London, UK - A Roman Catholic child-adoption society has won a landmark High Court battle that could allow it and other Catholic agencies to discriminate legally against gay couples.
Catholic Care, which serves the dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough, and Hallam, South Yorkshire, launched the legal action in an attempt to continue its work finding homes for children.
Catholic Care, which provided adoption services only to married couples in keeping with current Catholic doctrine, was seeking an exemption from the Sexual Orientation Regulations. The 2007 regulations made it unlawful to discriminate on the ground of sexual orientation in the provision of goods or services to the public.
The Government previously rejected appeals for an exemption for Catholic agencies but ministers gave them a 20-month transition period, which ended last year. Other Catholic agencies have already given up adoption or cut their ties with the Church.
Catholic Care argued at the High Court that it had achieved particular success in finding adoptive parents for “hard to place” children. The support after adoption, funded by giving from within the Church, also meant that its adoptions had a lower failure rate.
Mr Justice Briggs, sitting in London, allowed the charity’s appeal and ordered the Charity Commission, which made the original decision against Catholic Care, to reconsider. The Charity Commission was ordered by the judge to pay the legal costs of Catholic Care, which is linked to the Roman Catholic diocese of Leeds, unofficially estimated at more than £100,000.
Arthur Roche, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds, welcomed the ruling. He said: “We look forward to producing evidence to the Charity Commission to support the position that we have consistently taken through this process that without being able to use this exemption children without families would be seriously disadvantaged.
“Catholic Care has been providing specialist adoption services for over 100 years. We have helped hundreds of children . . . as well as offering ongoing and post-adoption support to families.”
Jonathan Finney, head of external affairs at Stonewall, the gay rights charity, said: “It is clearly in the best interests of children in care to encourage as wide a pool of potential adopters as possible. All religious adoption agencies receive funding or subsidy in some form from the public purse. There should be no question of discriminatory behaviour by any organisation that benefits from the taxpayer.”
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “It is unfortunate that the court has enabled Catholic Care to exploit what was obviously an error in the drafting of the equality legislation. The loophole this created was never intended to be used this way.”
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement also condemned the decision. The Rev Sharon Ferguson said: “We do not doubt that Catholic Care has done good work in the past but it should only continue to do so within the current legal framework. It makes no sense and is entirely unjust to allow exemptions of this nature. Would Mr Justice Briggs have reached the same decision if Catholic Care had asked to be allowed to discriminate against couples on the grounds of their race or physical ability?”