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

[wannaBeWhateverIWannaBe]

or we'll close our

adoption agencies

I have a friend who at one point cosidered using an adoption agency and decided not to use the Catholic ones because they did discriminate against homosexual couples

Apparently they do consider single people for adoption. But I couldn't understand how considering single people, but not gay people could be considered consistent with RC doctrine.

LOL caligula !. I was brought up in the cofE and it didn't have a mafia - nothing so exciting - but it did mean that my mum knew lots of ladies to do flowers for my wedding free. Can't beat that eh???

Aloha - exactly "diddums"

If it comes down to a conflict of the human rights of all people against the human rights of one religion it seems obvious which one should win. But probably won't.

The catholic church already discriminates

They take public money to run their schools which they then prevent anyone other than catholics or hypocrites pretending to be catholics from attending

And this adoption thing is UNBELIEVABLE

CD they are allowed an do take up to 10% other faith or non faith children so your statement is not stritly true

Frogs - good point.

Same-sex couples I know who have tried to adopt have had a very very hard time in practice from local council / social services adoption panels as the law stands now, though. Very few seem to get through the last hurdle - is that where a panel including lay people (often with faith reprsentatives) have a say? I admit to being a bit hazy about the process, but an aquaintance who works in a London council adoption dept, and freinds who have tried to adopt, are not exactly brimming with confidence that there is a level playing field in existing secular services.

Actually, I have some sympathy with birth parents who would like to know that their biological child was brought up in the same faith as them. I had a best friend at school who had been born to a Jewish mother, and was adopted by an orthodox Jewish family. And given the importance of maternal line in Judaism, you can see that people would feel something. Under the new rules could someone state a preference about the family their child goes to?

I don't know how this can be sorted...I don't think the law should have loopholes, I don't think discrimination should be acceptable in any state-overseen operation, but I'm not unsympathetic to people having feelings about how the child is placed.

LOL at the free flowers mafia.

The atheists don't even have that.

not round here they don't mosschops

I called our local school and was told not to apply

oh fuck. that's what we need.
As a catholic I am really saddened by this. If two people are in a loving relationship who cares if they are both girls or boys or whatever.

But one of the difficulties with the proposed law (well we've only seen the NI regs - nothing yet for England) is that there is an exemption for religions, but it is very narrowly defined and presumes that a person's faith ceases to form part of their life once they leave a religious service. The law can't simply override religious convictions as that would also go against the Human Rights Convention.

In terms of how we all may be affected: many churches currently hire out their halls to other groups during the week, including playgroups, Weightwatchers etc. If the regs become law, and if the church doesn't want to hire out the premises to gay rights groups then it will have to stop hiring to the public (though may be able to hire out to members).

It is a difficult area, and I'm glad to see that the Catholic Church is at least ensuring that it gets some debate:- once rights become enshrined, how do you decide how conflicting rights get resolved. It is far more sensible to have a public debate rather than dealing with this via secondary legislation (the route which the Government opted for thereby greatly reducing the amount of Parliament scrutiny - for example the regs cannot be amended in committee etc)

I believe that Catholic adoption agencies make up 4% of all adoptions but 1/3 of those children who are described as "hard to place". The bbc suggests the figures are around 200 adoptions per year.

What I'm unclear about is how adoption agencies outside of local social services work. Why would a child be adopted via an agency anyway? I'm sure that there is a sensible reason, probably relating to it being cheaper, but I don't know what it is. Could anyone enlighten me?

this phrase "will have to close" keeps being used in the media. These services won't "have to" close, the Catholic church will be making the choice that they close.

for the catholic church its not a viable choice. for the catholic church homosexuality is against its religeon. I dont think there should be a special exemption for the catholic church. therefore the services will have to close.

Bit rich of the church which has protected child abusers to start claiming that gay couples would be unsuitable parents. Not half as unsuitable to make decisions for children as some of the people in the catholic heirarchy ? Murphy O'Connor himself included.

I think parents whose children are adopted are supposed to have some say wrt religion - IIRC one mumsnetter was told by the court her children would be placed with a couple from the same religion (social services ignored it, though).

They did seay its was part of the religion to disctiminate against black people- look up Curse Of Ham. Scary stuff and responsible for much of the slave trade justification

Youcant be exempt from discrimination because its your choice- however much you cloak that in religion- its an absurd notion!

thing is edam you wouldnt judge a whole religeon say like islam becuase some factions believe that killing infidels is erm 'ok' and therefore judge the whole religeon in that context.]

it annoys me profusely that its ok to do this with catholacism in a context perfectly intelligent people would call bloody hell about when used about any other religeon. one doesnt have to be religeous to accept that a religeous belife may be different from theirs thats why we all endeavour to live in a tolerant society.

i think you will find many other religeons think homosexuality is wrong, yet it amazes me how its 'ok' to catholic bash

yet they havent fallen into this partic argument becuase..... well becuase they dont run agencies trying to find children a family or any other benevolent charity works that may have missed the media recently

CD schools that are heavily one religion (the article focussed on Muslim schools but it was meant to be all if I have read correctly) will soon be forced to look more widely for its intake, thank goodness! Self created closed societies NOT conducive to an accepting society imo.

I agree with brummie AND Custy, tbh. they don't HAVE to close, but if they feel they need to its their prerogative.

and if we use historical contexts in which to justify and vilify catholic bashing - then we could just about pick apart everything from democracy, to politics, to cosialism, to capitalism, to all religeons who bomb holy shit out of each other from jews to muslims catholics and prodestants, monarchies and empires.

no one is going to try and justify past abhorrent acts - but to use it to back up open and flagrent intolerance is poor

But we discriminate all the time Peachy. "Discrimination" is too wide a term without some form of context. And Catholic agencies will still counsel gay couple who want to adopt. But they will also explain that they don't meet that agencies adoption requirement, and point them to other agenices (including social services) where they they can meet the criteria. Catholic agencies will also not consider unwed heterosexual couples are prospective parents. Given that gay couples could be considered for adoption by all but 7 agencies, how are their rights being infringed? And in particular how are their rights being infringed more than those heterosexuals who are unmarried, or divorced say?

Jewish and Muslim organisations are also objecting to the legislation I believe.

Custardo, I wasn't catholic bashing by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't say anything negative about catholics. What I do criticise is the church heirarchy, who connived in the most terrible abuse of children, hushing up allegations and moving abusers on to new parishes. The church - not individual worshippers - is guilty of institutionalised abuse IMO.

Half my family are catholics but none of them would defend the church on this issue.

Bigotry is bigotry, even if people dress it up in the word 'faith'. People who think gay people don't deserve equal rights in society are bigots. They are more disgusting than Jade Goody, for example. It is not better to hate and despise people for being gay than for being black.

I've only read Aloha's last post but I agree. This is about the Catholic church arguing against gay adoption I take it?