’s population), Isis will aim to kill many more than that, and they may well succeed, if they manage to get hold of chemical weapons, dirty bombs, nukes, and/or the lost souls of lonely young men in London, Paris, Moscow, and Detroit. As the KR despised and feared anyone outside their core, Isis believe we – by which I mean everyone on the entire planet who does not submit to their ideals, or convert to their deviant form of Islam – are at once a threat and an abomination, worthy of nothing but death, or grotesque servitude.

Read his full post here.

A Mass of Solidarity with the persecuted Christians and other religious minorities of Iraqwill take place at 5.30pm this coming Monday (August 18) in St Teresa’s on Clarendon Street, Dublin 2.

“A chilling aberration of law and medicine”

On August 17, 2014August 17, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment

Just one year after Ireland’s parliament passed legislation to introduce abortion on the grounds of a credible claim by a woman that she is suicidal, details of the first test of the law are emerging.

Happily, mother and child have both escaped with their lives in the case in question – but only because they were lucky enough to have at hand the services and judgement of an obstetrician who valued both their lives equally.

The details of the case, insofar as legal restrictions permit their being reported, are here in Ireland’s Independent newspaper.

In summary, a young immigrant woman discovered that she was pregnant. She was admitted to hospital and asked for an abortion because if her pregnancy were discovered in her community she said that her live would be in danger. However, the pregnancy was found to be in its second trimester and the obstetrician judged that the baby could be safely delivered. The woman insisted she wanted an abortion and said she would take her life if refused. Under the terms of Ireland’s new law – which places no restriction on abortion right up to the end of the third trimester – two psychiatrists were asked to judge on her threat. They are understood to have recommended an abortion – euphemistically and hardly accurately described by the Irish Health Service Executive as a “treatment” for suicide. Her logic – of taking her life to prevent her life being taken – did not seem to have been questioned. The obstetrician, however, stood his or her ground in the belief that both lives could be saved. The mother was persuaded to accept a Caesarean, and the baby was safely delivered.

The Irish HSE would not comment on the case but gave this reply to the Independent journalist:

“In response to your query the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 commenced on 1st January 2014. Its purpose is to confer procedural rights on a woman who believes she has a life-threatening condition, so that she can have certainty as to whether she requires this treatment or not,” a spokesman said.

Lucky baby, lucky mother. Under this new law it is now clear that life and death for some of those awaiting birth in their mother’s wombs in Ireland will now be decided by the lottery which determines which obstetrician’s hands they fall into – those who value life, all life, or those who are selective about the lives they value.

The Irish Pro Life Campaign commented on yesterday’s media reports on this story that it highlights the “horror and deep seated flaws” in the Government’s legislation.

The PLC’s Dr Ruth Cullen said: “It is agreed on all sides that abortion is not a treatment for suicidal feelings yet the Government pressed ahead and railroaded through legislation that is not evidence-based and provides for abortion based on a threat of suicide. We now have the situation where doctors are placed in the position of making decisions knowing there is not a shred of evidence to back any of them up.

These reports, she said, that an unborn baby was recently delivered at 25 weeks, citing provisions in the new abortion Act, underline the horror and deep seated flaws of the Government’s legislation. “To induce a pregnancy at such an early stage inevitably puts the baby at risk of serious harm, such as brain damage, blindness or even death.

“To put a defenceless baby through all this, and to pretend the intervention is medically indicated when it is known that there is no evidence to back it up, is a chilling aberration of law and medicine. The fact that the panel could just as easily have sanctioned an abortion in this case also brings home everything that is wrong about the new law.

“The Government successfully packaged the law as a life-saving measure even though it is nothing of the sort. Although it is going to take time, as more and more people begin to realise what the law actually provides for, support for it to be repealed will grow and grow.”

The Irish pro life organisations have been campaigning against this legislation since it was first introduced to the Irish parliament and, since it was passed into law, have continued to do so unrelentingly, bringing tens of thousands of protesters against on to the streets. The history of this case can only underline the argument for the repeal of the law which is now bound to become an issue in the next Irish general election due early in 2016.

Thinking about…cats and dogs

On August 15, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture Matters1 Comment

Rushes of blood to the head can be dangerous – for all sorts of reasons. The biggest risk to life and limb that one of them ever put me in was on that day when I was driving along a country road listening to the radio. There was a discussion about the joys and otherwise, mainly otherwise, of motherhood. Two feminists were waxing eloquently on the subject.

The presenter must have raised the issue of the joy which the companionship of children gives when one of the two sneered and said something along the lines of “If it is companionship you want, get yourself a dog.” The shock and the horror of it sent my blood surging into my head to the extent that I almost lost control of the car.

I was reminded of this by the conjunction of two things this morning. The first was seeing a quotation from G.K. Chesterton in which he observed: “Where there is animal worship there is human sacrifice.”

The second was a tweet from @savethetinyhumans which reminded us all that “Our politicians won’t take abortion seriously until we take abortion seriously. 55 milion dead isn’t enough, yet?.”

Human sacrifices? Yes. Absolutely. They may not be ritual sacrifices – because modern man is not so much into ritual or religious practice, pseudo or otherwise, but they are still sacrifices. They are sacrificial offerings to the comfort zones modern man wants to occupy at all costs. The abortion industry is driven by a middle class which aborts its own children to preserve that comfort zone. It then organises the abortion factories of the world for their poorer neighbours because their fertility is also a threat to the comfort and prosperity which the middle class think is its right.

I would not want to offend the dog-lovers and the cat-lovers of this world but surely we need to put these creatures in perspective. I think that there is something terribly incongruous about a society which organises the destruction of millions or “tiny humans” and at the same time threatens a man with a year in jail for cooking and eating cats. He is an odd fish, certainly, but his oddness is much less revolting that that of someone who could be a mother to a child and sacrifices that gift for the love of a dog.

When our civilization reaches that point it is surely at a stage of disintegration. We are now in a place where the truth about an individual human life is no longer recognised for what it is – the single most inestimable, lovable and precious thing in this universe. The only thing that is recognised in our dazed and confused world is the value of the empowered individual’s pleasure, enjoyment, entertainment or comfort. Everything that stands in the way of this is expendable. Fifty-five million tiny and powerless human beings are the deceased witnesses to this catastrophic degeneration.

For those who have been wondering about the Yazidi…

On August 13, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Prospect magazine explains…

Who are the Yazidi?

An ancient religious sect, with less than 1m followers worldwide, largely concentrated in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and parts of Iran. Since Sunday, around 40,000 Yazidi from the north of Iraq have been trapped in the Sinjar Mountains in the northwest of the country, having fled their homes in the nearby town of Sinjar after it was attacked by militants from the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS). A further 200,000 have reportedly fled the area. The Guardian reports that Kurdish troops stationed nearby have been forced to withdraw, and that at least 500 Yazidis, including 40 children, have been killed in the past week. The Yazidi have suffered violence throughout the recent fighting in Iraq; according to al-Jazeera, IS were accused of killing six Yazidi in May, and a group claiming to be part of IS kidnapped 24 Yazidi border guards in June.

What is their religion?

Linked to the ancient faith Zoroastrianism, the Yazidi religion revolves around the worship of seven angels, of whom Malak Ṭāʾūs (“peacock angel”) is the most important. Above all of these is a supreme God, who created the universe, but the Yazidi god no longer has any direct interest in the world. Yazidi deny the existence of evil, rejecting the notion of sin, the devil and hell—this makes them “antidualists.” They believe in a form of reincarnation, whereby the spirit is purified as it migrates through different bodily forms until it achieves divinity. Shaykh ʿAdī, a 12th century mystic and chief Yazidi saint, is believed by followers to have managed this.

Why are they being persecuted?

The Yazidi are reported to believe that they are descended from Adam, rather than Adam and Eve, and are distinct from the rest of mankind. Consequently, they separate themselves out from whatever community they live in. The Yazidi have been persecuted by Sunni militants in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003, and historically have faced persecution from nearby Muslim communities, as Malak Ṭāʾūs is often misidentified as the Judeo-Christian devil. This has led to Yazidi throughout the world being derided as “devil worshippers.”

This is the BBC’s account of the religion and its followers.

Religious persecution “one of the horrors of our day” – US ambassador

On July 31, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Ambassador Hackett

The United States has released an alarming country-by-country analysis of religious freedom which shows us that 2013 was one of the worst years for the displacement of entire religious communities around the world.

A comprehensive report from the State Department assesses the state of religious freedom in nearly 200 countries.

Commenting on the findings, Kenneth Hackett, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, quoted by the agency Rome Reports, says that “Religious freedom takes a lot of interpretation. In our own countries there are some very fine lines on interpretation. But the actual persecution of people because of their religion is one of the horrors of our day.”

Ambassador Hackett’s observation on “fine lines of interpretation” would seem to be heading off any criticism of “our own countries” for what many consider infringments of freedom of conscience in recent legislation on moral issues – marriage, euthanasia, abortion, contraception – in jurisdictions like the US itself, Ireland, Britain and Belgium.

The report, concentrating on persecution at the extreme end of the spectrum, highlighted areas where entire communities are targeted simply for their religion. It recorded increased persecution of Christians in 2013, noting that in countries like Syria, Egypt and Iraq, entire Christian communities have been decimated by violence.

The report also details repressive government policies against Christians and other minorities in places like Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Pakistan.

The Vatican has also expressed concern for these policies. Msgr. Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, President of the Pontifical Academies for Sciences, said:
“First off, the Holy See wants to warn the world about the issue. Second, to work with Christians so they stay. And third, to get the universal Church to pray and take social actions to stop persecution.”

Ambassador Hackett pointed out that the report highlights the plight of all religious communities, not just Christians. Whether it’s rising anti-Semitism in Europe or discrimination against Shia Muslims in countries like Bahrain, Ambassador Hackett said the U.S. and the Holy See have a a common stance. Mr. Hackett continued, saying that “Wherever we can, we want to find a common cause with the Church, and the Holy See itself, on issues of religious persecution of all people, not just Christians. It’s for all people, and the Holy See has been a loud and abiding voice for those kinds of concerns.”

American agencies will use the latest report on religious freedom to help determine U.S. policy in those countries, and determine the best way to help promote religious freedom.

Replacing the Hammer and Sickle?

The Orwellian spin in Irish politics

On July 30, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Irish Justice Minister Francis Fitzgerald has been accused of misleading the public and of engaging in a “disgusting slur” against her former government party colleagues, when she discussed the abortion issue yesterday on the country’s Newstalk Radio’s Pat Kenny Show.

Minister Fitzgerald represents the truly ugly face of Irish politics and the Orwellian double-think at the totalitarian heart of its so-called liberal establishment.

In the course of the interview, Minister Fitzgerald said in reference to last year’s abortion legislation: “It’s hard to believe that it generated the kind of controversy and that people would leave a political party because we were legislating to save the lives of women.”

Former minister, Lucinda Creighton, and several of her colleagues, left the Party because as a matter of conscience they could not support legislation which everyone knew was simply the introduction of abortion by sleight of hand – and was the breaking of an electoral promise to boot. The legislation was passed because the bolshevik segment of the government coalition held a gun to the head of prime minister Enda Kenny. It was the next best thing to a coup d’etat.

Commenting on the Minister’s remarks, Pro Life Campaign Deputy Chairperson Cora Sherlock said:

“The Government has misled the public on this issue from day one. But it’s a particularly shameful and disgusting slur for Minister Fitzgerald to turn around and accuse her former colleagues of leaving Fine Gael over legislation ‘to save women’s lives’. Minister Fitzgerald knows perfectly well that the Government of which she is part of introduced abortion in the case of threatened suicide even though there is no medical evidence to back it up. In fact the peer reviewed evidence points to the adverse consequences of abortion for women in these situations.

“It’s very frustrating having to listen to the misinformation on this issue day in day out in the media. It is why we need a new kind of politics in this country where groupthink and the false presentation of issues is properly exposed and challenged. Fine Gael would like to pretend otherwise, but there is a huge public appetite for a new politics built on trust. I remain very hopeful that we will see big changes in this regard before the next general election.”

European Convention “enshrines” traditional concept of marriage

On July 18, 2014July 18, 2014 By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

There is no fundamental right to same-sex marriage says European Court of Human Rights.

From the Iona Institute:
A couple of years ago, former Tanaiste and Labour party leader, Eamon Gilmore, described same-sex marriage as “the civil rights issue of this generation”.

However, in a ruling this week, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has said no right to same-sex marriage exists in the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Strasbourg court is the same one that found Ireland’s law on abortion violated the Convention and helped pave the way for the ‘Protection of Human Life In Pregnancy Act’. Therefore, the court cannot be accused of being conservative.

The Court, in the case of Hämäläinen v. Finland, Application no. 37359/09, reaffirmed that the European Convention cannot be interpreted “as imposing an obligation on Contracting States to grant same-sex couples access to marriage”.

The Court had previously found that no such right exists in the Convention. This time it went further and explicitly stated that Article 12 of the Convention (dealing with marriage):

enshrines the traditional concept of marriage as being between a man and a woman [and] cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on the Contracting States to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples (§ 96).

In addition, and contrary to the plaintiffs, it found that no consensus in favour of same-sex marriage exists in Europe because only ten of the 47 signatories to the Convention have legalised same-sex marriage.

While the ruling still leaves it up to signatory countries to decide what form marriage should take in their legal systems, it makes it harder for campaigners to argue that same-sex marriage is a ‘fundamental right’ let alone “the civil rights issue of this generation”.