The catholic adoption debate
The balance between freedom of conscience and anti-descrimination law seems to have concentrated in this issue. It seems that you can think what you like but one's behaviour must be standardised. There is an argument for legislation keeping out of this can of worms and letting people work it out for themselves, so legislation should never have been passed in the first place. Well, maybe, but that doesn't make the wider issue go away. The problem the legislation seems to be quietly tackling is the separation of Church and State. The argument, or concern, politicians seem to have is the principle of religious groups to be exempt from law or common practice in this country. As the laws of this country have been founded on Christian belief it may seem astonishing to appear so rigid on this issue, but given the wider issue of other religious groups being exempt from law simply because of their religious beliefs, then that is not acceptable. For once, Westminster may just have got it right.
posted by Philipa at 7:00 AM
8 Comments:
I feel that church leadership on this issue in Britain seems peculiarly out-of-touch both with their congregations and with current trends in adoption.
For one thing, as I understand it, we're talking perhaps a hundred adoptions per year or so, max. Not an inconsiderable number, but I'm sure other agencies could take up the slack. Would-be Catholic adoptive parents would go to secular agencies and everyone would be happy, no?
The simple answer is to re-affirm the application of anti-discriminatory laws and let the church look like jerks if they actually make good on their threat to close down their adoption agencies.
By the way--exactly how many out gay couples have ever applied to the Catholic Church to adopt a kid in the first place?
And how many closeted child molesters have applied to teach or mentor said adoptees?
What's that thing, about the mote in one's neighbour's eye?
I mostly agree but not all churches are out of touch. Evangelical chuches are on the rise and my own traditional Church is very popular.
The churches that brand themselves as "evangelical" over here are, in the main, as bigoted, small-minded, and smugly certain of heaven as the Baptists.
May I ask which tradition your church follows? Medieval, Renaissance, Egyptian, Wiccan, Norse Old Gods, what? (Cheeky, yes, but I'm making a point).
"Tradition", respectfully, seems to me like a way to claim that yesterday's superstitions are somehow superior to today's.
All gods have feet of clay. A thousand years from now people will look at our broken statuary and hollow basilicas and wonder at the odd superstitions we held.
Then they'll head off to twice-weekly Elemental worship (Earth in Spring, Air in Summer, Fire in Autumn and Water in Winter) at the local temple.
Metro I cannot tell you how much your comments resonate with me just now. I haven't posted for a while because, well with one's faith some comments just seem too personal.
'My' Church is a traditional Anglican Christian Church. I'll post pictures and comment more because it really does seem to me as if Mr Elton could walk out of it at any moment. And it always seems quite full, part of the community.
I thought on sunday about why I go there and why I'm a Christian. The only answer I could honestly come up with is 'I don't know, but that's my choice'. And I think if more people were honest the world would be a better place. I have no idea really if there is indeed a deity. My intelligence argues against it. A famous writer once said that spiritualism is faith and religion is politics. I agree with that. I've argued a lot about others views here and I think there are many reasons why people are members of a religion. I think in many cases the neeed for religion for some people is the same as the need to join this or that political movement. That same idealism. It's really politics.
Religion isn't politics for me, it's quite different. My daughter is quite poorly and has just asked if she can go to church. And that is why I go to church I think. I don't go to join a club or be told what to do. I feel we should work that out for ourselves.
I can't tell you why the feel of gritstone under my fingers feels good. And I have no idea why going to church works for me, it just does. Perhaps in time I will look back and realise I've been ridiculous. It won't be the first time!
Metro: You should well know that no church follows a single 'tradition', and the Christian religious practice is composed from a large number of pagan sources. You should also know that 'religion' is continually evolving, and having roots in older religions is not necessarily a bad thing! At the very least Christianity has firm roots in one other religion, Judaism.
And about adoption, I think this is an issue on which people should be able to choose, but then I almost always do. Provided there is ample provision for gay couples, I don't see that we should force the Roman Catholics to close their adoption agencies to make a political statement. As I understand it the Anglican ones wouldn't have to close as they already cater to gay couples.
What might however be a good thing would be for Christians to finally fight back and tell all the Catholics and Evangelicals that homosexuality is not a sin, and calling it one is utterly in betrayal of Jesus' message. If they insist on calling it a sin, in my book they will shift from being Christians to being Leviticans.
And metro, I'm afraid I don't think the church will look like jerks to a number of people - lots of people are against gay adoption for non-religious reasons, and I imagine they would support the church in this.
No-one's forcing the CC to do anything Jack. They're whingeing that if they have to treat gays as equal under secular law, they're gonna take their bat and ball and go 'ome.
And I say fine. And let people support them in that if they will. I think your estimate of the number of secular supporters is off, too. What secular reason is there to oppose gay adoptions?
But Jesus himself said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. That is, obey the laws of the land. The church stands in violation of this, no?
(By the way: No-one has yet told me how many gay couples have actually applied to adopt kids from agencies run by a church that denies them equality. I suspect it was zero--at least until they started complaining about it.)
I suspect it was zero too.
The main reason that secular supporters oppose gay adoption is that they don't believe that gay couples are as stable as straight ones and/or they think it will be damaging to the kid.
"No-one's forcing the CC to do anything"
I'm afraid that depends on definitions. Am I forced not to murder by the fact that I will be severely punished if I do? If I were in prison, would I be 'forced' to stay in there? After all I can try and escape, could even die trying. Are businesses forced to pay taxes?
More to the point, if there were a law mandating that I kill someone, would I be forced to do it? That is the real question, conscience vs. legality. If that law did exist, I would disobey. The CC agencies don't have the option to disobey, since they would be fined into the ground and shut-down. they would cease to exist - in that situation it would be wise to close up shop before that happens, to save the money and trouble.
"But Jesus himself said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
Some people do indeed interpret this to mean 'obey the laws of the land', but in fact the meaning goes deeper than this. For one thing Jesus answered in this round about way to escape a rhetorical trap, if he had meant 'obey the laws of the land' he could simpy have answered 'yes'.
What do you notice about what he said before? One thing does spring to mind, he asks them for a coin (the clear implication being that he doesn't have one) and shows them Caesar's face right there on it. The fact that he doesn't have one reveals the hypocrisy in their question - they seek to trap Jesus asking if taxes should be paid, and Jesus essentially says "you should, because you're part of the system." But the deeper meaning of the story is that Jesus is outside the system of wealth and taxes, and we should aspire to do the same, obeying the laws of the land as a fall-back position should we fail.
It seems to me that failure to treat people equally and fairly, also something Jesus seemed to be in favour of, qualifies.
To correct this unfortunate tendency, there are the laws of the land, which the Catholic Church is saying should in fact not apply to them.
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