Exactly what then has Catholic Charities based it's policy to deny adoption services to lesbian and gay parents? As there is no evidence to show that having lesbian and gay parents would harm a child, the denial of state-contracted adoption services to lesbian and gay prospective parents is based solely on the moral agenda and politics of the Catholic Church.
Catholic Charities isn't the state. Theological and moral reasons are sufficient for its decisions about what it will and won't do, even simple private opinion is. The same cannot be said for the state.
You seem to be neglecting the fact that while Catholic Charities is a private organization, the adoption services it offered were contracted by the state. The state has a duty to ensure that services it contracts out are offered in an non-discriminatory manner.
And thus CC did the ideologically honest thing and withdrew.
Which is a seperate issue from whether or not the state is right in its stance. Suitibility criteria are, in a way, fundamentally discriminatory. They exclude all kinds of people. However, the state has revised its criteria of suitable households not one dependable scientific studies or empirical data, but on political non-discriminatory principles.
Many things that are within our rights would make our households unsuitable for the raising of children. Anti-discrimination laws only go as far as the discrimination is not based on ability. (For example, anti-discrimination laws would not prevent a transit authority from refusing to hire a blind man as a bus driver.) Homosexual parents may or may not qualify, but the state has decided one way in the absence of scientific evidence.
It is not hard to find direct evidence that a blind man cannot safely and effectively operate a bus. However, neither you nor the Catholic Church can offer any evidence that having gay and lesbian parents is detrimental to having children. All that is offered is assumptions, and exclusionary policies based on unfair assumptions and stereotypes are exactly what anti-discrimination laws were designed to guard against.
My point is that the proof that placing children with homosexual parents is not detrimental that the state has used to justify its decision has been shown to be flawed. The state felt that their decision needed to be justified with research, and thus made its decision contingent on research supporting its course of action. If the research isn't as solid as it was purported to be, and the state has already operated on the presumption that solid research justified the decision, then the decision needs to be revisted.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 06:05 am (UTC)Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 08:29 pm (UTC)Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 09:04 pm (UTC)Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 09:23 pm (UTC)Which is a seperate issue from whether or not the state is right in its stance. Suitibility criteria are, in a way, fundamentally discriminatory. They exclude all kinds of people. However, the state has revised its criteria of suitable households not one dependable scientific studies or empirical data, but on political non-discriminatory principles.
Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 09:27 pm (UTC)Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 09:48 pm (UTC)Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-12 10:34 pm (UTC)Re: In Your Defensiveness, You're Becoming a Proponent of OBVIOUSLY "Un-Christian" Cruelty!
Date: 2006-03-13 12:23 am (UTC)