UK Cabinet ministers have poured cold water over suggestions that Catholic Church adoption agencies might be exempted from new legislation requiring them to consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents.
Education Secretary Alan Johnson, whose portfolio includes adoption issues, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he did not believe that there was any case for an exemption for Church agencies.
In an open letter on Monday, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor said that the legislation, which would force Catholic adoption agencies to act contrary to Catholic teaching was “unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics”.
Cardinal Murphy O’Connor said that these agencies will close if not given an opt-out from having to place children with gay couples, adding that such an outcome would be “an unnecessary tragedy”. This situation, he continued was “wholly avoidable”.
However, the Education Secretary, the latest Cabinet Minister to come out against any exemption for Church agencies said that he was “convinced that I don’t see a case for exemption and I don’t think the prime minister does”.
He also rejected the notion that the Prime Minister had caved into pressure from other Cabinet Ministers concerning a possible exemption for such agencies.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said that Mr Blair had met a group of Labour MPs to discuss the issue on Wednesday and that discussions were continuing. There is speculation that those discussions might be focusing now on giving agencies time to adapt or close.
Reports suggest that Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly, who is charged with fighting discrimination and who is a devout Catholic, is considering resigning over the issue. One senior Labour MP has warned that she may have to resign.
The Equality Act, due to come into effect in England, Wales and Scotland in April, and is already in effect in Northern Ireland, outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of sexual orientation.
Catholic agencies are said to handle 4%, or about 200, of all adoptions a year. However these cases form one third of the adoption work carried out by the voluntary sector, which specialises in finding families for disabled, terminally ill or abused children which local authorities find impossible to place.
Local authorities all have large expensive adoption services of their own, so only call on the voluntary sector when they have no hope of placing the children themselves. If no exemption for Church agencies is forthcoming, these agencies will be forced to close. One of the British Cabinet members most vociferously opposed to granting Church-run adoption agencies an exemption from the new law is Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain.
