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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Gay adoption

The debate on gay adoption rumbles on. Lord Renton raised the issue and I felt it important to put on record the importance of the quality of relationships and the principle of putting the child's needs first.

I also raised the question of existing practice by the Catholic Church. I refer in my question (follow link below) to the fact that same sex couples have been approved for adoption over many years. Usually this happened when the child had an existing good relationship with a gay couple or where a heterosexual couple broke up and one partner formed a relationship with another of the same sex. There are other examples too.

So what was the Catholic Church doing in such cases? Were they refusing to act? Or deciding on conscious instead of the child's best interests? I would like an answer to these questions.

Finally I have no problem with allowing the Church or other agencies time to bring themselves within the law. 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/70131-0002.htm#07013187000007

Clive:

I am sure that everybody involved with adoptions intends to act in the child's best interests - they just disagree about what those interests are. It's easy enough to disagree about what is best for a particular child on the earthly plane - how do you resolve a dispute beween two sides when one side considers the interests of the child's immortal soul to be paramount, and the other side doesn't think such a thing exists?

Why should the Catholic church not be able to choose?

And if it becomes law that they are not allowed to choose who will be policing within the Muslim adoption groups to see if they are working to the same guidelines?
Because this will cause problems and accusations will fly on victimisation, ethnic minority, racism grounds.

If catholic churches are not permitted to act according to their faith, does that mean other minority churches will have to let women pray in the same room as the men?

The bible and many books of faith have only 10 laws.. Just the 10, it is a pity that governments could not take an example from these books.

Try making laws that catch criminals and leave the peaceful god fearing people alone!

Religious groups can believe what they want. They cannot practice discrimination in public service provision, regardless of their beliefs. Adoption is a public service. If Christians or Muslims feel that the best interests of children come second to their homophobic dogma, then they have a right to stop providing these services. But no-one is telling them to stop. They are making that decision.

Yes, there are 10 Commandments and none of them address the issue of homosexuality. The only clear mention of homosexuality is in Leviticus 18 and I think in one of Paul's epistles - even then, it is not clear that homosexuality is itself under attack, but a general moral decline that led to sexual permissiveness and idolatory. Jesus made no mention of homosexuality. But some scholars interpret the close relationship between Jesus and his disciple John as homosexual, due to the physical intimacy between them described in the Bible (eg the description of John lying next to Jesus, resting his head on his bosom at the Last Supper).

There is a rather good lesson from Jesus about casting stones. All humans are sinners, including Cormac Murphy O'Connor, who has in the past been more than keen to "forgive" paedophile priests and protect them from the law. Perhaps he can be forgiving of the supposed "sins" of gay people (who are in consensual relationships) and recognise their parenting abilities.

If Christians can appreciate the beauty of the religious art by Michelangelo (eg Cistine Chapel, the Medici Chapel and the scuplture of David, which are all overtly homoerotic) then they can appreciate the parental abilities of homosexual couples who want to care for vulnerable children. They do not need to judge what goes on in between the sheets to satisfy themselves that a couple is capable of looking after children. The "sin" of homosexuality has no bearing on homosexuals' parenting skills.

But if the "sin" of homosexuality is an issue, then why are Catholic adoption agencies passing judgement on the ability of "idol worshippers" such as Hindus to become adoptive parents. Unlike homosexuality, idol worship is explicitly forbidden by the 10 Commandments and in every book of the Bible. I see no moral outrage by the likes of Cormac Murphy O'Connor over race equality laws, which compel Catholic adoption agencies to treat Hindus in the same way as Christians. Could it be that the Catholic Church is guilty of hypocrisy, homophobic prejudice and intolerance?

Is it not better to ban religious groups from public service provision altogether, including education and healthcare?