You couldn’t make it up. Well, I couldn’t anyway. Catholic Care, a Catholic adoption agency has won a court ruling that means that it will not be forced to place children with homosexual couples.
Astute analysis from Young Mr. Brown over at Marmalade Sandwich, on the recent Catholic Care Adoption Agency victory in the law courts:
But some are more equal than others
You couldn’t make it up. Well, I couldn’t anyway. Catholic Care, a Catholic adoption agency has won a court ruling that means that it will not be forced to place children with homosexual couples.
The amusing thing, however, is that the reason that it has won this unexpected victory is that the government inserted a clause in the 2007 Equality Act, Regulation 18, which states:
Nothing in these Regulations shall make it unlawful for a person to provide benefits only to persons of a particular sexual orientation, if—
(a) he acts in pursuance of a charitable instrument, and
(b) the restriction of benefits to persons of that sexual orientation is imposed by reason of or on the grounds of the provisions of the charitable instrument.
In other words, charities to continue to discriminate if the stated aim of the charity was to provide services to people of a particular sexual orientation. (This loophole was inserted to ensure that gay charities could not be sued for discrimination by heterosexual couples.) Catholic Care simply wrote an explicit reference to serving heterosexuals into its constitution, and won their case.
One can only fall about laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. To quote Ogden Nash:
Any hound a porcupine nudges
Can’t be blamed for harboring grudges.
I know one hound that laughed all winter
At a porcupine that sat on a splinter.
The serious side of this is that the government specifically wished to allow one group to discriminate in a particular way, while not allowing other groups to discriminate in a different way. In other words, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
In October 2008, the Libertarian Party sent copies of Orwell’s 1984 to MPs with an insert which said “This book, contrary to what your leader might think, is NOT an instruction manual, but a warning.” Well, it seems that maybe some politicians think that it is actually Orwell’s Animal Farm that is the instruction manual.
There has been a predictable amount of annoyance at the court’s ruling. The National Secular Society have shown themselves to be a radically unlibertarian organisation – in much the same way that the British Humanist Association did a couple of months ago. Surely there must be some organisation to represent secularist libertarians? Or is secularist libertarianism as much a contradiction in terms as theocratic libertarianism?
Edit: The Telegraph’s article portrayed the reaction in terms of Christians vs. Secularists – e.g. “Secular campaigners condemned the judge’s decision as “alarming” and “a major setback” for gay rights.” I think this is somewhat simplistic. I was glad to see Nikhil Arora, an atheist who disagrees with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, welcoming the ruling over at the Adam Smith Institute blog.
Tags: Law Moral Ethical, News, Politics
March 19th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Thanks for the summary and analysis.
I was initially surprised and saddened by the verdict, feeling it was rather perverse. I realize now that the law was originally drafted to allow discrimination to continue for some favoured organizations and the judgement was perfectly in line with a flawed law.
March 19th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I’m with Nikhil Arora on this one, and I’m glad the Catholic Adoption Agency won their case, even though I’m not a fan of Catholicism. I don’t believe the Equality act was designed for this eventuality. I think this is a clear case of a common sense victory for the greater good.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
So… the charity is forced by the Catholic Church to treat people differently according to their sexuality. Presumably if it were not for the strings attached to their funding, they would open their doors to all. At least that’s the implication. I think that’s appalling. However, that’s up to them.
What’s not up to them, though, is that when the State funds services, it cannot do so in such a way that certain citizens are deliberately excluded from those services for non-relevant reasons.
This has never been about religious freedom. This is about whether religious organisations, freely acting in accordance with their beliefs, should be able to claim public money. I don’t they think they should, if what they do in pursuit of their beliefs is to discriminate.
If they don’t want to have to act in a civilised manner, they shouldn’t go chasing State hand-outs. Simple as that.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Hi Dan, totally agree. I’m an advocate of religious organisations paying from their own purse, even if providing a public service.
I laid out my views here in relation to religious funding of police groups.
http://blog.echurchwebsites.org.uk/2010/03/13/national-association-muslim-police-namp-received-90000-grant-aid-years-christian-police-association-cpa-received-15000-years/
March 19th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Dan, From a purist persective you have a point, but isn’t it preferable to take a more pragmatic view?
Catholic Care is just one of the organisations involved. There are others who will cater for those potential carers not included by this organisation, so their stance is not removing the option for non-traditional parents to adopt. Would you prefer that Catholic Care closes down and in so doing reduces the available options available?
And I may be wrong, but surely the public money to which you refer with regard to Catholic Care is earmarked to help them to do this work, and not to finance the broader Catholic Church
March 19th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Ah. I’ve chnaged my mind. Awkward doing a U-turn, but just read webmaster’s reference above. I think missed the point. State funding of religious organisations does not really make sense.
So, Dan, I think I do agree with you after all.