Fortsätt till huvudinnehåll

Gay Adoption - what is the government's real agenda

As a gay man who is not averse to a little fling now and again, I can not be accused of either being in the closet or anti-gay. However, the idea of gay couples, or anyone else for that matter, having a "right" to adopt strikes me as peculiar.

Nobody has a natural "right" to a child, but the notion that they do has led us to this, as well as the use of peculiar reproductive techniques - there is a lesbian woman I know who has had a child through artificial insemination, which is just as bad; not having both parents is a bad enough misfortune if it happens through natural causes, so it cannot be right to deliberately engineer the situation.

Adoption is principally for the benefit of the child and it is for the rest of society to do its best to make sure that the child is placed in the best possible circumstances. And providing a home for a child, whether one's own or anyone else's, is a long-term business. So the likely stability of the relationship is an important factor. Now I know that there are many same-sex couples who have been together for thirty years or more, which is a lot longer than many marriages, but this kind of stability is unusual.

There are other factors too. Men and women are different and children need both a male and a female parent as a role model. There is also the reaction of peers, at school, for instance, to consider. How will classmates treat someone with two mums or two dads? They could get a rough time.

On the other hand, there may be circumstances where adoption by a gay couple may be the best option available. So why legislate at all? Surely the people in the adoption agencies can be relied on to use their common sense. One has to ask what is the government's real agenda is on this? Why is it pushing this nonsense? After all, if people want a companion to make a fuss of, why don't they go the the local animal rescue centre?

Although I am no fan of Cardinal O'Connor, I am pleased to see he is standing up to the government.

Cardinal's statement on gay adoption

Kommentarer

Marnie sa…
You write very well.

Populära inlägg i den här bloggen

Importing people to sustain demand

I got involved in a discussion with a Youtuber called “Philosophy all along”. This was in connection with criticism of Trump’s policy of deporting illegal migrants, which he argued would be bad for the economy as it would reduce demand. This implies that there is a need to import people to sustain demand. There is no obvious reason why a population should not be able to consume everything that the same population produces. If it can not, then something else is going on. It is a basic principle that wages are the least that workers will accept to do a job. Wages are a share of the value added by workers through their wages. The remainder is distributed as economic rent, after government has taken its cut in taxes. Monopoly profit is a temporary surplus that after a delay gets absorbed into economic rent. Land values in Silicon Valley are an example of this; it's like a gold rush. The miners get little out of it. Rent and tax syphon purchasing power away from those who produce the g...

The Zombie Train that refuses to die

The Guardian has published a couple more articles against HS2, one by specialist rail commentator Christian Wolmar, and another today by journalist Simon Jenkins. The main arguments in favour will doubtless be wheeled out by the commentators: the need for capacity and the disruption caused by upgrading existing routes. HST itself will severely disrupt services to Euston during the construction period. Capacity can be increased at a fraction of the cost by a variety of measures, provided that it is accepted that the additional traffic will run at existing speeds. It is not generally known that the Midland main line is, or was, four track all the way from London to Trent Junction, between Nottingham and Derby. This is because the additional tracks are separate, having been added for coal trains which trundled down to Brent sidings, on the edge of London, from a collection point at Toton in Nottinghamshire, where the Midland Railway build a huge marshalling yard. Beyond Derby, the main l...

How much more will the British tolerate?

The British are phlegmatic, tolerant and slow to rouse. Thus there was no great reaction after the terrorist attack in July 2005. The murder of Lee Rigby created a sense of outrage, but nothing more, since it appeared to be an isolated incident. Two serious incidents within a fortnight are another matter. Since the first major terrorist incident in 2001, authority has tried to persuade the public that Islam is a religion of peace, that these were isolated events, or the actions of deranged "lone wolves", having nothing to do with Islam, or to reassure that the chances of being killed in a terrorist attack were infinitesimally small. These assurances are are beginning to wear thin. They no longer convince. If government does not act effectively, people will take the law into their own hands. What, however, would effective action look like? What sort of effective action would not amount to rough justice for a lot of innocent people? Given the difficulties of keeping large n...