The Catholic Gay Adoption Agency

[Saracen]

I was a JW for 13 years. Oh how I hated door-to-door. It's a forced religion for the children of the family anyway.

Burn them I say.

/Saracen note to self ...... open mouth, insert foot, ram in clean up to knee

Perhaps I ought to stress that my contempt is not for JWs as such .... but for the the practice of pestering people that don't want to be pestered, and especially the ones that keep banging on my door, and continue to push when told politely I'm not interested. That is when I get .... erm .... less polite.

I'm not surprised you hated it, Kezzer. I rather suspect there aren't that many welcoming looks, once people realise who's there. Or am I wrong in that?

[Kezzer]

Most people hate JW's. I hate JW's. We all hate JW's.

Nah I'm lying really. I know *some* JW's who are ace, and really have their own opinions. Otherwise their congregation is just mind boggling. They don't have their own opinions most of the time whereas a lot of Christian churches think it's good for each individual to have their own opinion on certain scriptures. For example, people wonder why a Christian would be a veggie (like myself), but it says in Proverbs 12:10 "The good care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel". If you get farmed meat you know that the animal would've been mistreated throughout its life thus you shouldn't eat that meat whereas freerange meat is okay.

But yeh, the whole door to door thing is a horrible evangelic concept which JW's have been doing since their existence. They're quite a new religion to the scene anyway but seem to have taken over by storm with more unorthodox views and approaches. For example, they believed the world was going to end in 1986 I believe so most people never bought houses or had children, then that came and went so they said 2000, that never happened either. It goes on and on, but most of the religion seems to have started to fall to pieces ever since their predictions fell through.

My mother was a JW, but she was always intent on leaving the religion, it finally happened when they knocked on our door and told my parents that the children were a bad influence and that they should throw them out of the house right now. My parents refused, we left, done deal. I became a borderline atheist studying religion from when i was about 14 up until last month then decided that logically (for me) that Christianity should be a big part of my life. That was after the coma (which was two months ago) and before my most recent diagnosis of a possible brain tumour. The fact that I'm sticking with my religion makes me certain that I'm making it a definite part of my life.

That was a very cut down version though

To sum it all up, bleh, religious talk, bleh.

[ajbrun]

Absolutely core to my personal philosophy is not shoving my beliefs on others. In a context like a forum, I'll debate and discuss most things, and perhaps try to convince people of the logic of my stance (and perhaps be convinced by them). That is, after all, what a debating forum is about. But other than that, I believe in live and let live, and in not doing things that inconvenience others, and I expect the same courtesy in return.

This is kind of in reference to what Kezzer said earlier. I don't actually remember any atheists on this forum (or anywhere for that matter) trying to impose their beliefs on theists. I generally only see a discussion about why people believe what they do. For example, whilst I don't think I'll ever believe 100% in the existence of god, I would like to understand what brings others to be so sure of the existence of a higher being.

[JPreston]

...on the basis that gay adoptees are referred, and perhaps adopting nicho's suggestion of transferring lists of kids too, then gay couples wouldn't be disadvantaged...

Then arguably Rosa Parks was even less disadvantaged; because she was just being 'transferred' to the back of the same bus - blimey what was her problem? Political Correctness gone mad, I tell you....

...But with adoption, as I say, it's about the kids. Their interests just seem to have been sacrificed to the Gods of political equality. If the best interests of the kids have been sacrificed on the altar of the rights of gay couples to adopt, then I guess you're right....

EXACTLY but in the situation where the best couple seeking to adopt are gay, the catholics are saying that they need to place the child with a less-suited couple or leave the child in care. That is absolutely against the child's interests. Such people should not operate adoption agencies at all, let alone take public funding to do so.

A proper agency would not be obligated in any way to place children with gay couples - they would place the child in the best home in all cases. It's not as though anyone is suggesting agencies should 'positively discriminate' in favour of gays. They would not eliminate any prospective parents because of their dogma, and so are capable of acting in the child's best interests 100% of the time. The child's welfare is the only consideration to a secular agency.

Adoption by gays is not some new PC law; a gay individual has been allowed to adopt for years, and many have done so. The only difference is that with the new legislation in the event of death of one 'parent', custody of child would pass to the other as it does for other parents, adopted or not. This is surely better for the child, rather than being sent back to the catholic institution.

I can't find a link (I heard it on local BBC radio) but a local doctor is campaigning for the right to refuse to certify gay individuals or couples as being suitable candidates for adoption (I presume you need a doctors' note to say that you are not mental or terminally ill etc). He wants this on the grounds that he is a christian and opposed to adoption by gays. His argument is that they can go and find another doctor.

So now we have an NHS doctor saying he wants to be able to refuse to see gay patients. How can these 'exemptions' ever be a good thing?

[JPreston]

Most people hate JW's. I hate JW's. We all hate JW's...

I don't hate anyone

I'm not even rude to them, as soon as I twig what they are I say "Sorry not interested" and close the door. I don't feel either inconvenienced or obligated to speak to them. The mother in law is a devout catholic (we get on great ) and she hears them out to be polite and says in the end "I'm sorry, I already have a religion" ( ) as though they are selling double glazing or something.

That 1986 thing rings a bell. There was a jehovahs witness girl in my class, and IIRC her parents took her out of school because they believed the world was just about to end. I can't remember what happened, whether she started back a few weeks later or what. It's one of those things that you sort of accept when you are a child, unable to appreciate the screamingly insane WTF-ery of it

I know about mormons from the south park episode 'All About Mormons', but haven't a clue what jehovahs witnesses believe, or where (or when) the group originated. What I really don't understand though, is how you can go from believing one wacky religion to rejecting it altogether, and later deciding to follow a more mainstream (but IMO no less wacky) one? Did you consider yourself to be in the market for a new religion, or would you say you would have become a christian at that point even if you were happy in another denomination (I guess the latter)?

...They don't have their own opinions most of the time whereas a lot of Christian churches think it's good for each individual to have their own opinion on certain scriptures. For example, people wonder why a Christian would be a veggie (like myself), but it says in Proverbs 12:10 "The good care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel". ...

OK, but the bible also says:

Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending upon him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils ... commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.

That's pretty unequivocal, as a christian you really should not be a vegetarian. As an athiest I am not only free to eat what I want but can appreciate the full WTF-ery of thinking there is any point in living by the 'teachings' of an arbitrarily chosen mis-translated bronze age document.

I'm also free to disregard the bible and argue (and maybe you agree) that morally we should all be vegetarians, because rearing animals for consumption uses vast amounts of the earth's resources that could otherwise be used to feed the millions of starving people. But someone like fuddam could absolutely not agree with me there, even though it results in him taking a less moral position, because he has to follow his (flawed) dogma. And that's why morally you are better off being an athiest...

[Saracen]

...

EXACTLY but in the situation where the best couple seeking to adopt are gay, the catholics are saying that they need to place the child with a less-suited couple or leave the child in care. That is absolutely against the child's interests. Such people should not operate adoption agencies at all, let alone take public funding to do so.

A proper agency would not be obligated in any way to place children with gay couples - they would place the child in the best home in all cases. It's not as though anyone is suggesting agencies should 'positively discriminate' in favour of gays. They would not eliminate any prospective parents because of their dogma, and so are capable of acting in the child's best interests 100% of the time. The child's welfare is the only consideration to a secular agency.

I agree with you. The Catholic church, however, does not. They maintain (as best I understand it), that with the exception of special cases such as some abused kids, where a single perent may be a better solution, that it IS in the child's best interests not to be homed with a gay couple. They maintain that a loving male/female relationship is optimum. Perhaps they would also say that homing with a gay couple this month precludes placing that child with a more optimal non-gay couple next month? And therefore, such a homing is not in the child's best interests, even if it might be in their immediate short-term interest.

Anyway, can we PROVE they're wrong in that assertion? Because if not, what we're saying is that we support laws that deny them the right to evaluate propspective parents in the way their conscience and religious belief tells them, because we're so set in our own non-religious dogma that we feel our beliefs are better than theirs?

I'm sure the Catholics would agree that the child's welfare is their only interest. They just evaluate what that is according to different criteria and value judgements.

[what_katie_did]

Could you expand on that a bit, please? There may be a link, but just based on what you've said, I can't see the link between the circumstances you mentioned and homophobia.

certainly, all of the children I mentioned in my original post identified as gay or lesbian. They had been rejected by their families for this reason and this reason alone. Many had suffered physical and emotional abuse from there own families because of there sexual orientation.

The young woman I mentioned who was suicidal has fluctuated between mild depression and suicidal idealation for the duration of the 4 years I have know her (from her being 15 - 19). Her own explaination for her mental health problems stem from her family, she was brought up in early childhood in a strictly muslim family seeking asylum in Italy and was sent to a Catholic bording school. Already a confussing combination, combine that with being a lesbian and your in line for problems. Her own uncle put a knife to her throat and forced her to state that she wasn't really gay, otherwise he would kill her. I realise this is an extreme case but it illustrates the point.

My point is that fundementalist religious teachings do serious damage so do people have a 'right' to promote those views? individuals can, for me, hold whatever opinions they like as long as they do not act on prejudices which harm others, homophobia does SERIOUS HARM, and the catholic church perpetuates homophobia in society as a whole.

When you have adherents to a given faith, whichever one it may be, there's no hard line between the teachings of that faith and the personal beliefs of the followers. At the very least, a substantial part of personal belief is going to come from the teachings of the faith, so there's going ti be a very substantial overlap.

Agreed, but .......... the faith beliefs of my neigbour do not impact on me if he does not act on his prejudice, the public denouncment of same-sex relationships by a powerful institution does whether psychologically or by inciting my neighbour to act

So, as I understand it, Catholics believe homosexuality is wrong and that their faith precludes them from encouraging it, or placing children into the care of homosexual couples.

This is how i understand it too and I believe (and i am of course happy to be corrected if im wrong) that this stems from a passage in the bible stating something like 'it is an abomination for man to lie with man' - fair enough, but .... the bible also states it is a sin to wear fabric woven from two diferent types of cloth, does that mean that catholic agencies should be aloud do refuse to deal with prosepctive parents who show up wearing cotton/polyester blend? It is this picking and choosing of which passages should to be followed to the letter and which should be ignored which offends me, and yes, not only as a lesbian but as a human being I am genuinely offended by it.

But when a government acts to put people, not organisations or formal Church groups, but people, in the position of having to act against their own genuinely-held faith (however ridiculous some of us think it may be) in order to help the most deprived kids in our society

I see where your coming from with this but it is my opinion that these genuinly-held faith beliefs interfere with these individuals acting in the best interests of the child therefore make them unsuitable for the job. To me the solution is clear, if an organisation cannot carry out their job without prejudice then they should stop doing it, the state should take over and give the kids a fair chance of finding a suitable home, and if that means tax rises then so be it.

[Kezzer]

That's pretty unequivocal, as a christian you really should not be a vegetarian. As an athiest I am not only free to eat what I want but can appreciate the full WTF-ery of thinking there is any point in living by the 'teachings' of an arbitrarily chosen mis-translated bronze age document.

I'm also free to disregard the bible and argue (and maybe you agree) that morally we should all be vegetarians, because rearing animals for consumption uses vast amounts of the earth's resources that could otherwise be used to feed the millions of starving people. But someone like fuddam could absolutely not agree with me there, even though it results in him taking a less moral position, because he has to follow his (flawed) dogma. And that's why morally you are better off being an athiest...

But you've disregarded many other scriptures. The Bible also states that God does not care whether you eat meat or if you don't eat meat. If you refuse to eat meat that's fine, but if you do it meat, there's nothing wrong with that either. It states this in the new testament as well, thus isn't outdated by newer teachings. So you're actually wrong, the Bible does state it's okay to be a vegetarian. And I expect you to say "get me the scriptures" which I can do, but you'll just have to trust me on this one, I 100% know they're there as I read / studied them the other day. Although I do agree, my statement was in reference of proverbs being the OT as opposed to NT - but the NT references do state it's okay not to eat meat.

As for your other comments about JW's taking kids out of school. Yes they did, it happened to my mother. She hated it and always wanted education in her life. She's half-way through getting her degree in sociology at the moment.

[what_katie_did]

as a point of interest I'm taking part in a debate at The University of Sheffield tonight entitled 'This house would allow Catholic agencies to opt-out of facillitating gay adoptions'

Quite clearly I will be speaking against this motion but I'm hoping for an interesting debate and will let the forum know of the outcome.

[RedPutty]

Also since men earn more than women a household with two male earners will have more cash lying around.

If one of the men insists on only getting jobs where he can work the hours where the kid is at school then they might be more like your average household.

He would however have the advantage that he won't get 6months to a year off paid and so will be more in demand in the job market.

I am in favour of gay people adopting if they want to, there are some terrible hetero couples out there but you can't stop them having children.

I do worry more about religious people adopting but all parents indoctrinate their children whether that doctrine is written in a holy book or not.

[JPreston]

....
Anyway, can we PROVE they're wrong in that assertion? Because if not, what we're saying is that we support laws that deny them the right to evaluate propspective parents in the way their conscience and religious belief tells them, because we're so set in our own non-religious dogma that we feel our beliefs are better than theirs?
....

There is no evidence to suggest that gay people are worse adoptive parents. The catholics make that assertion only because of received dogma, so the burden of proof is with them. We are absolutely correct to deny them the 'right' to evaluate parents in the way their religious belief tells them in exactly the same way that we deny suicide bombers the 'right' to blow people up in the way their religion tells them. Religious belief does not confer legitimacy onto otherwise harmful acts. Thank god....

As a final point our (atheist) beliefs are absolutely better than theirs, because they result from observation and thought rather than childhood indoctrination. Atheism is not equivalent to religious dogma - it's the conclusion we come to afresh everytime we think about it, not something we sign up to for life and keep written down on the back of a picture of the pope to remind us. Anyway technically I'm agnostic, because if anyone produced something to convince me of the truth or value of any one religion I would sign up to it happily. How many of those following a 'wrong' religion would be able to say the same thing?

[JPreston]

But you've disregarded many other scriptures. The Bible also states that God does not care whether you eat meat or if you don't eat meat. If you refuse to eat meat that's fine, but if you do it meat, there's nothing wrong with that either. It states this in the new testament as well, thus isn't outdated by newer teachings. So you're actually wrong, the Bible does state it's okay to be a vegetarian. And I expect you to say "get me the scriptures" which I can do, but you'll just have to trust me on this one......

No that's OK I'll take your word for it, my point was to show that there is lots of nonsensical (and by your assertion, contradictory) dictates in the bible (and I'm sure every other religious text). So why try and live by any of them? They are all just mistranslated relics from a more primitive and brutal time, of some archaeological interest but should it be it.

[Kezzer]

No that's OK I'll take your word for it, my point was to show that there is lots of nonsensical (and by your assertion, contradictory) dictates in the bible (and I'm sure every other religious text). So why try and live by any of them? They are all just mistranslated relics from a more primitive and brutal time, of some archaeological interest but should it be it.

The statements you made weren't contradictory, they're misinterpreted. Put them all together, it's wrong to eat meat that's been mistreated. Back then it was rare for animals to be mistreated because each farmer had their own personal herd. Then its saying if you don't do so then it's wrong really because that's the provision from God. Put it all together and it actually makes sense.

Find another contradiction please

[Saracen]

There is no evidence to suggest that gay people are worse adoptive parents. The catholics make that assertion only because of received dogma, so the burden of proof is with them. We are absolutely correct to deny them the 'right' to evaluate parents in the way their religious belief tells them in exactly the same way that we deny suicide bombers the 'right' to blow people up in the way their religion tells them. Religious belief does not confer legitimacy onto otherwise harmful acts. Thank god....

As a final point our (atheist) beliefs are absolutely better than theirs, because they result from observation and thought rather than childhood indoctrination. Atheism is not equivalent to religious dogma - it's the conclusion we come to afresh everytime we think about it, not something we sign up to for life and keep written down on the back of a picture of the pope to remind us. Anyway technically I'm agnostic, because if anyone produced something to convince me of the truth or value of any one religion I would sign up to it happily. How many of those following a 'wrong' religion would be able to say the same thing?

So what that boils down to is that your belief is right because they haven't proved it wrong, but their belief is wrong, because you don't need to prove it right?

If you could prove that the Catholics were wrong, that their God doesn't exist and that their "beliefs" are wrong, OR that it was not in the best interests of the child to act as they do, then I'd go along with you ..... because I agree with you about Catholics.

But what you're advocating is banning them from acting in what they regard as the best interests of the child because you believe they're wrong in their criteria. That's just swapping one set of dogma for another.

If you want to ban someone from doing something, you ought to be able to demonstate, unequivocably, that it harms someone else, instead of just saying the burden of proof is on them because they act on the word of God when you can't even prove they aren't doing exactly that.

And the suicide bomber thing is a ridiculous and emotive argument in this context, because it's blindingly obvious who is harmed by that. So please don't play that card. It has no place in a sensible debate about adoption, which is what I thought we were having.

[Kezzer]

So what that boils down to is that your belief is right because they haven't proved it wrong, but their belief is wrong, because you don't need to prove it right?

If you could prove that the Catholics were wrong, that their God doesn't exist and that their "beliefs" are wrong, OR that it was not in the best interests of the child to act as they do, then I'd go along with you ..... because I agree with you about Catholics.

But what you're advocating is banning them from acting in what they regard as the best interests of the child because you believe they're wrong in their criteria. That's just swapping one set of dogma for another.

If you want to ban someone from doing something, you ought to be able to demonstate, unequivocably, that it harms someone else, instead of just saying the burden of proof is on them because they act on the word of God when you can't even prove they aren't doing exactly that.

And the suicide bomber thing is a ridiculous and emotive argument in this context, because it's blindingly obvious who is harmed by that. So please don't play that card. It has no place in a sensible debate about adoption, which is what I thought we were having.

Wise words brother.

[JPreston]

So what that boils down to is that your belief is right because they haven't proved it wrong, but their belief is wrong, because you don't need to prove it right?
....

no my belief is 'right' because I will believe whatever can be proven, and if nothing can be proven then I will believe that. Their belief is wrong because they believe whatever it is they were told as children.

..And the suicide bomber thing is a ridiculous and emotive argument in this context, because it's blindingly obvious who is harmed by that. So please don't play that card. It has no place in a sensible debate about adoption, which is what I thought we were having.

Then draw for me the line up to which it is OK to allow the religious to victimise others for no better reason than they believe they have the right or duty to do so.