Catholics and Adoption

A reader writes:

I think you're still missing the point on the regulation of Catholic adoption agencies in the UK.

The question isn't, "Where do they get their funding?" - it's "Where did they get the babies?" Presumably the stork didn't drop them off at the convent. (And if that's what the nuns are claiming, then the matter needs to be investigated further.) None of these kids was born under the legal guardianship of the Church or its agencies. That guardianship is presumably assigned by British law on the theory that Catholic charities (among others) will do a good job of looking after the children's best interests. But if the charities turn down potential adoptive parents on spurious grounds, they aren't doing that.

The issue is how spurious the grounds are. They are spurious by any objective measure of parenting skills; but the Church has a right to uphold bigotry as part of its theology. In fact, it's almost obsessed with doing so - at the expense of its deeper, moral obligations. The state can and should withdraw support for such bigotry, but the Church still has a right, in my view, to maintain its stance of stigmatization and discrimination against homosexuals.