Gay adoption: ideology trumps child welfare

The Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs), which are due to come into effect in April (2007), outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and include in their remit the provision of adoption services by Catholic Adoption Agencies. This issue is as complex as it is emotive, but here is one thought on it.

What is often forgotton in this debate is the child. First and foremost, adoption agencies should be pro-child. This principle has been enshrined in Childcare law since the Children Act 1989: "the child's welfare shall be the court's paramount consideration." Whether they are pro-gay or anti-gay, pro-communist or anti-communist, pro-rock-and-roll or anti-rock-and-roll may be important, but are nonetheless subsidiary issues.

And to do the best for the child, agencies need to evaluate every prospective adoptive parent or parents, according to reasonable, evidence-based criteria; to take an uncontroversial example, physical violence in the home. To judge that it is in the best interests of the child to have a male and a female parent rather than just one parent or two parents of the same sex is a judgment that the agency makes according to the evidence available. The debate around the regulation of adoption agencies should therefore be focused on those criteria, on what constitutes good evidence, and on whether any given adoption agency can be trusted to make that judgement.

Catholic adoption agencies over the years would seem to have demonstrated competence in this, and should be allowed to continue to make this judgement, free of politically-correct interference, at least until there is good evidence that the children they place are suffering as a result of such policies. To my mind the needs and rights of the child trumps the needs and rights of the would-be parents. There is already provision for gay couples wanting to adopt since most (non-Catholic) adoption agencies seem to have few if any qualms about placing children with gay couples. This, taken together with the fact that the available evidence suggests that children do best with both a father and a mother (see here), strongly suggests that the ideological convictions of politicians are taking priority over the interests of needy children. This is why they are interfering in the valuable and child-centred work of the Catholic Adoption Agencies.