Your fears are unfounded. LGBT people acting as adopted parents is now a reality in the UK. It hasn’t hurt adoption services.

We agree on the objective. We disagree on how to get there as I said. We probably also don’t agree on it being the grand solution I would use to give children access to the broadest set of potential parents either.

“Take a child in a Catholic Orphanage, if we allow this orphanage to continue a policy of rejecting LGBT parents, then you are depriving the children in that orphanage access to widest set of potential parents.”

I hear what you are saying. And I agree, they will not have access to the widest set of potential parents within that agency, but just the children being in any agency, regardless of it’s policies, does this as well. Sometimes it’s just a matter of location.

My belief is that smart anti-stagnation laws (Which I would define as laws that prevent children from sitting in one agency for too long.) Would do so much more for these children if we’re seriously talking about giving children access to the widest set of potential parents and would instantaneously cure the need to interfere with organizations that don’t take your view.

And when you put in to effect laws that are going to ultimately going to cause some agencies to close and argue that you can “replace them with the new non-discriminatory [I was] talking about setting up.” You’re basically at this point reducing the amount of resources that would be available to these children. If you start with 1000 agencies. Put in to effect laws that cause, let’s just say, 100 to close (as well as prevent potential religion-based organizations from popping up). You’re wasting resources to replace them when you could have 1100 agencies available each one with people working towards finding children a home. Which is a far better thing. It helps to reduce the amount of children within each agency and simply puts more resources behind each child.

“If this was just about gay-rights, then we would only need to do what you suggest and create more non-discriminatory agencies as this would fulfil the goal of giving LGBT couple access to children they can adopt, however, it does not give all children access to all potential adoptive parents.

So do you see its your proposal that puts gay rights over children’s rights?”

Absolutely not. Creating more agencies benefits everyone as I said above. So PLEASE don’t try to turn that one around and say that i’m putting gay rights above children’s rights. It’s simply not true. The only thing i’ve done is consider other people’s liberties and beliefs in conjunction with implementing policies I feel would benefit the orphan population.

My solution to problems in the adoption system is as follows:

If we want to improve the adoption system states (which do not have the right to discriminate against anyone based on race, religion, sex, gender, orientation…etc) should create more adoption agencies and introduce anti-stagnation laws which would put limits on how long a child could reside in a given agency giving them a much better chance of being in an agency that benefits from location or successful policies and has higher overall adoption rate.

My plan increases the overall resources available to the population of adoptive children and doesn’t interfere with the practices of current agencies.

Yours is:

If we want to improve the adoption system, we should put in place policies that would allow gay people to adopt in any agency they choose to adopt at.

This will cause agencies to close and will be the reason that some new agencies never form. (And i’m sure that there are cons to my plan as well. It’s not perfect but it does a lot to improve the system and doesn’t infringe on anyone’s rights or cause anyone to make, what they feel, is a moral decision.) And statistically it doesn’t make sense. There could not be enough gay people lining up to adopt children that would justify your plan. And under my plan it wouldn’t matter. Gay people would be able to adopt from many agencies that were not create FOR THEM, but created to provide more resources to adoptive parents and children. Your taking potential agencies out of the game with your plan. So I think I am correct in saying that you are putting gay rights above what is beneficial for the children.

And I don’t recall saying that agencies were “forced” to close (although I may have.) But it’s besides the point. The main point is that they will.

What are advocating is however counter productive to the objective we agree on of giving children access to the broadest set of potential parents.

Take a child in a Catholic Orphanage, if we allow this orphanage to continue a policy of rejecting LGBT parents, then you are depriving the children in that orphanage access to widest set of potential parents.

If this was just about gay-rights, then we would only need to do what you suggest and create more non-discriminatory agencies as this would fulfil the goal of giving LGBT couple access to children they can adopt, however, it does not give all children access to all potential adoptive parents.

So do you see its your proposal that puts gay rights over children’s rights?

Will some adoption agencies be forced to close? No. Some may choose to close out of their own bigotry conscience, but should this happen, well we can always replace them with the new non-discriminatory you were talking about setting up. Its not as if the children will disappear.

I understand that you want to give children the broadest set of potential parents. I’m all for that…

The point is though that if you are going to do this you might as well create more agencies that are without bias as opposed to trying to make all existing ones conform. Because when you try to do this you only end up forcing agencies that otherwise would be there to close.

I don’t disagree with you on the objective I just disagree with you on how to get there.

I don’t understand why one would involve the state in this when they could just CREATE MORE AGENCIES.

I am absolutely one hundred percent am for the acceptance of homosexuality in society, but I completely understand where Marston was coming from.

This is supposed to be about the children and instead people are turning this into a war for gay rights which hurts THE CHILDREN because it closes down religious institutions that would have been there to help them. And there will be far less new agencies popping up because future religious institutions that do not believe in gay adoption will not bother to create new agencies.

Plain and simple forcing others to conform to your own views creates the very problem that you seem to be against which is CHILDREN NOT HAVING ENOUGH adoptors. Less agencies means that there are less resources to help the children. If this is truly FOR THE CHILDREN then people, at the very least, should have been forcing the state to create incentives for new adoption agencies that made adoption available to all to be created. THUS CREATING MORE AGENCIES THAN THERE WOULD BE. The more agencies there are the better it is for the children regardless of their policies.

Now do I personally agree with religious institutions policies? Yes. Do I personally believe they are bigoted? Yes. Do I even like religion? Not really (although I do have an interest in some.)

However, the state can not force tolerance for gays. Tolerance can only arise organically. And when you force the state to impose itself on others whom you disagree with, you open up a can of worms you may wish you had left closed later.

To me, this seems to be a clear case of gay issues over children’s issues which means the children lose out.

That said a lot of the historical fear about communism was probably regarding what happened to the previous holders of power, much as with the French revolution. Communism in and of itself doesn’t scare me, it is what people do with it that scares me. This is a disparity in my emotions I oddly first found in the Discworld novels, where Ankh Morpork is ruled by a dictator who wields absolute power but who wields it benevolently… at least for the city as a whole, rather than individuals. He is compared to the previous encumbants a “good ruler” however he is still a dictator and capable of being quite Machiovellian. It is easy to confuse the system of running a nation with the people most strongly associated with that system sadly, along with tendencies within certain kinds of persons that lead them to specific systems rather than the system directly causing a person to run a nation in a given way.

Communism by necessity becomes controlling and oppressive. It also is sunk by its own ego, believing itself to be the best political ideology and therefore the only one that should be allowed to exist.

It is also worth noting that “true” communism has never been implemented, and it is very dubious whether the system would be workable at all. In reality Communism actually became a back door for dictatorships who used the “communist” ideology as nothing more than a public relations tool. The idea of Communism is to have power and wealth spread equally among the people, in which real world “Communist” state do people actually share wealth and power in this way? Thus any state which uses opression is not truly Communist.

I’m not saying Communism is a good thing, I feel it’s probably unworkable, but it is used too often as a panic response by right-wingnuts. A lot of people still seem scared of Communism for some reason.

No-one has attacked Marston with “Marxist Philosophies”, mindless or otherwise.

In fact the only time Marxism has been brought up by anyone in this discussion was to use it as an example of where political beliefs can be responsible for great evils.

So go on, be angry with the world, scream and shout at the wrong people if you like, but don’t kid yourself that you are talking sense.

Well it seems like you’re not talking sense and that’s the reason Marston is not agreeing with you. I think he has a very interesting and sound way of presenting you with the same “sense” that you on the other hand, won’t even consider.

I wonder who is the closed minded one here.

I won’t be commenting on this thread any more, so don’t worry. But Marston deserves to speak his mind without being attacked with mindless “Marxist philosophies”.

They are after all the reason South Africa is in such a mess. Where are they now with their philosophies? They don’t seem to condemn the slaughtering of helpless people (in fact they support it, as long as their back pockets are filled).

The Marxists promises and preaches peace etc etc etc, but doesn’t act on it. Wouldn’t that also label them as bigots? In this regard, they are merely deceiving people in believing that their way would be best. So in actual fact, you loose your individuality and you don’t know where you belong. And this is exactly what they incorporate in their “political correct” and bias ways.

Marxists = Communists

I spit on them!

It is fine in my opinion for people to debate these matters all they like, it is fine for Christian adoption agencies to say they believe in traditional male-female married couples as the best option for parents. Unless or until there are solid, practical reasons to deny adoption to same sex couples though they should treat them the same “on the ground” as any other couple.

There are gay and lesbian Christians. I don’t believe all Christians are so narrow minded on matters of sexuality. Even if they were they’re free to live their own life how they wish. They should not however be allowed to impose their own moral standards on services performed on behalf of the nation without said standards being generally agreed upon by the nation itself. If parliament decided gay couples and adoption wasn’t acceptable that is one thing, it has followed due process, but to allow organisations to do so because a 2,000 year old book tells them to is just plain wrong in my opinion.

So in short, they can campaign all they like but if they want to refuse a service to people because of their unilateral moral stance that is what I truly find unacceptable.

You know I often write in a fluid conversational style, but in this case I think my meaning was pretty clear.

The object (in the sense of a grammatical object) of my sentence was the evidence (“good reason”), this dictates how the comment should be read.

You’ve resorted to petty insults, twice now Marston. Please reign yourself in.

But ironically almost every time a Political Belief has been used to justify an atrocity it shares something in common with religious beliefs. Namely it has no grounding in reality and no evidence to support its necessity.

Bad politics, like religion is based on beliefs and ideology rather than facts and evidence.

And rolling back up the thread I know you are trying to corner me by getting me to admit that my statement about gays making equally good parents is a belief because I said…

Until you have a good reason to deny adoption services to gay couples and frankly I don’t believe there is one, the liberal approach is to allow it.

You tried to take my use of the word “believe” to imply this was a belief. When in actually fact when I used this word I was saying I was unaware of any evidence or studies to the contrary. And I was in fact challenging you to present one.

So don’t go there eh?

I’m not sure I accept the role of Christians in either the anti-slavery or anti-apartheid movement as been defining of the expression of Christian belief or conscience. I’d remind you there were arguments made in favour of slavery and apartheid from Christians of various denominations.

The leader of the anti-apartheid movement in the UK was Peter Hain (now secretary of state for Wales) and he was and remains a very secular politician.

And I’m not scaremongering by suggesting that those with religious convictions might want to kill non-believers. Look at Islamic States, apostasy is capital offence under Sharia law, as is homosexuality, adultery and countless other moral “crimes”.

Christianity maintains similar punishments in the bible, its just that practising Christians have thankfully been secularised enough to resist them. Though they don’t have the balls to write them out of the bible… I wonder why?

But this wasn’t my point. My point was that a religious conviction or belief can be used to justify just about anything. Therefore its a dangerous right to defend absolutely.

And matters of conscience are not irrelevant to the public sphere: various causes have been largely or partly motivated by Christians who have been moved to act on their conscientious belief, such as the abolition of slavery, or the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. Are you really saying that Christians should have been banned from acting in public on those convictions?

And your scare-mongering that those with religious convictions might want to kill non-believers etc is pure fantasy on a level with those who say that all gays are a threat to children. It seems to be one of the mysteries of human nature that people are incapable of meeting those with different convictions from their own without attributing the worst of motives to them.

Matter’s of conscience are irrelevant, they are not the test for what should be in or out of the public sphere.

No-one is saying you cannot think or believe a certain way. What I am saying is you should not always be able act in accordance with your beliefs.

There are people out there who believe sex between adults and young children should be legalised (and I’m referring to NAMBLA, not the Catholic Clergy :p).

They are free to believe that for all I care, but they are not free to ACT upon their beliefs.

In the case Catholic Adoption agencies they are seeking a license to discriminate in accordance to their faith.

What if their religious convictions told them they had to refuse to serve blacks? Would you stop them then? What if their religious convictions told them they had to dress their wives head-to-toe in linen garbs? And that women weren’t allowed to associate with men who weren’t their husbands in public. Would you stop them then? What if their religious convictions told them they had to kill all non-believers, would you stop then them?

The problem is you can use a religious conviction to justify just about any form of discrimination, this is why I reject it.

As for your claim about a lack of “credible evidence”, the real issue is this: there is a range of belief about a matters connected with sexuality and family life. Whilst a range of evidence can be produced to support those positions, there is no conclusive proof one way or another as to whether children flourish best in particular circumstances. That is why it is wrong to close down debate on these matters by enforcing one particular view with the force of law. And don’t forget that once upon a time, medical evidence claimed to be able to prove that homosexuality was a disease: you can end up with some very strange conclusions if you invest too much trust in supposedly objective scientific evidence.

But what is particularly bizarre about this debate is that whilst Catholic adoption agencies are asking only for the right to conduct their own affairs in accord with their own consciences, those opposed to them are seeking to enforce their view on all adoption agencies through the force of law. In that situation, who are the real bigots?