Majority of Births in Britain Will Soon be Out of Wedlock
From the London Telegraph:
Half of all babies will be born to unmarried mothers by 2012 if present trends continue, says new research that suggests the rapid erosion of moral and religious taboos.My Comments:
Moreover, fewer than half of families will consist of married couples and up to a third could be lone parents, said Dr Peter Brierley, a former Government statistician now specialising in religious trends.
Dr Brierley's projections followed the publication of official figures yesterday showing that the number of births outside marriage has almost quadrupled in recent decades.
The Office for National Statistics' Social Trends report, an annual snapshot of Britain, said that the figure rose to 42.3 per cent last year.
In 1994, the figure was 32 per cent and in the early 1970s it was less than 10 per cent.
The number of births outside wedlock exceeds 50 per cent in some parts, including Wales. In the North East, it was 54.1 per cent last year.
In London, where a higher proportion of young mothers are Muslims who adhere to more conservative family values, a third of children were born outside marriage.
The report said Britain now had the fourth highest level of births outside marriage in Europe, after Sweden, Denmark and France.
Much of the rise comes from a sharp increase in people living together. But the number of one-parent families is also increasing.
The figures have alarmed family campaigners, who say the collapse of marriage could have a serious impact on social structures.
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Campaigners and Church leaders have accused politicians of marginalising marriage by undermining its legal and financial privileges and shying away from promoting it above other types of family.
Labour abolished the last tax break for married couples, the Married Couples' Allowance, while its tax credit system is said to favour single-parent families.
(emphasis added)
This is what a decade of Labour-led government will get you. And I say that as someone who holds Tony Blair in the highest esteeem.
posted by Pro Ecclesia 11:11 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I think Blair is a good man, but not neccesarily a courageous one. I also think if he could have done it all over he would have done a lot of things diffrently in his political career.
Blair does get major credit for sticking by the United States through thick and thin. Like George Bush said, America has no greater friend than Britan.
This obviously ties into the fact that Blair is one of the few European leaders who sees the "war on terror" for what it is, and understands the clash of civilizations taking place. Putting him light years ahead of somone like Jaques Chirac. The riots we saw in Paris could never be replicated in London.
Still Blair has presided over the final stages of the de-Christianization of England (though to be fair the blame isn't his, this is merely the logical end of the road Henry VIII started on.)
Still I wish Blair, who has no more elections to face, would take a greater stand, especailly against abortion in his nation. I think though that he has just come to the conclusion that some of the moral aspects of politics are so rotten he just has to see it through then atone and repent later.
I know Blair's wife is a cafeteria Catholic and very liberal, and I don't know what it is about Blair, what expereinces in his life that have affected him, but I have read numerous times that he is a very religious and God-fearing man, and it is rumored that he will convert to Catholicsm after he is out of office.
I pray Blair uses his remaining time to take bold stands and be a defender of the faith, but should that fail, I pray he finds peace and comes home to the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
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