My opinion (and I’ve already admitted my bias) is that it is both morally and (should be) legally unnacceptable to practice a prejudice on the basis of sexual orientation, just as practising racism is both morally and legally wrong. I do not agree that the birth parent should be allowed to discriminate according to ‘whatever criteria they want to use’, if part of that criteria is clearly unsupportable prejudice. I would no more sanction a gay parent having the right to discriminate against a heterosexual couple as visa versa. Of course placements shouldn’t be done at random - the adoptive person’s situation and ability to take on a child should always be taken into account. I just don’t agree that sexual orientation should be part of the judging criteria.
If the Church is granted an exemption, it should be on the basis on practicality: is their withdrawal of services going to be more expensive, or impossible, to replace?
I agree in general with Polycarp’s post, above. But if it turns out that there are children placed by the Catholic agencies that simply won’t get placed without them… there’s a dilemma… Which the government is in charge of solving. Granting an exemption is one way to solve it. There may be others.
Ahhh, yes, I failed to put these two together in my original reading. If they want to accept government reimbursement for the “costs” of adoption they must abide by the rules.
The 4000 figure is apparently the number of children in need of adoption according to The Catholic Childrens Society (warning -PDF) Annual Report.
So it’s a completely different number then.
The same report appears to claim a £258k income from Council fees for placing 20 children.
Time to set up TAMPA to selflessly help out.
Tagos Adoption and Meat Pie Agency - coming soon to a mall near you. 
If anyone’s interested in my view, for once I agree with Bricker. In principle, I don’t think they should be allowed to discriminate in this way. Practically, though… they do do a lot of good work, even if they restrict who they place the kids with. I would say, however, that if there would be considerable less help for these kids without the Catholic agencies, their holding the government to ransom on this issue seems pretty unpleasant. I would have thought they’d consider two gay parents better than no parents at all.
I think we are talking about two different things. I said in an earlier post that I agree that if the state is placing the child, and parental rights have already been severed, then of course, the birth parents have no say-so, and shouldn’t. But Catholic Charities in Boston shut down because of as state law that says they can’t discriminate against gays in ANY adoption. If I am voluntarily giving my child up for adoption, how can I be forced to put the child into a pool, to be placed at random? I can’t, because then I may very well choose not to place the child at all. I guess the question is, when are the parent’s rights severed? Should the system work so the parent gives the child to the state, and the rights are severed at that point, so then the child goes into the random pool? I think that would be a gross violation of the rights of the parents, and would severely limit the number of people who choose adoption for their child.
The thing is, when it comes to private adoption, no one has the “right” to adopt, whether gay, straight, or whatever. As I said to Kalhoun’s post, how on earth could you control who a parent chooses to give a child to? If I have a child and want to give it to someone I already know, for example, shouldn’t that be my perogative? Do you really want the state stepping in and saying no, you can’t do that…your baby has to go into the pool of state-approved people, and placed at random from there? You can choose to give your child up for adoption, but can’t choose who it is given to? As I said, I’m not sure too many birth parents would go along with that.
I think that a lot of the above posts are missing a point about this law. It is not a law about adoption at all. It is simply a law that requires all people running a business to not discriminate in any way on grounds of sexual orientation. It adds sexual orientation to the list we have already - race, gender etc.
So, it will be as illegal in the supply of any service to discriminate against ‘Homosexuals’ as against ‘Black’ people. No refusal of service at restaurants, hotels, shops, employers etc etc etc… Similarly if you wish to adopt, no-one providing that service would be allowed legally to refuse such a service to a ‘Black’ or ‘Homosexual’ couple.
Simple isn’t it?
So the Catholic adoption agencies are trying to impose their right to break an anti-discrimination law. They can only run their adoption business within the laws of the country and are now (after the law has been passed) trying to exempt themselves.
Luckily they seem to be failing. The likely outcome is that they will be given some months, or maybe a year’s leeway to either 1/ change their practices so that it complies with the law, or 2/ form an alliance with a non rabidly-homophobic organization to share their business so that they would have a joint referral service where gays would go to one part of the service.
We shall see what happens next week.
I’m not so sure you’ve listed all the likely outcomes. In Boston, faced with a similar mandate, the Catholic agency handling adoption shut down rather than comply with a mandate to service same-sex couples.
Assuming you agree they have the right to do that – that is, you wouldn’t pass a law mandating that anyone in business keep their business open instead of shut it down – then the question becomes: overall, which path benefits society more? It can certainly be credibly argued that kow-towing to this sort of exortionate behavior doesn’t benefit society at all, and the hit we take with the loss of adoptions is well worth the reward of a discrimination-free society.
One may also credibly argue that the very motivation which gives rise to the Church’s desire to assist – belief in guidance handed down from God – also creates the Church’s intransigence on the matter of same-sex couples, and that it’s worthwhile as a society to take the hit on the discrimination front in order to continue the valuable assistance the Church agencies provide in placing difficult-to-adopt children.
I can’t believe a parent would abort simply because that was the greater of two evils (in her mind) would be a gay couple raising her child. Nor can I believe an impoverished mother would raise a child in poverty rather than allow gay folks to raise it. It doesn’t make sense.
If you are voluntarily giving up your child, you have two choices, as I see it. You either arrange a private adoption or you go through the agency. I don’t see why anyone would have a problem anyway. The parents are the ones who are gay. That’s the sin, right? Not being raised by homosexuals. Why would the church have an opinion on that one way or the other?
Bricker, I don’t understand this. If catholics aren’t arranging the adoptions, won’t other agencies pick up the slack, sans discrimination? I don’t see why the process would be compromised. The kids are still there, and now there are more families allowed to take them. Win/win, no?
I don’t know about that. People can be VERY selective about who they choose to give their child to, and I think a lot of people would choose to keep the child rather than give it to someone they don’t want to. Can’t prove this, but I think a lot of people would balk at the idea of someone else choosing who they give their baby to, and would want to at least know that the agency (if one is used) has the same values they do. In any case, they should certainly have the right to decide who they want to give their baby to, if they haven’t had custody already removed from them. (Whether or not this actually affects the # of babies given up for adoption is really an irrelevancy that I probably shouldn’t even have mentioned, since I can’t prove one way or another how it would be affected. My gut tells me there would be fewer babies available.)
Right…you do have two choices. As I said, I think these are two different situations. IF the agency’s role is to be an agent of the STATE, then they need to follow state regulations. If the agency is acting as an agent of the PARENT, then the parent should have the right to decide if they feel the agency is acting in their (and the child’s) best interest.
As far as why the parent might use one criteria over another, or why the Catholic Church doesn’t want to place kids with gay parents, I can’t speak to.
As I understand it, the Church’s adoption agencies have historically offered a significantly higher success rate than other agencies placing “hard to adopt” children – basically special-needs children. It would seem that all agencies are not equal – that, in the absence of the Catholic agency involvement, while other agencies will possibly “pick up the slack” for more routine adoptions, the special-needs adoptions will likely take a significant hit.
Well, they do have that right, they just can’t do it through a business. Put an ad in the paper, hire a lawyer, and do your own background checks. I see nothing wrong with that.
I wonder what they do differently. Also, I would think those who were doing it for catholic agencies would now be looking for work. I’d think the non-discriminatory agencies would welcome their expertise. Surely there wouldn’t be a religious rule barring a church member from working for another agency, would there?
I guess I don’t see what difference it makes if an agency does it. Let’s say it’s a generic agency, not a Catholic one, and does not itself have any particular policy regarding who they place with. Their job is to talk to the parents, find out the criteria on which the parent wants to select the adoptive parent (and likewise, what kind of child the adoptive parent is looking for), and helps match up the two. Is that acceptable, because it’s not the policy of the business to discriminate? What if it becomes some kind of default policy, because no birth parents every select a gay couple to adopt their child? Should the agency be shut down because of the decisions of the birth parents? Or should the rule be that if you go through an agency of any kind, you don’t get to select the adoptive parents?
But is that because they are better at it, or just because they care less what happens to the kid after he gets adopted ? This and other behavior by the CC inclines me toward the latter view.
Has there even been a study comparing what happens to the kids after they are placed, according to who did the placing ?
I would suspect, based on nothing but a vague intuition, that the people who specifically select a Catholic adoption agency may be more willing to take special-needs children, whether initially or after some motivational discussions from the agency.