The Charities Commission has ruled that Leeds based Catholic Care, which has provided adoption services for over 100 years, may not change its constitution to continue to allow it to place children only with heterosexual couples. It also ruled that homosexuals are suitable parents and religious views do not justify “discrimination”.
Catholic Care has been helping to find places for adoptees since the 1880s in accordance with the teaching of the Catholic Church that children are best served by placement with a family that has a mother and a father. They have specialized in finding placements for children considered “difficult” to place. However, in 2007 the Equality Act brought in the Sexual Orientations Regulations which required adoption agencies to accept homosexual couples as adoptive parents.
Catholic adoption agencies were given a 21 month transition period to comply with the new rules, which ended in December 2008. Since then, all but two of the dozen Catholic agencies have closed or severed their ties with the Church. Catholic Care was the last Catholic adoption charity to continue its fight against the equality legislation.
The Charity Commission had rejected Catholic Care’s original plea for an exemption under the Sexual Orientation Regulations. In a court case in March the judge said that the charity had a right to the exemption if it was in the public interest and that the Charities Commission must reconsider on this basis.
Expressing great disappointment at the decision, which will reduce the number of people recruited as adoptive parents, the charity said, "Catholic Care will now consider whether there is any other way in which the charity can continue to support families seeking to adopt children in need.”
At the time of the court case Mark Wiggin, Chief Executive of Catholic Care, said: "In effect, we are being invited either to stop our adoption work or stop being a Catholic charity. Neither of these options is acceptable to our trustees, our beneficiaries or supporters."
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