Today, we continue our high-level European training with the second round in Strasbourg!  After an intense first 4-day conference in Brussels in March, the same 70 selected participants will come together again at the heart of the Strasbourg-based European institutions.

Journalists, political staff and NGO leaders  from 28 European countries are being trained for the next three days in advocacy at the Council of Europe – Europe’s largest human rights institution with 47 member states – and in the European Court of Human Rights system. On the agenda are numerous training sessions and case studies of court cases regarding freedom and subsidiarity in Europe, religious freedom, marriage & family, hate speech and bioethics.

 Speakers include experts in international litigation, such as...

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The EU Fundamental Rights Agency has decided to spend €370.000 of taxpayers’ money on a new LGBT survey on 'discrimination against LGBT people' in Europe. Given the way the survey is designed the result is preset: Almost every LGBT person faces ‘discrimination’. The claims are predictable: laws need to be changed, privileges granted, dissenting opinion prosecuted as ‘hate speech’. Now the 'facts' have to be fabricated. FRA and ILGA Europe have taken up work.

In a few months from now, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) will publish an alarming report, affirming that the rampant discrimination of homosexuals and lesbians is one of the most serious social problems in the EU, and that radical legislative measures are necessary to address it. We may safely assume that the report is already in the course of being drafted. What is still missing, however, are the “facts” on which the report will be based. These still need to be fabricated.

To this end, the Agency has commissioned a “European LGBT Survey” that is carried out by the market research institute Gallup jointly with the controversial LGBT pressure group “ILGA-Europe”.

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Today, European Dignity Watch launched its new report on funding of abortion through EU tax payer’s money. The report shows: although it’s neither an EU competence nor backed by EU law, the European Commission collaborates closely and in numerous projects with the two world’s largest abortion providers: International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International.

The objective of this report is to document how IPPF and MSI have been receiving, and continue to receive funding from the European Union’s Development Aid and Public Health budgets for projects related to “sexual and reproductive health” (SRH).

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Today, we exceptionally report on an US initiative that targets a problem not less relevant in Europe than across the Atlantic. In an open letter, religious leaders of the largest faith communities in the US defend marriage as the foundational institution of all societies.

The letter demonstrates the connection between marriage and religious freedom and leaves no doubt that the redefinition of marriage constitutes a direct attack on religious freedom. Either they stand or they fall together.

Signatories include leaders from Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, Lutheran, Mormon, and Pentecostal communities in the United States.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops states: “The letter makes a compelling argument that needs to be heard by all of us, especially those in positions of authority: anyone truly concerned with religious freedom must also be a defender of marriage’s perennial definition.”

The letter points out serious consequences of redefining marriage that will “arise in a broad range of legal contexts, because altering the civil definition of ‘marriage’ does not change one law, but hundreds, even thousands, at once. By a single stroke, every law where rights depend on marital status—such as employment discrimination, employment benefits, adoption, education, healthcare, elder care, housing, property, and taxation—will change so that same-sex sexual relationships must be treated as if they were marriage. That requirement, in turn, will apply to religious people and groups in the ordinary course of their many private or public occupations and ministries—including running schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other housing facilities, providing adoption and counseling services, and many others,” they said.”

The leaders warn that redefining marriage has consequences for the religious freedom of all and urged civic leaders to defend marriage so as to defend religious liberty.

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At a meeting of the European Parliament Platform for Secularism in Politics (EPPSP) on 29 June 2011, there was an unexpected and controversial debate on the role of secularism and religion within the public sphere, where strong views were expressed on both sides. The debate centered on Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty which commits the European Union (EU) to an open and transparent dialogue with churches and religious associations/communities in Member States and whether it is right to enshrine such a commitment in the Treaty.

Religion in the Public Sphere

The EPPSP’s political aim is to increase the influence of non-religious, atheist, humanist and other groups that are less represented in the “corridors of power” than organized religions. Members of the EPPSP accused the Church, in particular the Catholic Church of holding meetings with political leaders within the European institutions at the highest level, which disadvantaged those who do not hold religious beliefs.

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