Cardinal’s adoption agency defies Government over gay rights laws
By Simon Caldwell
13 June 2008

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor       PA Photos

A Catholic adoption agency headed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor is to become the first in Britain to defy the Government over laws that would force it to place children with same-sex couples.

The Catholic Children's Society (Westminster) aims to stay open in spite of the new rules - and to continue its policy of placing children solely with married heterosexuals and single people.

Church lawyers believe they have found a way in which the charity can comply with the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs) and remain loyal to Catholic teaching opposed to both gay marriage and adoption by gay couples.

They hope that by simply amending its constitution to refer directly to "married heterosexual couples", rather than the present reference to "couples who wish to adopt", they will fulfil the demands of the legislation. The agency, based in North Kensington, west London, will now begin a legal process to amend its constitution before the law kicks in on New Year's Day.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the president of the CCS, said: "I fully support the decision of the trustees in their endeavours to continue the valuable work of the society."

The Cardinal is taking a risk that could see the charity's actions challenged in the courts by campaigners.

But he also appears to be sending a clear message to other bishops that they should fight to save their remaining adoption agencies after a week that has seen one Manchester-based agency pull out of adoption altogether.

Another agency, also called the Catholic Children's Society, but covering the dioceses of Arundel and Brighton, Portsmouth and Southwark, confirmed days earlier that it would cut ties with the Church to stay open, possibly re-naming itself the Cabrini Children's Society. Catholic adoption agencies in Nottingham and Northampton have also declared that they will pursue independence from the Church.

The decision by the Westminster trustees will undoubtedly be welcomed by the many London Catholics who raise thousands of pounds for the agency each year, among them the comedian Frank Skinner, who in 2001 gave the CCS the £125,000 prize money he had won on ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire?.

The CCS has been advised that a new constitution could help the charity to comply with the legislation by appealing to Regulation 18 of the SORs.

This reads that "nothing in these regulations shall make it unlawful for a person to provide benefits only to a person of a particular sexual orientation if (a) he acts in pursuance of a charitable instrument and (b) the restrictions of benefits to persons of that sexual orientation is imposed by reason of, or on the grounds of, the provisions of a charitable instrument".

Jim Richards, director of the CCS, said: "Our original constitution goes back to 1905 and, as you can imagine, in those days the SORs weren't on the horizon. The assumption we made then, quite understandably, is that when we talked about adoption and couples we are talking about married couples, but because of the SORs we have to spell that out and make clear that what we are talking about is heterosexual married couples.

"We have received legal advice that indicates that this is a possibility and on the basis of that legal advice we are going forward to alter our constitutions and later in the summer we will be formally seeking approval from the Charity Commission."

Mr Richards said that, besides married couples, the agency would continue its policy of assessing single people, either heterosexual or homosexual, on the sole basis of the stable environment they could offer a homeless child.

"We simply want to continue to do what we have been doing for many, many years reasonably successfully," he said. "Adoption is a very important part of the Church's work with children who are extremely vulnerable."

He said the crisis "need not have happened if the Government had given an exemption to the adoption agencies as governments in other EU countries did".

"Other countries didn't see adoption as goods and services and therefore adoption didn't fall under their SORs," he added. "This is a problem of the Government's making which has been foisted on us."

The CCS (Westminster) is the oldest Catholic adoption agency in the country and was founded by Bishop Richard Challoner in 1764 when penal laws made it illegal to be a Roman Catholic in Britain.

Today it supports some 3,000 children, young people and their families every year through a network of family centres and nurseries, and its fostering, adoption, counselling and child protection services, as well as its work with travellers and families on low incomes. Each year the society finds new families for about 15 "hard-to-place" children, most of whom are suffering from severe emotional or behavioural problems, or who are disabled - and it is this service that is at risk from the regulations.

Auxiliary Bishop Bernard Longley of Westminster, the chairman of the CCS, announced the trustees' decision in a letter to priests last week, saying it was made with regard to Catholic teaching on the "centrality of marriage and the importance of family life".

"The trustees are satisfied that the society's circumstances are such that we are now able to take the necessary steps to comply with the legislation by applying Regulation 18 of the SORs," he said.

"It is important to stress that the adoption services of our society are still very much open for business and applications from people wishing to adopt are most welcome at any time."

The announcement came just days after the Catholic Children's Rescue Society of the Diocese of Salford became the first of the 13 Catholic adoption agencies to say it would stop assessing potential adopters because of the SORs.

But with the Cardinal showing leadership, it is likely that other adoption agencies will now seriously consider pursuing a similar route to the CCS (Westminster).

Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue of Lancaster has already indicated that it is his preferred option for the Catholic Caring Services to remain an agency of his diocese but has yet to convince the trustees - who favour independence from the Church - of its possible merits.

The agencies act by finding married couples and individuals willing to adopt and preparing them to meet legal and local authority criteria before they are matched with children put up for adoption by social workers.

Evidence suggests the best way to provide a better future for the 4,000 children in care homes would be to give them a permanent family through adoption.

As Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed through laws designed to encourage greater use of adoption in 2002, and as part of the reforms gay couples were allowed to adopt for the first time.

The SORs, introduced under the 2006 Equality Act, later ruled that adoption agencies which rejected same-sex couples could be breaking the law.

The SORs created civil laws that give homosexuals the power to sue individuals or institutions for alleged discrimination in the provision of goods and services.

The Government intended that it to be applied to Catholic adoption agencies and refused to grant them an exemption in spite of pleas from the bishops.

The SORs mean that if a same-sex couple felt they had been discriminated against by an adoption agency on the basis of their sexual orientation they could take the charity to a county court.

If a judge then found against the charity, it is most likely that an order would be made forcing the agency to change its policies. Damages of thousands of pounds may also be awarded to the complainants.

Writing in The Catholic Herald last month, Neil Addison, a Liverpool-based barrister and the author of the legal textbook Religious Discrimination and Hatred Law, said that British law on the SORs was untested and any court case launched against a Catholic adoption agency would have an uncertain outcome.

He said: "The SORs cannot be looked at in isolation. You also have to consider human rights protections for religious belief, equality legislation prohibiting religious discrimination and finally the Adoption Act, which makes welfare of the child the primary consideration.

"Many questions remain unanswered," he said. "But when you have such a cocktail of law and competing rights you have ample scope for legal argument, negotiation and compromise."

Mr Addison added that he believed that the Church had a moral obligation to challenge the law.

He said: "The Church cannot withdraw from its social activities without compromising its essential nature and being seen as irrelevant.

"But that means that the Church and its organisations must be willing to fight and defend their right to provide services in accordance with Catholic principles.

"The Church may not win but if Catholic agencies are to be closed down and children deprived of these services let that be done - and seen to be done - by the Government and not by the Church."