Great Britain is doing the same thing to Catholics there that Boston did to Catholics here: get them out of the adoption business.
Catholic officials told reporters today that the government was engaging in Orwellian strong-arm tactics against the religious freedoms of Christians in attempting to force Catholic adoption agencies to adopt children to homosexual couples.
The comments came in response to yesterday’s announcement by Prime Minister Tony Blair that British Catholic adoption agencies could not expect an exemption from a new law prohibiting “discrimination” in the provision of goods and services.
“Some legislation, however well intended, in fact does create a new kind of morality, a new kind of norm - as this does,” Cormac Cardinal Murphy O’Connor told BBC Radio 4's Today program.
The forcing of Catholic services to adopt children to homosexual couples can only be aimed at silencing Christians in this area, since homosexual couples can adopt through secular agencies, says Anthony Esolen, editor of Touchstone Christian magazine.
(T)he purpose of legislative tactics to force churches to act against their conscience were specifically and only attacks on the freedoms of Christians.
At the time of the closing of Boston’s Catholic adoption agency last year by a similar legislative move, Esolen pointed out that homosexuals can legally adopt children from secular agencies and could not possibly benefit from the strong-arming of Boston’s Catholic adoption agency.
Esolen wrote, “The conclusion seems inescapable: the Church was given the ultimatum not so that homosexuals would benefit, but so that the Church would be hurt, either by a capitulation that would signal its subservience and irrelevance evermore, or by a curtailment of the freedom of Catholics to practice their faith in the public square.”
This was echoed by Bishop Nichols who said last week, “Catholic adoption agencies do not obstruct adoption by same sex couples.”
“Any such request made to Catholic agencies are referred to other agencies that are able to respond. Granting an exemption to Catholic agencies will not alter the legal rights of same sex couples seeking to adopt children,” Nichols added.
In my opinion, the purpose of these laws is to force Christians to accept and treat homosexual behavior the same as heterosexual behavior, whether this agrees with their religious beliefs or not. It seems that all the talk about accepting everyone's views doesn't really count when you are talking about Christian views.
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