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Homosexual Activists Target UK Faith Schools, Adoption Policies

By Gudrun Schultz

GREAT BRITAIN, June 2, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Faith-based schools in the UK are facing efforts by a homosexual activist group to ensure the schools’ acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lifestyles for their students.

Schools Out has called on the government to ensure the new Equality Act, which will prohibit any discrimination based on sexual orientation in the provision of goods and services, including education, will be fully enforced in the faith schools.

The organisation is also calling for changes to the education system that would emphasize the “culture and history” of LGBT people in school curricula.

Meanwhile, Catholic adoption agencies in Scotland are reacting to proposed legislation that would allow homosexual couples to jointly adopt children. The agencies are requesting an exemption allowing them to opt out of facilitating homosexual adoptions, should the measure become law. The Catholic Church has specifically condemned placing children in a homosexual environment, saying homosexual adoption must be considered  “gravely immoral.”

Under current Scottish law, only one member of an unmarried or homosexual couple can legally adopt a child. The Adoption and Children Bill would remove that restriction.

Stephen Small, from the St. Andrew’s Children Society, told members of parliament the agency believes homosexual adoption could be damaging to already vulnerable children, reported The Scotsman.

“We still have an issue about the effects on children – especially those who have already had major disadvantage and discrimination in their lives, being placed with what we would still regard as an untested family situation.”

Michael Mesarowicz, of St. Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society, said there were “strong feelings” in the Catholic Church about the issue. “The Catholic Church has been very vocal about what they view is the right and proper family unit.”

Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien condemned the legalization of homosexual adoptions when the measure was proposed last year, The Scotsman reported.

“Such a measure would distort the understanding of the family, cause harm to children and promote the status of homosexual relationships,” Cardinal O’Brien said. “Homosexual unions are notoriously fragile and unstable, and the small number of homosexual couples living together make the suggestion that this measure would increase the number of potential adoptive parents unrealistic.”

“To place children in such a situation is to put them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognised in the UN Convention on the rights of the child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.”

See related LifeSiteNews coverage:

Scotland’s Catholic Prelate Condemns Government Move to Legalize Gay Adoption
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jun/05061306.html

Scotland Parliament Plans to Go Ahead with Gay Adoption Despite 89% Opposition
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06051807.html

UK Teachers Attack “Intolerant” Faith Schools
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/apr/06041202.html

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