This week, long-running children’s charity Barnardo’s held its annual Fostering and Adoption Week. To coincide with the week, Barnardo’s has released the results of a poll it commissioned in order to highlight what it sees as some concerning social attitudes towards the parenting skills of homosexuals: one in three people do not think that homosexual couples are able to parent as well as heterosexual couples.
These findings have prompted Yvonne Rodgers, director of Barnardo’s Cymru, to urge more single people and homosexual couples in Wales to foster and adopt. Ms Rodgers believes that “the idea that gay parents are second best must be challenged, as is the notion that it is only couples who can adopt or foster a child”. Such attitudes, she states, are in danger of discouraging potential adopters and therefore decreasing the chances of vulnerable children finding loving homes.
This drive by Barnardo’s to encourage more homosexuals to foster and adopt comes at a time when married heterosexual couples who hold orthodox views on marriage and the family can face severe difficulties with their applications to foster or adopt children. Married Christian couple Owen and Eunice Johns, who are seeking to foster a child in Derby, have faced problems with Derby Council because of their biblical beliefs and their unwillingness to promote homosexuality to a hypothetical child aged 5 -9. Derby City Council believes that the John’s beliefs could contravene the Council’s equality and diversity policy. The John’s case has been heard by the High Court but a judgment is still pending. The decision of the court will have massive implications on whether Christians will be able to foster or adopt children in the future in the UK.
Things have changed dramatically since Thomas Barnardo first set up his charity for children in 1867. The founder of Barnardo’s was a bible-believing Christian who was motivated by his faith to help destitute children. Now, the charity he founded has joined in the clamour for family and sexuality to be re-defined along very different lines from those with which he would have been familiar.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern, said
“It appears that Barnardo’s are promoting a political ideology that is usually espoused by members of the homosexual rights lobby. Yet what about the children? Do Barnardo’s really believe that a child is not better off with a father and a mother in a stable relationship?”
“At the same time that homosexuals are being encouraged to adopt, Christians are being discouraged by public bodies, because their views are not deemed politically correct. It is a tragic reversal of values in our society and it is a sad betrayal of our children.”
Sources
BBC News: Barnardo’s urge gay and single adoption in Wales
Barnardo’s: ‘There is no room for prejudice, children are in desperate need’ says Barnardo’s new CEO
Related stories
High Court to decide whether Christians can foster
Andrea’s blog: The slide to intolerance