Across the world attitudes towards homosexuality roughly correlate to how wealthy and secular a country is, according to Pew Research’s Global Attitudes Project.
In Ed Miliband’s speech on social security yesterday, he set out a number of ways in which the present system pays for failure: having too many people in long-term unemployment; subsidising low paid work; subsidising rents rather than building homes; and not recognising contribution.
The is being posted partly on a congratulatory note – this week the House of Lords backed gay marriage by a majority of 242. This means that same-sex couples should be able to marry by next summer.
In a speech today at Newham Dockside, Ed Miliband will tackle head on the attempts to brand Labour the party of welfare, and will say that controlling social security spending and putting decent values at the heart of the system are “not conflicting priorities”.
Children brought up by gay couples are healthier and have better relationships with their families, according to a new Australian-based study.
Rather than making society’s most vulnerable members carry the can, true ‘austerity’ would require those at the top to bear the much greater burden, in order to bring down increasingly obscene levels of unequal wealth.
Recently there has been something of a backlash against equal rights movements – the counter demand for pride/rights/support from majority or dominant groups. This has taken the form of everything from university-based “masculinity groups” to those advancing the concept of “straight pride”.
Inequality stat of the day.
The poor will be the hardest hit in the long-term by the economic downturn as a result of the government’s changes to the benefits system, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).
The truth is we will all be worse off if these proposals become law. The prospect of legal intervention is the surest way of securing a society where respect for human rights, equality and due process guides the behaviour of our decision-makers. This botched attempt to get justice on the cheap would put justice out of reach for all but the most powerful.
