Conscience or Numbers - All the Same For Adoption Bill Supporters
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
3 Sep 2010
Clover Moore at Mardi Gras
The Premier, Kristina Keneally has consulted her conscience, the Lord Mayor and independent MP for Sydney, Clover Moore has consulted the numbers and both have come up with the same result.
Same-sex couples should be able to adopt and that is the way the Lower House of the NSW Parliament voted this week when the issue was put to a vote and carried by 46 votes to 44.
Archbishop Cardinal George Pell said the Bill would be "profoundly unjust and reckless to place the desires of the same-sex couples to adopt above the needs and vulnerability of children".
Both parties allowed their members a conscience vote. Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell backed the Bill at the last minute.
Two missing MPs could have swayed the vote.
However the Premier's conscience had already spoken. She told Parliament last night that as a Christian, and a Catholic, she supports same-sex adoption, something that has defied the understanding of many Catholics.
Clover Moore was more pragmatic. She agreed to amend her private member's Bill, calling for same-sex couples to be allowed to adopt, to give church adoption agencies the right to refuse services to gay and lesbian couples without fear they will breach the anti-discrimination laws by doing so.
The Premier, Kristina Keneally leaving church
Ms Moore added up the numbers and decided the exemption for faith-based adoption agencies would increase the chance of the Bill being passed.
However it seems Labour MPs and their Liberal and National counterparts remain divided on the issue and although the Bill was narrowly passed by the lower House. A further vote is needed for one amendment. The Bill still has to go to the Upper House to be ratified before it becomes law, and there are no guarantees the Upper House will allow such a Bill.
Many both inside and outside Parliament oppose a Bill which grants same sex couples the legal right to adopt children.
In protest last Tuesday, a meeting was organised by the NSW Council of Churches to oppose the Bill.
Putting their case and the reasons why they were against such a Bill, leaders of the Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian churches together with the Wesley Mission wrote to all members of the NSW Parliament outlining their concerns.
As a co-signatory, Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell wrote: "Every child has the right to know and be raised by his or her natural parents, as far as possible. This right is recognised by the major religious traditions we represent and has been recognised and affirmed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child..... The ability of a homosexual person to love and care for a child as a father or mother is not in question. As a couple, however, two persons of the same sex are not able to provide a child with the experience of both mothering and fathering. This is not a case of unjust discrimination against same-sex couples, but of the capacity of the couple to provide a child with the unique and complementary nurturing of a father and mother".
View Signed leaders letter to NSW MPs re adoption August 30
