A Scottish Catholic adoption charity faces de-registration — because it expects couples to be married for at least 
two years before adopting children.
Scotland’s charity regulator admits the St Margaret’s adoption agency provides a valuable service – but says the marriage policy discriminates against gay couples, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator (OSCR) made the ruling in response to a complaint by the National Secular Society.
OSCR has therefore ordered St Margaret’s to change its procedures before 22 April this year, or it will be thrown off the charity register.
Critics say that religious groups are being forced into the cold because of their beliefs about marriage.
John Deighan of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said: “This proves the concerns have been valid. The adoption society has done an outstanding job throughout the years.”
Education Minister for the Scottish Government, Mike Russell said he was “disappointed” by the OSCR decision.
“We do not believe that this outcome is in the best interests of the children St Margaret’s helps, who are in need of a safe and loving family home,” he said.
But the National Secular Society, which made the original complaint, welcomed the decision.
Scottish spokesman Alistair McBay said: “This kind of crude discrimination is no longer acceptable in our society – and that goes double where the discrimination is, in effect, being largely financed by the public purse.”
Virtually all of Britain’s faith-based adoption agencies have been shut down, or have dropped their religious ethos, because of equality laws.
Meanwhile the Bishop of Springfield in the US state of Illinois has described proposed same-sex marriage legislation as “a dangerous social experiment about marriage” and “a lethal attack upon religious liberty”.
In a pastoral letter [1] Bishop Thomas Paprocki said that the new law would redefine marriage to legally accept same-sex marriage for the first time.
“But neither two men nor two women – nor, for that matter, three or more people – can possibly form a marriage. Our law would be lying if it said they could,” he said.
The bill, he said, would enshrine in law “three harmful ideas”.
These were that what essentially made a marriage was romantic-emotional union (rather than permanence and commitment); that children don’t need both a mother and father; and that the main purpose of marriage is adult satisfaction.
He said: “These ideas would deepen the sexual revolution’s harms on all society. After all, if marriage is an emotional union meant for adult satisfactions, why should it be sexually exclusive? Or limited to two? Or pledged to permanence? If children don’t need both their mother and father, why should fathers stick around when romance fades?”
Furthermore, he said, the bill did not protect religious freedom, despite the bill being called “The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act”.
He said: “This so-called ‘religious freedom’ would not stop the state from obligating the Knights of Columbus to make their halls available for same-sex ‘weddings’.
“It would not stop the state from requiring Catholic grade schools to hire teachers who are legally ‘married’ to someone of the same sex.
“This bill would not protect Catholic hospitals, charities, or colleges, which exclude those so ‘married’ from senior leadership positions.
“Nor would it protect me, the Bishop of Springfield, if I refused to employ someone in a same-sex ‘marriage’ who applied to the Diocese for a position meant to serve my ministry as your bishop.”