Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, has called for a concerted campaign led by the churches to offer Christian homes to the 6000+ children seeking adoption in the UK every year.
“6,000 children is not a big number. Churches up and down the land should be able to solve this problem by the end of the year if they put their minds to it.
"We have more than 12-million married couples in households across the UK , many of whom have experience of raising children and who can offer homes to the youngsters needing adoption. This is a challenge we can meet and the church is uniquely placed to achieve it. The reality is that each child waiting for a permanent home has a statistical chance of finding a mum and dad from 2,000 families.
“Our churches are a vast social network and the British Association of Adoption needs to partner with church organisations and campaign directly to congregations which can offer loving homes to needy children.”
Andrea was speaking in the light of a survey marking Fostering and Adoption Week, promoted by an LGBT charity, which found many homosexual people believed their lifestyle barred them from adopting children.
She was invited to comment on the survey’s finding by eight BBC radio stations and took the opportunity to appeal for a church-led adoption campaign. .
The inalienable right of a child to a mum and dad
In a series of eight BBC radio interviews with county-wide news services from Somerset to Cumbria, Andrea Williams emphasised that the interests of the child should always be put before the personal desire of adults to raise a child.
She was commenting on the result of a survey on adopting conducted by an LGBT charity among a small sample of 400 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people. The finding was that many LGBT people believed their sexuality barred them from adoption and fostering.
She emphasised that “the ideal upbringing for a child is in a home with a mum and dad. All the evidence points to this fact.”
Consequences for choosing same-sex relationships
Andrea argued that parents of the opposite sex brought complementary dimensions to family life and said “no child should be deliberately deprived of a mother and a father. By definition, same-sex ‘parenting’ would deny them the relationship of one or other parent.”
She told her audiences there were consequences for choosing to live in a same-sex relationship, the major outcome being that such couples could not have a child who was the biological offspring of both.
“Same-sex couples who turn to adoption to create a family they cannot have naturally, are putting the interests of adults above the child who has an inalienable right to a mother and father.
“In marital law in most countries the rights and interests of the child are paramount. Also, the most comprehensive and reliable peer-reviewed studies carried out in 2012 and 2013 – mainly the Regnerra and Douglas Allen studies – show negative results of children raised by same-sex parents.”
Listen to Andrea’s interviews on: