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Children should go to same-sex couple despite birth parents' wishes, says top family judge

Published: May 30th, 2014
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Britain's most senior family judge, Sir James Munby, has ruled against a Slovakian Catholic couple seeking to stop two of their children being adopted by a same-sex couple. 

The parents, who cried openly in Court when they heard the ruling, had accused Kent County Council of a "conscious deliberate effort... to transform our children from Slovak Roma children to English middle-class children" and argued that if the adoption went ahead it would cause their children psychological harm in the future. 
"The children will not be able to be brought up in the Catholic faith because of the conflicts between Catholicism and homosexuality. They would not be able to maintain their Catholic faith if they are adopted by this couple and even if it  was promised that they would attend church the children would at some stage be taught or learn of the attitude of the church to same sex couples. This would undoubtedly be upsetting to them and cause them to be in conflict between their religion and home life", they argued.

"If as expected our children will try to find us and their siblings and roots, then they will discover huge differences between our culture and the way they've been brought up. This is likely to cause them great upset and to suffer a conflict within themselves such as to set them against their adoptive parents", they continued.

However, Sir James Munby refused their application to block the adoption.

Profound concerns

Andrea Williams commented:

"We do not know all the details as to why adoption was deemed necessary but leaving that aside, this case raises profound concerns. Why is it not possible to accommodate the beliefs of the natural parents and act in the best interests of the children? Why are these beliefs about marriage, which the government claims are protected, being trampled on? It is causing great present distress to the parents and as they have outlined is likely to cause great distress to the children in the future. Why not seek adoptive parents who share the beliefs of these parents?"

Last month, Sir James outlined proposals for the reform of divorce law that would in practice lead to further dismantling of marriage. 

In 2011, Sir James was one of the judges who refused a call to declare that Christian couple Owen and Eunice Johns were suitable foster parents. Mr and Mrs Johns had responded to questions from social workers indicating that they would love any child in their care but would not be prepared to promote homosexuality.

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