Gay Adoption To Proceed: UK Catholic Agency Loses Fight Over Same-Sex Parents

LONDON (RNS) A Roman Catholic adoption agency has lost its fight for the right to continue its policy of refusing to place children with same-sex couples based on religious principles.

The agency, Catholic Care, saw its battle to limit its adoption services to heterosexual-only parents collapse in a ruling Thursday (August 19) by the powerful Charity Commission, an independent watchdog in England, although funded by the British government.

After a lengthy legal wrangle, the Charity Commission decreed that Charity Care's stance amounted to discrimination based on sexual orientation because it "departs from the principle of treating people equally."

Charity Care had been targeted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which insisted such discrimination, was in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Britain is a signatory.

Charity Care officials had said earlier that if it lost the case, it would shut down its adoption service rather than risk weakening or even losing its Catholic affiliation, but has yet to make a final decision.

Britain passed gay rights legislation in January 2009 that ordered 12 Catholic adoption services to either close down or cut their ties with the church.

Eleven have chosen one option or the other, leaving Charity Care the last to continue the fight.

Comments

[OldHick]

11:02 PM on 08/30/2010

Why not just throw infants in the street?

[Hirnlego]

07:15 PM on 08/26/2010

Polish star faces PRISON on claim drunks wrote Bible

http://news.scotsman.com/news/Polish-star-faces-trial-on.6492401.jp

[Hirnlego]

07:22 PM on 08/26/2010

Thoughtcrime is death

[David Eric]

03:26 PM on 08/25/2010

"Objective moral law," this does not exist, nor can it exist. All law is 'human law." Look at it this way: the harder you squeeze a handful of sand, the more sand will slip through your fingers. If you stop pretending (or wishing) that Law is certain and unchanging, you might be able to enter into some meaningful dialogue, and possibly make a case for your argument(s). If not, you will continually feel the frustration, anxiety, and alienation that runs hand-in-hand with rigid thinking. You can only damn-up so many rivers before it becomes self-evident that Nature will always find a way to precede -- your inability to face the truth of a relentlessly fluctuating culture/society is obsolete.

[Jack Crack]

07:43 PM on 08/25/2010

In Europe nearly every teenager you meet says they are "Bi curious" (i'm sure many say it to support their mates and wind up their parents)

[Bob Kellerman]

04:19 AM on 08/26/2010

Send me a few, please (legal age)

[nomadrdw]

06:51 PM on 08/28/2010

if you study the extensive research done, only 10% of the population if totally homosexual or heterosexual. the other 80% are various levels of bisexual. of course, if you ask people what they really are, that becomes a different matter. however, extensive research has been done to prove these numbers.
so, you see, being "Bi curious" is actually the natural state for the vast majority of the human race.

[kareemachan]

02:22 PM on 08/25/2010

The thing that must really frost the buns of people like this and homophobes everywhere is the rate at which it is becoming a non-issue. Younger people have much less trouble with the idea of homosexuality, and as the older ones leave, things will relax even more.

[mggwa]

09:06 PM on 08/27/2010

"Younger people have much less trouble with the idea of homosexuality, and as the older ones leave, things will relax even more. "

Of course, I do not think that part is in dispute. What may concern a few people is what happens NEXT after the young people have relaxed. Google "demographic crisis".

[KristinNoelle]

09:53 PM on 08/27/2010

The only demographic crisis we are facing is over population. If anything, we need more people who won't reproduce.

Of course, living in the 18th century, you might be unaware of the fact that gay people can have biological children.

[kareemachan]

02:13 PM on 08/25/2010

Some "charity" that would let children go without parents for baseless reasons.

[mggwa]

09:06 PM on 08/27/2010

"Some "charity" that would let children go without parents for baseless reasons. "

Yes, some do, some don't.

[don52]

01:14 PM on 08/25/2010

There one point everyone needs to recognize and keep in mind. Governments, boards, judges commissions, etc, have no business dictating morality to anybody. There violating a simple principle, freedom of conscience. Up to 1973 homosexuals were considered to have a psychological condition. If an individual or organization does not want to accept this on moral or religious grounds then it is there right. I suggest that we carefully select those that are in office; then again, many of these decisions are made by appointees. To say that every adoption agency must adopt a rule that is at odds with the moral values of so many people is wrong. Organizations are created to meet the needs of the people. Isn't that why we have many organizations, so you can pick an choose those that meet your needs. This is government run amok.

[Jack Crack]

07:45 PM on 08/25/2010

This is the British government where the principle of no taxation without representation still exists. This agency is government funded, gay people pay tax too, no support if they need support for their backward morality

[don52]

01:40 PM on 08/26/2010

This article does not say that the Catholic adoption agencies are funded by the government. It says that the commission making the decision is funded by the government. Are the Catholic adoption agencies funded by the government? How much money do they receive?

[nomadrdw]

06:59 PM on 08/28/2010

actually, the entire psychological condition was and entirely 20th Century event that was led by the fanatics that were involved with mental health at the time, and these "concerned people" projected their own sick biases on the entire world. at the same time, doctors still didn't realize they needed to wash their hands before and after touching each patient either,
and i would not really be saying too much about the "MORAL IMPERATIVE" of the Catholic church under any circumstances.

[FlGlades]

07:22 AM on 08/25/2010

For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [5] I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not:

[6] And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. [7] As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. [9] When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. [10] But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.
Letter Saint Jude

[KateInMT]

10:08 PM on 08/26/2010

St. Jude is like St. Paul - one man, voicing one man's opinion. It has no bearing.

[nomadrdw]

07:09 PM on 08/28/2010

if you are going to use the bible as a weapon against others, then at least learn the history of your own book of worship and study the "Forbidden Books of Enoch" that were taken from the bible because the "Elders" know what is best for every one.
the church today has been corrupt to its core for centuries.

[JaCar]

12:14 AM on 08/25/2010

The fact that the Catholic Church is allowed within 5 miles of any child is a travesty.

[svmaggieb]

12:11 AM on 08/25/2010

A Prayer by an Orphan

An article by the Mexican writer Fernando Del Paso. During the last months, Mexico City’s government has approved the marriage and adoption of same-sex couples. The Catholic Church is opposing the new law (naturally).

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/503541-plegaria-de-los-hu%C3%A9rfanos-prayer-of-the-orphans

[teva]

12:06 AM on 08/25/2010

I see no problem with religious adoption agencies wanting to place the children with people who are aligned with their beliefs. Gay couples who want to adopt comprise a very small percentage of the population and can adopt through agencies who are not aligned with a religious order. Problem solved!

[Bob Kellerman]

04:20 AM on 08/26/2010

Yes, if the agency does not accept govenment support.

[doctim11]

10:38 PM on 08/24/2010

It's appalling catholics would even pretend to know what's best for children after what they have done to kids.

[ponderingmuch]

08:50 PM on 08/24/2010

Most of the people I have known in my long-ish life are divorced, widowed, or on their 99th partner.

I know 7 gay couples who have been together through thick and thin, for decades.

They might be too old to pass the test at this point, but they certainly would pass the loving and stable test.

[charlesdickens]

03:39 PM on 08/25/2010

I had a Catholic priest say to me not that long ago, in complete seriousness, that gay couples don't stay together longer than 7 years.

[Jack Crack]

07:46 PM on 08/25/2010

20 here, 20-40 monotonous and happy!

[ponderingmuch]

12:18 AM on 08/26/2010

And I just got reconnected with another couple who have been together for 14 years, and did get married in CA during the window, and have a beautiful toddler they adopted!

How can anybody object to that!

p.s. fanned for ideas plus the name.

[Nichole Boultas]

06:58 PM on 08/24/2010

What seriously pisses me off are religious organizations discriminating against same sex couples. What they keep forgetting is that they are human beings like the rest of us but those people happen to love the same sex. And it's just so wrong they do that. Those religious groups are in effect acting with hate when denying a gay couple or lesbian couple the right to adopt and create a family. I always thought that religious people loved and accepted everyone. Now that I'm older and wiser, I see I was wrong all along.

[mggwa]

09:14 PM on 08/27/2010

"What seriously pisses me off are religious organizations discriminating against same sex couples. "

Why? Put it out of your mind. You have a desire to live life a certain way; are you so quick to deny that to large numbers of other people? Of course you are; but it seems a bit selfish to me.

"I always thought that religious people loved and accepted everyone"

Why did you think this? It isn't part of any religion that I know. It is just barely possible that the Christian God does indeed love everyone, but he most certainly does not *accept* everyone; and as to human people -well- they are what they are.

[KristinNoelle]

09:50 PM on 08/27/2010

You just made the perfect argument against yourself:

Why? Put it out of your mind. You have a desire to live life a certain way; are you so quick to deny that to large numbers of other people? Of course you are; but it seems a bit selfish to me.

You don't like gay marriage, then just don't do it. Other than that, mind your own business, their families don't concern you.

[Rictus Grin]

03:49 PM on 08/24/2010

No special adoption rights for Jews! Wait, what...?

[New Yorker]

10:15 AM on 08/24/2010

Public opinion does not make something right or wrong; the objective moral law does. When a civil law is not in conformity with the moral law, it is an unjust law. Legalized forms of segregation were unjust laws. Legalized abortion, legalized euthanasia, legalized same sex 'marriage' are all unjust laws. They are contrary to the objective moral law, and therefore, no human law can claim them to be legitimate.

[KristinNoelle]

10:42 AM on 08/24/2010

I'm sorry, but are you G-d? What gives you any right to decide what is moral? Maybe I think beating annoying children in the store is my moral duty.

Anyways, answer me this, if a marriage between two people of the same gender is illegitimate based on catholic teaching, why are they not also checking to make sure all parents who adopt were virgins at the time of marriage? According to the same good book, marriages between people who were not virgins at the time of marriage are also not supposed to be recognized by the church (and if I remember correctly, the woman is also supposed to be stoned). It's so ridiculous how the bible has been used throughout history to discriminate at one's discretion, but the parts that conflict with one's own preferences are conveniently ignored.

Children need two things, and it isn't a man and a woman, it is love and stability.

[mggwa]

09:16 PM on 08/27/2010

"Children need two things, and it isn't a man and a woman, it is love and stability. "

I was thinking more along the lines of food and shelter. Give a child ONLY love and stability and she'll be dead in a few days. Good for you.

[TBJ]

02:06 PM on 08/24/2010

You're confusing "moral" with "religious", or "dogmatic".

A moral action is one that can rationally be reasoned out to show if someone is or will be harmed or not harmed.

The religious "morality" you speak of is only "objective" in the sense that it's unflinching, and incapable of incorporation of new information. Because the book from which its drawn is infallible. Because it says that its infallible. Etc.

[Jack Crack]

05:57 PM on 08/24/2010

It also states in that useless book that men carry the seed (egg) of new life and women are mere carriers. Such a nice tome

[mggwa]

09:18 PM on 08/27/2010

"A moral action is one that can rationally be reasoned out to show if someone is or will be harmed or not harmed."

The state (or nation) has an interest in demographic stability. Homosexuals do not provide this. It is reasonable therefore for a state to foster, encourage family life that itself fosters and encourages more family life.

To do otherwise is not "Darwinian".