so because we're the catholic church, we should be allowed to discriminate

[wannaBeWhateverIWannaBe]

or we'll close our

adoption agencies

I'll have you all know that I swing both ways. I'm not impressed with the turn this thread has taken.

Bless you all my children.

Amen

You are hot baby

slug, I did make the point that though I a catholic be, I do not agree with all things catholicism apart from the almighty ruling that DC smells of rotten vegs and wee, to which he has actually admitted.

And I do think that SS are bigoted. If you are over a certain weight you cannot adopt, if you are white you cannot adopt a black child etc etc. And I am very drunk and very impresseed with myself so far!

Interesting to see low quality personal attacks on me because I mention this is not the first time that the Catholic church has organised harm to children.

come on DC you are deliberately extremely inflammatory in the phrases and tone you use. i actually think you have had a bad personal experience at your Roman Catholic school , because the way you talk about it belies a lot of anger and hurt.

tbh, i don't see why DC's criticism of the Catholic church as an institution is in any way offensive....there is an awful lot of blood on the vatican's hands....that is not nor should it be received as insulting to any thinking Catholic that realises what a huge difference there is between the heart of a faith and the faillible and often power hungry and corrupt human beings that run it.

when talking about scientology DC said this. 'Yes, the'yre whacky, but their senior members don't organise the rape of kids like most of the big Christian groups'
sorry to bring up a quote from another thread, and i agree DC should be able to criticize any church as an institution, but blanket phrases like that are going to get people's backs up.

I was talking about this at work the other day (actually we were at an equality training session, so very apt) and a colleague of mine told me that a gay couple he knew had tried out one of the Catholic adoption agencies. One of them had applied saying that he was a committed Catholic, gay and celebate. The other that he was heterosexual and an aetheist. Guess which one was turned down? You are not required to be a practicing Catholic to be considered by those agencies. I don't think an opt out clause is acceptable, and if that means those agencies choose not to continue, then that is their choice. This whole issue has only blown up because the Catholic church has chosen to make a public fuss about it. There are adoption agencies with other religious affiliations, and none of them have publically demanded to be exempt. Having said that I expect the press were watching out for this one because of Ruth Kelly and Agnus Dei. I think that there is still some institutional discrimination against Catholics that should be removed, but I really don't think the Catholic church is helping itself here.

The Catholic church is a huge force for good in the world, mostly on a very quiet basis. There are hardly any babies to adopt in the UK unless they have disabilities anyway so we're probably mostly talking about older children with various kinds of problems whose parents have chosen the Catholic church to place them in homes.

There are exceptions for various religious groups under earlier discrimination legislation by the way already so it would not be strange to make an exception entitling adoption bodies to determine that only heterosexual couples can adopt. It is already very common that most UK state adoption bodies seem currently to believe it is better to adopt someone of the same skin colour so in a sense discrimination lies at the heart of our adoption practice and my sister had to pay for her IVF because she's single.

We could get rid of the rule which prohibits my daughters marrying Princes William and Harry but which I think would allow them to marry Muslim and Hindu girls, for a start.

That was the one I was thinking of Xenia (although I would hate for my dd to marry into the royal family). The most known about exemption is the one for Sikhs and motorcycle helmets, and I understand that it is most unlikely that it would be granted now as there are alternatives (was mentioned on my course, with Monty as an example). Re. discrimination it is not that everyone should be treated in exactly the same way, but that public bodies should be required to show good reasons for their decisions and not be predudiced, or fail to make reasonable adjustments. So for example the school with the veil issue was held to have made reasonable accomodation, whilst BA was not with the crucifix issue (because they could have quite easily changed their uniform rules, whereas the school could not have only employed female teachers).

Oh dear, did I offend DC? Dearie me!

But you did say "Maybe I do smell" (quote) which is an admission surely?

As this argument has run its course I see every reason to resort to smelly insults. So there!

And besides, as no-one addresses any of the good points made about SS being hypocritical, but are happy to jump on the catholic church then I see that it's pointless to argue!

We live in a country where the PM should stand trial for crimes against humanity. He is responsible for one of the bloodiest wars in history. Yet the church who has admitted it's role in bloodshed and apologised is still criticised. I don't see Tony Blair apologising.

Social Services will ban couples from adopting because of their weight, their age, their colour and so on. Yet they seem to have escaped libel and criticism.

I suggest that before one goes criticising any religion one takes a good long hard look at one's life and country. Let he who casts the first stone etc etc.

rhubarb, the catholic church has never apologised for it's implicit and explicit crimes during WW2, and certainly is still behaving in an obstructive not to say obscene way with regards to trials of priests for sexual abuse of children.

social services is i'm sure as able as any other institution to be corrupt and immoral, but i know more about the catholic church as i was raised in it, had an aunt who was about as high up as women can get (not that high up then) in the vatican under the last papacy and am surrounded by fervently catholic relatives.

What we should be caring about is the children not the rights of the people adopting them for God's sake. These children have usually been to hell and back before they are up for adoption they have the right to a warm and loving home and in my opinion with two different sex parents.

because it can't be warm and loving without two parents of different sexes???

they 'deserve' a heterosexual couple?

thunk.

A good % of adopted kids haven't "been through" anything being babes in arms. The "ex" mothers are a different story.
Like all kids they do deserve good parents, but the Catholic church open admits to refusing to consider potentially good parents.

Like most forms of bigotry, it is inefficient. If you hire people on the basis of race or sexuality you won't get the best staff.

Same applies to picking adoptive parents.
Catholic bigotry is costing kids the option of better parents.
This is a far bigger issue than the rights of gay adults.

but looking at this another way (if i dare)... if i was a catholic mother who had had a baby i couldn't care for, and wanted to give the baby up for adoption - then i may feel happier going to a catholic adoption agency where i knew my baby would be looked after by a "mum and dad" family and raised a catholic.

maybe i wouldn't want my baby raised by two same sex parents, or an unmarried couple - am i not allowed to have this preference?

your preference is based on bigotry rather than what is best for your child.

imho.

come on.....i know gay people that would make extraoridinary parents, and heterosexual parents that shouldn't be allowed near children, let alone allowed to have them.

but that's not the point
the point is doesn't the mother deserve a say?

because as a catholic she hasn't been able to have an abortion, she has had the child and now gives it up for adoption.

Most of them are not babies. There are very few babies for adoption in the UK.

"How many children are adopted each year?
The most recent figures available are for 2004-05 when 3,800 children were adopted, out of 60,900 children in care. Of the remaining children in care, 40% will eventually return home.

One of the aims of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 was to increase the number of children adopted and a new adoption register was set up to help with this. 1,000 more children were adopted in 2004-05 than in the same period five years earlier, an increase of 38%.

What are their backgrounds?
Children waiting for adoption come from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. They range in age from toddlers to teenagers, but it is rare for babies to come up for adoption. The average age at which children were adopted last year was four years and two months but only 210 (5%) were less than a year old.

Many children waiting to be adopted have had troubled early lives and some have been abused or neglected. Charity BAAF Adoption and Fostering said that of the 1,732 children who were referred to the adoption register between October 1 2005 and September 30 2006, 40% have experienced neglect, 23% have lived with parents with a history of drug or alcohol misuse and 14% have experienced physical violence."

it would be interesting to see the stats amongst the catholic adoption service.

maybe (?) there are more babies due to the anti-abortion stance?

An adopted gay Catholic writing in yesterday's Telegraph who can live with the church's stance on this siad 230 children were placed by the 12 Catholic adoption agencies last year. The catholic agencies he says handled 32% of the difficult to place chidlren over the whole UK. I think there would be very very few babies amongst those anyway.

So few children are adopted it's a bit of a non issue. However if local social services are approving gays adopting healthy white babies from abroad for example then I suppose they have a say so in whether they allow them to be placed with gay couples at all and may be there are more. I know lots of gay men and some are Catholics but I don't know any who have children of the ones I know. If I were a gay man I'd pay a US surrogate to give birth to my genetic child.

I read SecondhandRose's post and thought..yes, at last someone is talking about the rights and needs of the children...and then she said to have 'two differnet sex parents...oh God.

So many children in care are past around multiple foster homes, what they need is love and stability, and the sexual orienataion of the person/people who affer that are irrelevant.

that is why I am most disappointed with the catholic church. I accept their position on homosexuality, but surely a child needing love is more imporatnt than this?