Let the Little Children come unto Me
In the news today, Catholic adoption agency Catholic Care has won the right to continue operating, without complying with the Government’s 2007 Sexual Orientation Regulations. This means they’re allowed to continue their work without offering kids to gay couples on an equal basis, which would contravene their Catholic beliefs. CC is the last of the Catholic adoption agencies, the rest have shut down or severed ties with the Church due to these regulations.
Jonathan Finney, of gay rights group Stonewall, isn’t at all happy about this. Says he:
“It’s unthinkable that anyone engaged in delivering any kind of public or publicly funded service should be given licence to pick and choose service users on the basis of individual prejudice.”
This is one of those quotes that suddenly throw a new light on everything and reveal where people are really coming from. Couples looking to adopt are apparently “service users”. That’s funny, I always thought that the people being served here were the kids and only the kids. Adopting a child isn’t something to do for your own gratification, so it sounds to me like Stonewall have put the cart before the horse. So, many congrtulations to Catholic Care!
If my view on the subject is worth anything, I’m glad I had both a mum and a dad. That’s not to diminish the work done by single parents by the way, but their situations can’t be classed as ideal. I don’t agree with the adoption agency’s stance, since having two mums or two dads has got to be better than growing up in state care. However, I find it ridiculous that the government see fit to lecture the Catholic Church on morality – it’s like a primary school kid telling their teacher how to do maths. I also feel that if this issue was really about getting more kids adopted (rather than a stick with which to beat the Catholic Church) the state could be a lot more inclusive of orthodox Christians – I have it from a social worker that anybody expressing anything but the Nu Labour party line on sexual ethics, would be excluded from adopting. Double standards, anyone?
I don’t think they’re attempting to lecture on morality they’re attempting to enforce legality. Equal opportunities is not about morality at all, it’s about operating a society that attempts to legally protected itself from prejudice. If equal ops were about morality there would be a ton of services and employers ‘discriminating’ against people openly expressing racist views and the right for organisations like the BNP to protest would be removed. An example of the government lecturing the Catholic church on morality would be something like telling them they have to officially issue a statement saying they accept gay couples, instead it just asks them to allow gay couples the same rights as straight ones without making any other move to accept them.
Many congratulations to Catholic Care because Stoneham mentioned that adoption is a public service? Seems to me Stoneham are trying to negotiate using logical, non-emotional terms about equality. To question their word use is to derail the true argument.
Oh rubbish that should be Stonewall. I have spent too much time working in housing.
“I find it ridiculous that the government see fit to lecture the Catholic Church on morality – it’s like a primary school kid telling their teacher how to do maths.”
Crap analogy, given the Catholic Church’s behaviour, well, a lot of the time.
Helen, the Catholic church has been around since Britain was run by the Romans, and has survived through the Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans, the Reformation, the Civil war, the Restoration and up to the present day. I’ve no doubt that there’ll be a Catholic presence in these isles long after our current civilisation’s ended. The nouveau-morality promoted by Nu-Labour is descended from Europe’s Christian tradition. Whoever’s supposedly in charge for the next decade (a blink of an eye by Catholic standards) will probably have won due to their hustings in a church hall. So what gives them authority to impose their bastard-son morality on the church, or any of the major religions?
Yes, we have to live together, which means that our representatives need to regulate just enough to keep the peace. If they step beyond that and start lecturing on morality to their philosophical parents, they’re getting beyond their station and need taking down a peg.
Oh yes, and the government are hardly white as snow themselves, are they?
Bookgazing, thanks for the comment. I think you’re making ‘morality’ into a much narrower and more partisan word than it really is – the government have stopped many Catholic agencies operating according to their own morals, so how is that not “lecturing on morality”? They’re ruling on whether or not the Church’s morals are legitimate, which puts the gov’t as the chief arbiter of morality. That’s what gets me, as I don’t see how it has any right to that place.
My point about Stonewall is that their language makes the issue out to be about the potential parents rather than the children, whereas to my mind, the child should hold all the rights in this type of case.
‘They’re ruling on whether or not the Church’s morals are legitimate’ – I’m not really sure how we’d maintain equal rights without these kinds of judgements. Many people’s sense of morality differs from what is legal, but if we were to take their different stance on morality into account in legal cases we’d produce a partial and unfair system of justice. Say an employer was to say they felt homosexuality was immoral and so they wouldn’t employ anyone who was gay, you can argue that that’s a case of their morality differing from legality and that it’s not fair to judge whether their morals are legitimate. It’s no different because the Catholic church is a large, religious organisation.
On another note any measures that allow religious groups to circumvent the law by stating that their religious beliefs conflict with it opens the door to cases brought by individuals and businesses. It sets a really dangerous precedent that would negatively impact on the sturggle for equality in the UK.
Would you let other religious groups circumvent UK law because it conflicts with their morality?