Gay Adoption and the Catholic Church: A Re-assessment

9 September 2007

A fitting day, indeed, in which to reconsider this topic: Our Lady's birthday, according to the traditional calendar of the Church. I don't mean this in any sacrilegious sense: I'm a Catholic believer myself and have a devotion to Our Lady. As the spiritual mother of all humanity – so the Church teaches – the Blessed Virgin stands as a sign of the love and compassion we owe to all children, whether the fruit of our loins or not.

There's been a strange silence these past few months on the issue of the potential closure of the UK's Catholic adoption agencies, unwilling or unable to accept the terms of the 2006 Equality Act that might oblige them to take on gay and lesbian prospective adoptive parents. The public debate over, and the Act passed into law, everything has been covered with a veil of discretion as delicate discussions are doubtless held internally within the Church, and between the Church and government.

I myself wrote a number of posts on the subject in this blog earlier this year, culminating in two rather agonising, heartfelt pieces in March. The second of these pieces chronologically (dated 29 March) contained a rather intricate argument to the effect that the Church's position rests on a belief that sexually active gay persons do not have a 'right to become parents'. This conviction, according to my argument, was in turn based on the view that such persons' wish to become parents was invested in their 'unnatural' and non-life-giving sexual behaviour and, for that reason, was also unnatural and corrupted (indeed, corrupting) at root.

I contrasted this view with one whereby gay persons' sexual activity could be seen, to some extent, as not expressing their reproductive instinct and wish to have children; and that, accordingly, that instinct and that wish could be considered to be natural – indeed, God-given and inspired by the Holy Spirit – as opposed to their 'unnatural' sexual feelings and behaviour. Gay persons – not in general, but particular individuals or couples – could in this way potentially even be thought to have a vocation to adopt needy children: sharing in the work of Mother Church in giving life to her children through the love and power of the Spirit.

Several months further down the road, I'm beginning to think I might have got things slightly mixed up: not the overall thrust of the argument, but the understanding of the relationship between homosexuality and the reproductive instinct, and of the Church's position on that. I think now that the Church's teaching is actually closer to how I described these matters from my own perspective at that time: that in gay sex, the sexual feelings and activity become somehow dissociated, closed off, from the reproductive drive and the wish to create new life; and that therefore, sexual gratification becomes, for the individuals concerned, an aim in itself, separated from the procreative purpose which sexual activity is intended by God to fulfil.

Meanwhile, my own position has flipped over to one that's closer to how I described the basis for the Church's beliefs: that actually, all sexual desire and activity – including the 'gay' variety – does in fact express the individual's reproductive instinct and wish to become a parent, even if these drives are hidden in the innermost depths of their heart. However, far from this then vitiating gay persons' urge to procreate – even though expressed homosexually – this presents a basis for saying that everyone, gay persons included, has a natural and God-given predisposition to parenthood. This is part of our core, common humanity; part of our true nature as creatures made in the image of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: parent, child, and giver and receiver of love and life.

Objectors might ask how it is possible for gay desire and sexual activity to be manifestations of a natural urge to reproduce, when they are clearly incompatible with such an aim. But from an impulse or an action being incompatible with its alleged underlying cause or stimulus, one does not have to infer a different, 'real' motivation (e.g. that gay sex represents, indeed in part springs from, a deliberate rejection of reproductivity). What we do in life is so often inappropriate or counter-productive in relation to what we set out to achieve, particularly so in the field of the human heart and relationships. The fact that gay sex cannot result in children being conceived does not mean that a wish for children is not part of the tangled causality of gay desire – as, indeed, the serried ranks of potential gay adopters and gay couples seeking means of assisted conception would appear to testify.

One important distinction, however, is that for gay persons, it could be argued that this natural, human wish to be a parent cannot automatically be squared with a vocation to parenthood. Not natural parenthood resulting from an act of heterosexual intercourse, that is. Or can it?

As I argued in my post of 29 March, the creation of new human life from a 'natural' act of heterosexual intercourse does not of itself indicate that the parents had a vocation to be the child's parents in the sense in which this term is often understood. E.g. the sexual act could have been entirely a one-off episode, with neither of the parents having the remote intention either to marry or become the progenitors of a new life; or one or both of the parents could already be married to someone else. In other words, the mere fact of a child being born as a result of a natural (heterosexual) sex act does not prove that it was right for the child to be conceived at all, according to the Church's moral law.

A contrary case could be the not uncommon situation whereby persons who are on balance probably more gay than straight enter into a marriage, partly because they want to try to be straight (sometimes out of religious conviction on top of the psychological motivation), and partly also to satisfy their 'natural' urge to become parents. Then, after a period of time, and perhaps not until the children have grown up, the 'gay' partner can no longer maintain the suppression or denial of their homosexuality, and comes out – often, but not in fact always, resulting in the destruction of the marriage. (Noted example, the gay Anglican Bishop of New Hampshire.) Can one assert with absolute confidence that the original motivation was so defective that the marriage should be annulled? However, if you do not think this should happen, this could be an instance of a gay person actually having had and responded to a vocation to be a natural parent: a biological parent, whose parenthood results from natural 'straight' sex.

OK, you could argue that, at the time when the sexual acts in question took place, the 'gay' spouse either felt or believed themselves to be straight; or at the very least, they loved their spouse and wanted to be a good wife or husband, and a good mother or father. But that's really making a judgement about a person's true inner motivation and feelings that no human being is in a position to make. What if, in reality, that person knew that what they were doing was fake but still wanted it out of compassion for their spouse and a genuine, natural longing to be a parent? Does that mean their vocation to marriage and parenthood was also a sham?

From the above two examples, I would conclude that neither the presence of 'natural' heterosexual desire within the sex act resulting in conception nor its absence necessarily validates or invalidates the proposition that the persons involved had a vocation to produce that child – when one looks at the issue of vocation in a traditional, legalistic way. But it is possible and necessary to look at it another way: that the vocation is demonstrated by the very existence of the child, called into being by God as the child of both parents – necessarily requiring them both to be involved as part of its very being. The vocation is, in this perspective, entirely separate from any consideration about the morality or appropriateness of the human situation that gave rise to the conception. And, indeed, one must remember that, according to the traditional teaching, all human flesh is born to some degree out of sin; all origination is bound up with original sin. It is not the motivation to become a parent that demonstrates the presence of a vocation to do so; rather, it is the fact of being a biological parent that represents the giving of the calling to become a true parent: the vocation to bring a child to life in the Spirit as well as in the flesh.

It is clear that many straight biological parents fail to respond to this true parental vocation by not living up to their responsibility to care for their offspring or by abandoning their children altogether, whether as a result of their own personal problems or out of callous indifference. Equally, it should be clear that gay biological parents are sometimes better than straight ones at being true parents: emotional and spiritual nurturers and carers of their children. Just as the circumstances in which the child was conceived has no intrinsic bearing on the vocation of the parents to become true parents (the vocation being their duty of obedience to God's will for them in this regard), neither does their sexual orientation.

Can one apply these same principles to the issue of adoption? Without repeating all my arguments about the potential suitability of gay persons – whether single or in a relationship – to become adoptive parents (see my post of 21 March), it would be consistent with this view of vocation to say that the mere fact of a person or a couple being straight or gay does not make them intrinsically more or less worthy of receiving and responding to a vocation to become an adoptive parent, if one defines an adoptive parent as someone who takes on the vocation to be a true spiritual parent to a child which that child's biological parents have not been able to fulfil.

There is, however, a crucial difference: whereas in the case of biological parenthood, the suitability of the individuals to become parents and the morality of the situation in which they did so have no bearing on their receiving a parental vocation, in situations of adoption, it is of course incumbent on adoption agencies to find parents who will be able to fulfil that vocation, which the child's natural parents failed to do. And in this respect, criteria such as whether the adopters are 'suitable parents' and the extent to which their lifestyles are moral or not, come into play. Clearly, for the Church, a sexually active gay couple is automatically deemed to be unsuitable to adopt children, as their lifestyle is considered to be gravely immoral. There seems no way out of this closed circle. All the same, if gay persons in fact can be good biological parents – in the ordinary sense of the term 'good parent': loving and devoted to their children's best interests – it seems logically inconsistent, at least, to state that no gay person or couple could ever be suitable candidates to adopt a child: incapable of living out a vocation for parenthood.

This is not in fact – at least, not in principle – the position of the Church, which in theory recognises that single gay persons (but not, contradictorily (?), celibate gay couples) can make excellent adoptive parents. But in practice, the Church appears to have excluded any possibility of working within the terms of the new UK legislation, for instance by submitting prospective gay adopters to a rigorous process of examination and scrutiny as to their ability to give particular children on an agency's books the love and security they need.

Are we to conclude from this that it's the Church's view that it is better for children to be placed with stable straight couples – even if they're not Christian, and even if they're not married – than with stable, gay Christian couples, even if they're celibate? What's the logic behind that, if that really is what's implied by the Church's stance? That a loving sexual union between a man and woman, even outside of formal Christian matrimony, presents a more authentic image to the child of the pattern of true Christian living than the love of two Christian persons of the same sex for each other and for the child? And it does not even appear necessary for gay sexual activity to be present for the latter type of relationship to be considered un-Christian. This is because the Church appears to make no real qualitative distinction between celibate and sexually active gay couples in this context, as both are ruled out in relation to adoption. Indeed, even a celibate 'union' between two gay persons can involve an exclusive, mutually self-giving commitment on the part of two individuals that can resemble a marriage in all but name and could be wrongly (in the eyes of the Church) accepted by the child as morally equivalent to a marriage.

Ultimately, then, it comes down to this: the Church is defending not the sanctity of marriage, but marriage as the sign and symbol of the naturalness of heterosexuality as the wellspring of family and parenthood. But whether one is heterosexual or not has no intrinsic bearing on whether God choses one as a parent. Gay or straight, promiscuous or faithful, all parents are answerable to God for the way they respond to his choice of them. The Church, on the other hand, choses not to chose gay persons for the role of parent; and in this, she, too, is fulfilling the responsibility to defend the truth and obey the divine commandment as she has received it. But gay persons will continue to be chosen by God for a vocation as parents, whether biological or adoptive. In the latter case, this choice will be made through the medium of adoption agencies but, regrettably, no longer Catholic ones, it seems. But it is to be hoped that the couples and children involved will not be left as orphans: bereft of the support and prayers of Mother Church. For if the Church is not the only agency that can open up the grace of adoption for gay couples and their children, it still holds the keys to the door.

New Principles For Marriages and Partnerships

In my blog of 17 December (‘Modern Sexual Morality’), I stated that in my view, it would be sensible if our society were to formulate some new ethical and legal principles governing civil marriages and partnerships, involving – among other things – a clearer separation between the thinking on these and Christian marriage (as well as religious marriage in general). I argued that the way we view civil marriages and extra-marital, committed partnerships continues to embody some of the moral standards and judgements associated with our Christian tradition, even though some of the types of relationship themselves could be deemed to be morally at fault on a more dogmatic interpretation of Christian teaching.

In general, the combination and interplay between Christian and liberal principles (what I term ‘Christo-liberalism’) create a great deal of ambiguity about sexual ethics. This contributes to undermining marriage and stable relationships, in that the permissiveness that society tolerates and even encourages in some areas comes into conflict with Christian-derived standards that are expected in other areas. This exacerbates the tendency for individuals in relationships to have different expectations about the degree and type of commitment that are involved; and, indeed, it makes the whole basis for commitment as such more difficult and unpredictable.

In my blog of 16 December (‘The Paradoxes Of Gay Marriage’), I argued in favour of a tripartite arrangement for marriages and formally recognised partnerships: religious marriage (heterosexual, according to the provisions of the faiths concerned); civil marriage (open to both straight and gay couples); and some sort of looser civil partnership arrangement recognising and affirming committed extra-marital partnerships (straight and gay). In the present blog, I will attempt to map out the shape that these two kinds of civil marriage / partnership could take once the inherited Christian moral demands and expectations are stripped away from them. This is not to undermine Christian marriage; quite the contrary. Both Christian and civil marriage could be strengthened if a more rigorous and consistent set of distinct standards and values relating to each could be clearly articulated and agreed, while family law were modified in accordance with those new principles.

1 Civil marriages (gay and straight)

Civil marriages already exist, of course: those carried out, in the UK, in a register office. They are not yet available for gay couples; although I would propose extending them (but not church and other religious marriage) to gays and lesbians.

Some key points in this proposed new ethics of civil marriage, which would then need to be reflected in legislation, are as follows:

1.0 Guiding principles

1.0.1 The relationship between the spouses is accepted as being potentially impermanent and non-exclusive

Under the prevailing mores of our society, civil marriages are in fact, if not in right, predicated on an assumption that they might not last and can be dissolved. The very existence of legal divorce means that a civil marriage, as a legal contract, is reversible. Christian Churches vary in the extent to which they accept divorce. So long as they are held to be valid, Catholic marriages are believed to be permanent: even if a couple obtains a civil divorce, the Church does not recognise it, and the individuals are not able to re-marry in a Catholic church. The Church of England also in principle does not permit re-marriage in church for the same reason (the definitive character of the original wedding vows); although it does recognise divorce and give church blessings to divorced individuals that are obliged to re-marry in a civil ceremony.

This was of course the reason why Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles were forced to get married in a register office. By an interesting quirk, there would have been no impediment to the royal couple getting married in church if the Prince had been Catholic (. . .). This is because Mr Parker-Bowles (a Catholic) had obtained an annulment for his marriage to Camilla, presumably on the basis that Camilla had not really meant her vows (including promises of life-long love and fidelity) when she made them. Annulments mean that the original marriage effectively never existed as a true sacramental union; so that Camilla was not divorced but single in the eyes of the Catholic Church, and so eligible for a marriage to a widower (Charles).

It is, on one level, entirely reasonable that the Church or any religion should demand of those of its followers who get married that they should promise to love each other and remain faithful to each other permanently and exclusively, and that this should be part of the core concept of marriage (and that in the absence of such a commitment – as in the case of Camilla Parker-Bowles – the marriage is invalid). But is it reasonable that the state should expect such a commitment from couples contracting a civil marriage? It is not part of the remit of the state to assert any kind of duty for one citizen to love another to the exclusion of any other sexual relationship, and to maintain that love indefinitely. In a way, it is almost a case of the state over-stepping its rightful areas of jurisdiction and competence that the civil marriage or partnership ceremony should involve declarations of life-long love and fidelity; apart from the fact that these promises could appear unrealistic from a psychological or spiritual point of view without some sort of appeal in faith to a higher authority than the state – although Christian marriages, according to the statistics, are just as prone to break up as civil unions. Hence, the promise of life-long love and fidelity is an example of what I mean by Christo-liberalism: the civil authorities and law effectively taking on one aspect of the Church's role and value system, and expecting a Christian-type commitment from a secular marriage.

Under my proposed new framework, marital infidelity (adultery) would no longer be a sufficient justification in itself for obtaining a divorce. This is because, built in to the concept and legislation for civil marriages, and perhaps even into the wording in the wedding ceremony, would be a realistic expectation that infidelities on both sides might well occur. In order for specific acts of adultery to be taken into consideration when deciding whether to authorise a divorce, they would have to be viewed in the context of the whole relationship; i.e. whether the relationship as a working partnership had broken down, and whether more harm (emotional, practical, financial, etc.) to all affected, including children and other dependants, would be done if the couple stayed together or separated. There would also be a more formal process for trying to achieve reconciliation between the spouses, which I will go into further below.

But if a civil marriage cannot reasonably demand life-long love and fidelity, what the state does have the right to expect from marrying individuals is a contractually binding, reciprocal duty of care on the part of the spouses for each other and for any dependants, particularly children and extended family members, e.g. elderly relatives. This leads to my second new principle for civil marriages:

1.0.2 Permanent, contractually binding duty on the part of the married individual to look after the needs of their spouses and other dependants, including if the relationship breaks down and the marriage is dissolved in a divorce

The idea behind this is that even if there is a realistic acceptance that feelings may change and the marital relationship may come to an end in emotional terms, the commitment to marry someone should involve accepting that one is taking on a permanent responsibility for their care. In a religious context (and in the current Christo-liberal version of civil marriages), this responsibility is viewed as a natural extension of the commitment to love one’s spouse for the rest of one’s life. In a de-Christianised civil marriage, the continuing nature of this duty of care becomes a matter of social justice. On marrying, spouses make promises to one another that involve decisions affecting the whole subsequent course of their lives (careers, relationship possibilities, etc.). In addition, the state provides incentives for people to get married and have children through the tax and benefits system. Divorce represents a considerable economic cost through the greater dependency of single parents on social services and benefits; through the poverty that it can bring about; and through the personal and social problems experienced by children that are affected by the break-up of their parents and continuing instability in their family lives.

Ensuring that, as much as possible, divorcing individuals are held to the commitment of ongoing care they made when they married is a means to compensate their spouses for the sacrifices they have made for the sake of the marriage and their partner; and it is a way to lessen the other social and economic costs. The increased legal obligation to provide financial support and exercise an ongoing duty of care towards spouses and dependants would be a function of an enhanced set of rights and responsibilities in marriage.

1.0.3 Re-definition of the meaning of the married state itself, and the rights and responsibilities that accompany it

1.0.3.1 On marrying, individuals would be deemed to have established a permanent relationship between themselves, their spouse and their spouse’s family: they become a member of the spouse’s family. After any divorce, they continue to be a member of their former spouse’s family: they can no more sever that tie than they could cease to be the parent of any of their children, or the aunt and uncle of nephews and nieces with whom their children are genetically related.

This is a formalisation of a principle that also applies to Christian marriage. But again, in the civil context, the purpose is not to imply some sort of ontological union between the husband and wife (who in Christian terms become ‘one flesh’, and hence one family) but to express the truth that families continue even when parents split up, and to encourage the relationships both in the nuclear and the extended family (e.g. between parents-in-law and children-in-law; or between uncles and aunts, and nephews and nieces) to be healed and to prosper, emotionally and materially. When couples marry, they effectively take on the roles and responsibilities previously exercised by their spouse’s parents towards their partners and towards other dependants in the family, including eventually the couple’s parents themselves as they need care in old age. This is the meaning of a father ‘giving away’ the daughter to his son-in-law in marriage: the husband takes on the role of care previously fulfilled by the father.

Formalising the principle that marriage makes the spouses permanent members of each other’s family – whether or not they have children who are then genetically related to the extended family – is a way to underscore the importance of the duties and promises towards the whole family that spouses make when getting married: they can no longer consider that they have a lesser duty towards relatives with whom they are not genetically related than towards those with whom they are.

It may seem unnecessary to encode family relatedness in law in this way. However, I would argue that this is not entirely arbitrary but corresponds to the deeper psychological and socio-anthropological significance of marriage: that an individual does not just marry another individual but marries into an entire family, towards which they then have social, moral and legal responsibilities. Enshrining these things in law would be a way of realigning modern Western social practice in the marriage area with these universal psychological and socio-anthropological meanings, which are more explicitly expressed in less secularised cultures and religions that still place a greater emphasis on the extended family, e.g. Hinduism and orthodox Judaism. Along with greater responsibilities, this also gives married persons greater rights as integral members of their spouse’s family.

It might well result from this proposed change to current social and legal practice that the family ties that a re-marrying person felt towards their second acquired family might be weakened if they continued to view their first acquired family as family. But then the provisions of the law (discussed further below) setting out both the continuing responsibilities towards the ‘divorced family’ and those towards the family of the second spouse are intended to reinforce realistic, responsible and caring attitudes and behaviour towards both families. In any case, the purpose of formally instituting the idea that marriage involves marrying into a whole family – for good – is not to weaken second marriages but to help ensure, wherever possible, that first marriages and their socially beneficial effects endure.

1.0.3.2 Spouses have a particular responsibility of care towards their children and stepchildren, along with a clear set of rights. Establishing the principle that, even after a divorce, an individual continues to be a member of their spouse’s family makes it even more difficult for divorced parents to ignore the needs of their children or any children of their spouse from a previous relationship or marriage with whom they have also established any sort of parental relationship. In contrast to the view set out above that spouses cannot be under the obligation to love each other permanently and exclusively, they should be considered to have at least a strong moral obligation to love their children; and a formal, legal obligation to provide for their children’s material needs, even if they are not able to provide for all their emotional needs.

The new law and practice of civil marriage would therefore include strict measures to ensure that absentee parents continued to look after their children’s and stepchildren’s financial and material needs. And at the same time, there would need to be a better way to ensure equal treatment in the assessment of which parent was best-placed to have the greater share of custody, and to enable regular and sufficient access to the children for the parent not awarded custody. In particular, there should be no bias in the determination of these things towards the party in the divorce viewed as being more ‘wronged’ in the marriage break up; and no assumption that mothers are ‘naturally’ more suited to being the main carers than fathers.

These two ideas (the mother as the wronged party and the more able carer) currently often go hand-in-hand and are part of the Christian inheritance that has been taken forward in modern secular (Christo-liberal) marriage. This leads to custody decisions often being made on the basis of reward and punishment in relation to a moral judgement that is taken about unfaithful husbands having violated the ‘sanctity’ of marriage and of motherhood; ideas which clearly derive from the Christian history of our country. These judgements should really be regarded as irrelevant within a fully secular marriage institution. In particular, assessments about custody and access should consider the children’s needs and wishes (emotional, social and economic) first and foremost, and then the rights of both parents to continue to play an active role in their children’s upbringing so long as this will not be detrimental to the children in any way.

1.0.3.3 The above two provisions apply equally to straight and gay couples. As civil marriage would now involve a clear social purpose (cementing strong extended families and fostering responsible personal relationships), and a strict set of rights and responsibilities, there is no reason in a secular context why these elements should not be extended to gay couples as well as straight partners. This is what would give gay marriage a real social and cultural meaning beyond a ‘mere’ celebration of the love and partnership of two individuals. So, under the new regime I am proposing, gay spouses would be considered in law to have become permanent members of each other’s families by marrying each other. For instance, if one’s gay son gets married, his husband becomes one’s son-in-law; and the son-in-law becomes an uncle to any of his husband’s nephews and nieces; etc. And, just as in straight marriage, these family relationships and the associated responsibilities towards extended family members would be considered to continue to be in effect even after any divorce.

The same goes for the duty of care and maintenance towards spouses and children: this should also be considered to remain in effect just as much for gay divorcees as for straight ones. With respect to children, gay married persons should have full equality in terms of assessments of their suitability to become parents: through adoption or equal access to assisted reproduction, e.g. through artificial insemination (for lesbians) or surrogacy (for gay men). If either of the spouses were already a parent before getting married, there should also be no discrimination in determining whether or not the newly married gay couple should have custody over them (if this were disputed with the other parent), or which of the spouses should have custody over any children in the event of a divorce: again, the needs and wishes of the children should be paramount.

Whether or not one regards the advent of the gay family, and the use of artificial means of conception to enable gay persons to become parents, as desirable or morally acceptable is largely irrelevant within the context of a fully secularised marriage institution. Again, these are considerations and judgements that derive from the Christian tradition. The main concerns from the civil perspective are fostering strong family ties and responsibilities; and ensuring the maximum degree of continuing, stable care for family members and children that either already exist or who will be born to gay parents – whether or not society decides to extend the framework of marriage to such gay relationships and families. If that framework is created, this offers the chance of giving those children greater support and rights as they progress through childhood. But this involves society shedding its remaining prejudices about gay people and gay sex: its association as something inherently dirty and immoral that does not have a place alongside and within family life. And if society really decides that gay people are deserving and capable of taking on the elevated set of obligations and privileges that should be associated with civil marriage, then it follows that they should be viewed as capable of taking on responsible parenthood just as much as their straight counterparts.

1.0.3.4 A new language to describe family relationships is required to accommodate these new concepts of the permanence beyond divorce of family relationships that are sealed in a marriage, and the extension of these relationships to gay marriage. For instance, if lesbian and gay married couples either have children through some form of assisted conception or surrogate pregnancy, or adopt children, should both partners be called the mothers or fathers of their children respectively? In other words, should it be possible for a child’s two legal parents (either on the birth or adoption certificate) to be of the same gender? Currently, in English law, it is in fact possible for a child to have two legal fathers or mothers in the case of adoption by a same-sex couple. Interestingly, though, the language that is used about such families – either the official, legal terminology, or the informal language used by parents or children of gay adoptions to refer to their family relationships – tends to avoid phrases such as ‘two fathers’ or ‘both my mothers’; the words ‘parents’, in the formal context, or ‘dad(s)’ and ‘mummy/-ies’ etc. in the informal context, are often preferred.)

This issue of gay parents is a very wide-ranging question covering a multitude of individual circumstances. But in theory, in a civil context, there is no absolutely compelling reason why a child should not have two official mothers or fathers. The sources of objection to this idea are threefold: the Christian tradition (and other religious traditions); an argument from human nature; and psychology. The basic objection itself is similar from all three angles, i.e. that a child needs both a mother and a father, because this is the natural way that a child is procreated, brought up and comes to negotiate its own role in society, including gender role(s).

It is generally accepted that children do need both maternal and paternal care figures and role models in their lives. But the sad truth is that these are very often not their natural mothers and fathers, particularly in the case of adoption, which is of special relevance in the context of lesbian and gay parents. If a gay couple adopts a child, it is probably better for that child, emotionally and legally, for both partners to be legal parents – rather than creating an inequality, and increasing the potential for emotional turmoil in the event of a relationship break up, by allowing only one of the individuals to be legally regarded as the mother or father. And the point about encouraging gay adoption to take place – if it is going to take place at all – in the context of gay marriage and officially recognised gay family relationships is that this should also reinforce the extended family structures that can provide an additional source of caring maternal or paternal figures (in the shape of aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.) to supplement the potential comparative absence of such figures from the child’s nuclear family.

One other observation that is worth making is that the argument in favour of the need for parental figures of both genders often presupposes that one or both of a child’s lesbian mothers, for instance, could not also serve as something of a model for fatherhood or masculinity. Gender should not be equated with anatomical sex. It is a commonly noted fact, for instance, that lesbian women often exhibit more conventionally masculine traits than typical straight women; and that gay men are often more overtly feminine or effeminate than their straight counterparts. So it is still possible for a child to learn about masculinity and femininity from same-sex parents. It is questionable, then, whether a child’s having two mothers or two fathers really does much long-term damage to their ability to develop their gender identity, sexuality and adult relationships in a ‘normal’ way; although the psychological impact of having same-sex parents should not be written off as insignificant. Maybe only time will tell what the long-term consequences will be.

Another question illustrating how society’s language to describe family relationships might need to evolve to reflect the changes I am advocating is how one would refer to ‘former’ spouses if a permanent relationship with a spouse and her / his family is deemed to be established in marriage. Common parlance would doubtless continue to employ terms such as ‘ex’ or ‘former’ to refer to previous spouses, even after any change in the legislation such as I am advocating. However, officially and logically, it might be better to designate these as ‘first’, ‘second’, etc. – e.g. a straight man who has married three times might refer to his previous wives as ‘my first wife’ and ‘my second wife’; and his third wife as ‘my current wife’.

You could argue that this is tantamount to sanctioning polygamy, in that it is implied that the conjugal relationship with previous spouses continues into subsequent marriages. And, in a sense, this is the case: a serial marrier of this sort would indeed be viewed as continuing to be related to his previous wives and their families. So the law would have to be explicit about the different types of relationship involved – family connection versus primary emotional / sexual relationship – and the rights and responsibilities in each. Determining a workable balance between the different relationships concerned would be part of the process of establishing the conditions and the settlement (financial and personal) for any marriage break up. It would in theory be possible for any such divorce and re-marriage arrangement to stipulate – within agreed limits – that wife No. 3 accepted that her husband could maintain an emotional or even sexual relationship with one or both of his previous wives, as the mother of his children for whom he continued to have a legal duty of care. Once you eradicate as part of the fundamental concept of marriage the idea that it involves an obligation for a permanent and exclusive sexual relationship between the spouses, there is no theoretical reason why situations of this sort should not arise if this was with the mutual consent of all the parties. Indeed, situations such as this do occur in real life today without the possibility to accommodate or negotiate them within the context of Christian-derived models for marriage; so that they frequently result in separation and divorce, which could be avoided if more realism about human behaviour and contemporary mores were built into the marriage model. All the same, the ‘current’ wife of such a serial marrier should have special privileges that preserve her right to reasonable treatment and for the promises made to her in marriage to be backed up by legal protection.

Is the husband in the above example in reality any more of a polygamist than under the current legislation, in which he would perhaps more accurately be described as a serial monogamist? The actual relationships and behaviour could well be identical in both contexts, even with respect to spouses maintaining sexual relationships with their previous spouses, as occasionally happens. The new model for marriage would recognise these realities while protecting the rights and security of all those affected by infidelity and, effectively, by polygamy.

Following on from the above observations, it would also be the case, for instance, that ‘former’ mothers-in-law or sons-in-law should now be called first, second, etc. mothers-in-law / sons-in-law. Familial relationship between non-genetically related uncles / aunts and nephews / nieces would also be viewed formally as continuing to exist after any divorce. Establishing in law the continuance of these types of relatedness could be important to ensure that strong relationships that already exist in the extended family are protected and promoted after a divorce has occurred. The same could be said, for instance, about relationships (and relatedness) between grandparents and non-genetically related grandchildren (e.g. in the case of adopted children or stepchildren). For clarity, it might be necessary to refer to someone as ‘my niece from my first marriage’ or as ‘my (step-) granddaughter from my son’s first marriage’, for example. Nieces and nephews themselves would not have the same dilemma, as ‘Auntie’ and ‘Uncle’ are often used for members of the extended family and for friends of the family, so there should normally be no need to explain the exact relationship in the terminology itself.

In summary, legal changes of this sort could have a positive impact on social practice, which is currently imprecise about what – if any – the continuing familial relationship is between divorced persons and their former spouses’ extended families. If the law stipulates that a continuing familial relationship exists, this creates the social conditions whereby personal relationships can also continue, where this is felt to be of mutual benefit to the parties concerned.

When it came to mapping out things like gay marriages and multiple marriages in family trees, these need not become significantly more complicated than they are already, as they mainly focus on genetic relationships in any case. More complex charting of relationships by marriage alongside genetic relationships could easily be added on. If the genetic relationship is not known – e.g. if a lesbian married couple deliberately decided to remain ignorant about which of the two women was the biological mother (for instance, in cases of in vitro fertilisation), and the identity of the biological father was also unknown – then the family tree could indicate both mothers as being the parents: instead of the usual pairing of father and mother as the next generational link, the tree would indicate two mothers. If the genetic mother is known, then the vertical line down the tree to the next generation could come from the biological mother, while a horizontal line indicating matrimony would still link the two women. In the same example, if the biological father were known, another type of horizontal line indicating parenthood could connect the genetic parents.

1.0.4 New processes for attempting to bring about reconciliation and for dissolving marriages would be required

Under the new reinforced model for civil marriages I am proposing, married couples should not be allowed to divorce unless a) they have been through a rigorous, formal procedure to determine whether their differences are irreconcilable, and b) a binding, enforceable legal agreement has been reached setting out the individuals’ continuing obligations towards their spouse, nuclear family (e.g. children) and even, in some instances, members of their spouse’s extended family; and also setting out their rights in relation to the same persons. These two processes would need to be carried out in a co-ordinated way, in that disputes over responsibilities, and over the use of wealth and property, are often central to marriage break-downs in the first place.

The type of process I would envisage is, in the first instance, a cooling off period of, say, at least two months following the decision by one or both partners to initiate divorce proceedings. This could be followed by anything from one to six months of consistent, verified attendance by both partners at counselling sessions provided by officially certified and monitored counsellors and organisations designed to effect a reconciliation, if possible, or to ascertain beyond doubt that a reconciliation is not possible.

The couple’s claims about their legal or moral rights in relation to money and property could also be discussed and assessed in a preliminary way as part of this formal process of counselling: one of the goals of the counsellor would be to try to disentangle any dispute over such material matters from the underlying emotional conflict. In this way, it might be possible to avoid further disputes over such matters if the ‘marriage-settlement’ process was taken forward to the next stage (winding up the marriage); or, indeed, if by resolving one side of the marital conflict (emotional or material), a resolution of the other aspect of the dispute could also be encouraged.

If, on the other hand, it is determined that no reconciliation of the married partners can be brought about, the second stage of the process would commence: determining a legal contract governing the divorce, which would set out explicitly the rights and responsibilities belonging to both parties consequent upon a divorce, and putting in place legal and financial measures to ensure that the terms of the contract are adhered to and enforced.

1.0.4.1 Aspects covered by the new form of divorce settlement could include:

· Financial arrangements: determining the extent and modality (e.g. one-off or continuous) of financial support, if any, to be provided by one of the divorcing spouses to the other and any dependants

· Custody and access: deciding whether one or both parents should be awarded custody of any children and stepchildren (including different arrangements for individual children, if desirable, most obviously in the case of children of previous marriages); and determining arrangements for access to the children for the other parent, including details such as the geographical distance that parents are allowed to live apart where this affects the provision of access; the amount and distribution (e.g. at weekends, holidays) of time the parent without custody is allowed or mandated to spend with their children; the particular needs, best interests and stated wishes of the children; etc.

· Details about continuing personal relationships between the parties to the divorce themselves, and between them and their extended families of which – under the new arrangements – both individuals continue to remain a part. This part of the settlement could provide a way to legally guarantee the right for continuing relationships and support between any children of the marriage and relatives such as grandparents, aunts and uncles. Provisions under this part of the ‘divorce contract’ could be divided between those that were legally binding and explicitly set out detailed practical arrangements (e.g. access to the children for grandparents); and those that represented a ‘Statement of Expectations and Intentions’, e.g. where one or both of the spouses expressed a wish to continue to maintain a meaningful friendship and working partnership with their spouse and her / his extended family after the divorce (whether shared children were involved or not). A statement of goodwill of this sort could be made even if the terms of the divorce meant the spouses no longer had either an automatic moral right or legal entitlement to a close relationship with their spouse beyond essential practicalities.

· Such a statement of expectations could also provide a formal framework for assessing the impact of any re-marriage on existing personal, material and sexual relationships. This is because part of the new arrangements for civil marriages would be that before a re-marriage could occur, there would need to be a review of the re-marrying person’s divorce settlement to see if any of its binding elements needed to be modified. This would require the consent of the re-marrying individual’s previous spouse. In addition, such a review would take into consideration the former spouse’s statement of expectations and intentions at the time of the divorce, in order to assist in drawing up a renewed statement taking the new marriage into account. This revised statement would attempt to reconcile, as much as possible, the expectations of the former and current spouses of the re-marrying person, so as to minimise conflicts and facilitate a good working relationship between them (necessary when mutual care for children is involved); and to ensure that, if the second marriage itself broke down, a formal statement existed setting out the expectations from the re-marriage that both parties had had when they contracted the marriage. The purpose of this would then be to streamline the process of determining the possibility of a reconciliation and (if that failed) the drawing up of a second divorce settlement.

A mutual statement of expectations could also be composed in advance of any first marriage, thereby serving as an informal alternative to a pre-nuptial agreement. (Couples could of course still conclude a formal pre-nuptial contract if they wished.) This would be a legally documented, but not necessarily narrowly enforceable, declaration concerning the economic, social and personal commitment that individuals were making to one another in their marriage. As such, it could help inform the reconciliation or divorce processes if the marriage did hit the rocks. The document could, for instance, spell out the couple’s expectations with respect to the exclusivity and permanence, or otherwise, of their sexual relationship as part of the more realistic, de-Christianised, but nonetheless legally and socially more responsible re-definition of the status of civil marriage I am advocating.

1.0.4.2 There should be tough legal provisions in place to enforce divorce settlements, if they are flouted, or to impose a settlement if one or both parties refuse to co-operate with the reconciliation and settlement process. The government has recently set out proposals along the lines I am suggesting, although I think the measures could go further. They could go as far as the facility to confiscate or freeze assets (not just withdraw money from bank accounts, as in the government's proposals), or the partial withholding or total withdrawal of custody rights if these were deemed to have been abused (e.g. if a parent who had been awarded custody on the basis that they remained a UK resident emigrated to Australia).

These tough legal penalties and incentives should have teeth. They are not something whose enforcement should be left to chance or to the ineffectual functioning of an anonymous bureaucracy such as the ill-fated Child Support Agency (CSA). Divorcing couples should have to disclose full details about their income and assets, as honestly and in as legally binding a way as they would when declaring these things for tax purposes. At the same time, the enforcement authority should have access to those assets and legal powers to freeze or confiscate them as a last resort to prevent divorcers from evading their responsibilities. Ultimately, some very stringent penalties should be available to enforce the decisions reached during the settlement process, including compulsory sales of assets and even imprisonment if the attempts to thwart a fair resolution of the financial and practical issues were considered to be especially serious or contemptuous.

1.0.4.3 Which agency or agencies would be involved in these processes of attempting to achieve a reconciliation, working to agree a divorce or separation settlement, and enforcement? Here again, my proposals diverge from those of the government. There would probably need to be a new national body to co-ordinate these tasks. But it would be advisable for these tasks to be run and financed at a local level, with only a loose national organisational framework to carry out necessary administrative and oversight tasks, and development of national strategy and policy. I envisage the new body as an offshoot of the current local register offices, co-ordinating the work of multiple service providers involved in the different processes, such as counsellors, lawyers, financial advisers and law-enforcement agencies. The work of this body could be financed largely – maybe exclusively – on the basis of fees paid by divorcing couples: perhaps on a percentage calculation linked to the value of the sums involved in the divorce settlement. There could be an initial upfront fee – by way of deposit – payable by the party suing for divorce.

The purpose of all these measures would not be to stigmatise divorce, as was the case in the past. But one objective they would be trying to achieve is to make couples think extra hard before going down the divorce route. Divorce should no longer be seen as an ‘easy option’ enabling parents to duck out of their responsibilities to children, partners or their wider family; or to provide an effortless transition to a new marriage. Indeed, if the reconciliation and settlement process resulted in a decision that, on balance, it was in the best material and emotional interests of all concerned that the marriage should not be dissolved, there might still be the possibility to negotiate some more flexible living and relationship arrangements as part of the mix. For instance, there could be an agreement that the wife and children of a husband who has been unfaithful could live in the marital home, while the husband would be free to live elsewhere with his new partner, so long as a new agreement on mutual rights and responsibilities (enshrined in a Statement of Expectations and Intentions) was adhered to.

1.0.4.4 What principles should be applied in assessing divorce settlements, especially the financial arrangements? In particular, should the principle of equality be systematically applied, i.e. the divorcing couple’s assets are simply divided into two equal portions? This is obviously a topical question as a result of recent legal cases. The spirit of the reforms that I am proposing here is that, wherever possible, the divorce settlement should aim to preserve a constructive relationship between divorcing individuals, particularly when the care of dependants is also involved. Simply splitting the couple’s material assets in half is not necessarily the best way to achieve this objective – whether this is because it provokes resentment on the part of a husband who sees his hard-won wealth being depleted by his ex-wife whom he sees – rightly or wrongly – as being motivated by greed; or whether, in a more general sense, this is because the focus is then directed towards material considerations rather than to the long-term emotional and practical consequences and needs of all concerned, not just the husband and wife.

So the new regulations should not just lazily enshrine the principle of equality, as if that would automatically compensate for any injustices that might be involved in the break down of the marital relationship itself, and for any harm suffered by grieving children. The outcome that is sought should be one of fairness: equity rather than equality of a type that is calibrated merely in mathematical, material terms. In the case of a family abandoned by a husband and father starting a new relationship, the aim should be to ensure that – wherever possible – the family does not suffer any disadvantages additional to those inherent to the family break up itself. This involves focusing on securing enough material assets so that the opportunities and the options in life that the wife and children had prior to the break up can be preserved or even enhanced, e.g. education choices for the children and opportunities for the wife (who may have sacrificed a career of her own for the sake of the husband and children) to make a fresh start in work and relationships.

To obtain a settlement of this sort does not necessarily involve splitting a husband’s wealth into two even halves. In fact, in cases where the husband is not especially wealthy, the consequence might be that more than half of his wealth was made over to his wife and children; so long as the husband’s ability to continue to develop his career and earning potential was not radically impaired. If this happened, it would also be unjust and ultimately counter-productive, as it would lessen the potential for the husband to a) improve his personal circumstances, and b) pass on some of the benefits to his first family as a voluntary gesture of care and goodwill, as much of the goodwill would have been eroded by the original settlement. This touches upon one potential flaw in the argument that the simplest and most practical alternative is always just to split a separating spouse’s wealth in two: this can damage the spouse’s ability and motivation to grow his or her wealth still further, which could then be of benefit to all concerned.

In addition, sanctioning the notion that jilted wives (or husbands) should automatically be entitled to half of their treacherous spouses’ assets could mean giving even more of a green light to greed as a motivation for getting married in the first place, and then for seeking a divorce. The point of the reforms that are being advocated here is that such motivations should not be rewarded or promoted by the system; that marriage should represent a serious commitment and set of obligations, which the divorce settlement is an attempt to uphold and fulfil.

In reality, however, cases where fabulous sums of money are in dispute are the exception rather than the rule; and the financial-settlement process would simply have to try to find the best compromise deal ensuring as fair a re-distribution of the family’s wealth as possible in the light of the needs of all concerned. Equally, it is in keeping with the principle of fairness that husbands who have been keeping their wives in a state of some luxury should expect to continue to have to do so, to a certain extent. The wives would be deemed to have a reasonable expectation of being looked after in this way, based on the commitment that was made to them through marriage, perhaps backed up by a Statement of Intentions and Expectations on the part of their then fiancé. As has been stated, a divorce should not be a way for husbands (or wives) to back out of their responsibilities, or for women (or men) to dig for gold.

1.1 Summary: marriage

Above, I have set out some new concepts, guidelines and suggested legislative changes relating to secular marriage in the UK. The core principles underlying these suggestions could be summarised as follows:

· Strengthening the cultural meaning and institutional support that is given to marriage

· Affirming marriage as a serious and – in its effects, at least – permanent commitment of two people to each other and to their extended families

· Making marriage fairer: in its availability to persons of any sexual orientation; in the insistence on the rights and needs of children and of the extended family in and beyond marriage; and in the resolution of problems through divorce or alternative arrangements

· Stripping marriage of some of the inherited Christian-derived expectations that it necessarily involves a permanent and exclusive sexual relationship between the spouses; and removing from it much of the associated guilt and blame when things go wrong and spouses stray. The aim of this is to focus on the continuing responsibilities that mature adult individuals have towards their partners, who have previously committed their lives and futures to them.

Part two to follow: new civil partnership arrangements.

Let the Little Children Come Unto Me: Why the Church Should Not Shut Its Doors To Children In Need Of Adoption

It has been said before – the Catholic Church itself has said it – that it is the needs of the children have been largely ignored in the debate over the Church’s right, or not, to be exempted from new UK legislation which, it is claimed, would prevent Catholic adoption agencies from turning away same-sex applicants to adopt children. Following a House of Lords vote on 21 March ratifying the Equality Bill, the Communities minister Ruth Kelly (herself well known as a devout Catholic) said that the measures would deliver “dignity, respect and fairness for all”. By this, she was of course referring essentially to gay adults, including those wishing to adopt, not to any dignity, respect or fairness that might have accrued to child candidates for adoption as a result of the new law.

What follows here is a continuation of the discussion in my previous blog (dated 21 March) about whether the Church is acting correctly in its official opposition on principle to gay adoption. Here, I am examining the question in relation to the justice, or otherwise, of the Church’s moral condemnation of homosexuality, which is the ultimate reason for its opposition to same-sex adoption. Consequently, most of the ensuing discussion concentrates on these issues and is, to that extent, also focused on the adult aspects of adoption. Nonetheless, my main concern is to question whether, ultimately, the Church’s opposition to same-sex adoption could not also be seen as an injustice towards children.

It is indeed the needs of the children that should be to the forefront of the thinking and decisions in this matter. And yet the Church itself – perhaps partly as a tactic to try to win the exemption sought – has threatened to close down its adoption agencies if the Bill passes into law, which – failing an unprecedented last-minute refusal on the part of the Queen to give her consent – it now certainly will. Is this any way to treat the needy, hard-to-place children for whom Catholic agencies have been so successful in finding new parents and families? Those children will still be there after the Equality Bill becomes law. Is the Church really going to turn its back on them, in defiance of its founder’s call to his followers to let the little children come to him and to welcome the kingdom in the shape of a child? Who is going to ensure that true respect is paid to the dignity of those children and that they are treated fairly: with the justice that is of the kingdom?

That justice is expressed through right judgement. Hitherto, the Church has judged that gay couples are intrinsically unsuited to become parents through adoption. Is the Church always right in making this judgement? The Church’s position is based on an a priori and its established teaching: that because gay sex is ‘morally wrong’, gay sexual couples cannot on principle provide the basis for a family life in which children will be brought up to understand and practice sound morality and, one hopes, faith. In this way, the Church might be said to pre-judge the unsuitability of prospective gay parents before it has even taken a look at them.

In theory, this is no more than the consistent application of a universal moral principle. In practice, however, this pre-judgement is inseparable from prejudice: condemning and repudiating others, based on one’s preconceptions of them, before allowing oneself the opportunity to get to know them and respond to their common humanity. It does not matter if those preconceptions are sustained by a moral law that one accepts through faith as ultimately unquestionable if, at a human level, what is at work is a refusal to be open to people who do not share one’s beliefs, culture or lifestyle: a refusal to offer them love, as Christ commands, and not to judge them in case that judgement is also made against oneself.

Despite what has been generally said, the dispute between the Church and the British state over the new legislation centres more on this issue of prejudice than on that of discrimination. Or rather, because there is a perception that the Church is prejudiced against gays and lesbians, its unwillingness to accept applications for adoption from them is interpreted as discrimination based on prejudice against persons of a particular sexual orientation. Technically, of course, it is not discrimination of this sort: it is a rejection of gay adopters on the basis of character, personal values and ‘immoral’ behaviour. You could call this ‘moral discrimination’, i.e. a judicious, rather than prejudicial, differentiation between right and wrong ways of life. And yet, in practice, the distinction between condemning the sin but not the sinner is almost impossible to uphold in this instance. It really is as if because unrepentant sexually active gay persons are adjudged to be in a state of grave sin, they are also considered to be bad people in themselves: unsuited, at any rate, to be awarded custody of other people’s children. But which of us is without sin, even grave sin (or at least the capacity for it)? And does that make us unsuitable as parents?

Secular society, on the other hand, tends to assume that parenthood is a fundamental human right. The concept of human rights rests in part on the belief that all basic human needs are inherently good and should be allowed the freedom to be fulfilled, with the qualification that the exercise of that freedom should not encroach on the freedom and needs of other human beings. The wish to have children and carry out the role of a parent is considered as one such fundamental human need. How one describes that need is quite important, as will become clearer later in this discussion: whether you call it something like the ‘reproductive instinct’ or the ‘need to parent children’. In any case, support for the view that gay couples should enjoy the same adoption rights as straight couples is based on a concept of a ‘right to parenthood’ that is common to all human beings, whether gay or straight. This suggests another way to understand the accusations that Church adoption agencies are discriminating against gay couples by refusing to consider them as potential parents: this is seen as denying them a basic human right.

The Church’s view, of course, is that parenthood is not a right but a privilege or, more strictly, a calling. That calling is itself seen as inseparable from the vocation to marriage, defined as the sexual union of a man and a woman in the love and mystical Body of Christ. So the Church’s opposition to same-sex adoption rests on a logical reasoning to the effect that gay couples cannot have a genuine calling to have children, as their relationship and sexual conduct are of a type that is incompatible with the mystery of conjugal union and the biology of conception, processes which are intended by Christ to take place in unison within the state of matrimony. The existence of a vocation to marry also of course implies a right to marry and have children; but this right is dependent on the vocation and is therefore by definition reserved for straight persons.

On this basis, however, there ought also to be some straight people that the Church would not consider to be suitable or ‘legitimate’ parents: those not capable of sustaining a marriage and / or of giving their children the loving, secure family upbringing they need in order to become morally responsible and personally fulfilled individuals. But would the Church really be prepared to openly declare that such persons either did not have the right, or were not worthy of the right, to be parents? In the past, it could be said that the Church did act in this way by, for instance, stigmatising women who had children out of wedlock and ensuring that their children were taken away from them to be either adopted or brought up in the care of the Church itself. But this is not something that the Church today, at least in secularised and economically developed Western societies, is prepared to articulate openly; nor are such views probably regarded as acceptable any more by the majority of the Church’s members.

If the inability to sustain a marriage and bring up children in a stable family environment is no longer seen as disqualifying one from being a parent, even by the Church, then it is clear that the existence of a marriage has ceased to be a defining criterion for assessing whether a calling to parenthood might exist: the ultimate remaining deciding factor is the biological component of traditional marriage or, more accurately, its socio-biological component – heterosexual sex. It is indeed hard to see how the Church could maintain its insistence on marriage as a sign of a vocation to parenthood in an era when marriage break-downs have become so normal and belief in the Christian foundations of marriage has evaporated to such a large extent. If there is at least heterosexual desire and behaviour present on the part of parents and step-parents, then a theoretical link between a calling and right to parenthood, on the one hand, and a vocation to marriage, on the other, can be posited: it can be said that a core ‘will to marry’ (indissociable from heterosexuality per se) may be present in such couples or individuals. And it is to be hoped that in time, if those unmarried parents come into contact with the right influences (including that of the Church), they might be able to respond to God’s calling for them to marry and thereby ‘legitimise’ their parenthood, so long as it is permissible in Church and / or civil law for them to marry. Ultimately, the Church’s acceptance of unmarried straight parents at least preserves a link between parenthood and the normal biological processes through which parenthood was intended by God to come about – in a time when artificial-conception techniques, surrogacy, cloning and such like threaten even to tear down the last links between the origins of human life, and the love of a man and a woman.

But in a sense, this is wanting to have it both ways: ‘you don’t need to be married to be a suitable parent; but you do need to be straight (linked with an underlying predisposition towards marriage)’. In practice, as I have said, this boils down to identifying the ‘right to parenthood’ with heterosexuality alone. And this in turn is based on a similar but, in fact, more restrictive notion of what human rights rest upon, i.e. the ‘order of nature’. Whereas the secularist would say that the right to parenthood derives from the fact that all human beings – or at least, the great majority – experience the desire or need to become parents, irrespective of their sexual orientation; the Church’s view would appear to be that it is against the order of nature for gay persons to wish to become parents because, in their case, that urge is invested in a form of sexual desire and behaviour that is counter to the natural means that God has created (heterosexual desire and intercourse) for this urge to be realised.

Now, it is possible and, on one level, logical to hold the view that gay sex acts are unnatural and, by that token, morally wrong. But is it necessary to conclude that, because a person has a predisposition to expressing him- or herself homosexually, their wish to become a parent is also unnatural and wrong? It is logical to reach this conclusion only if one believes that such persons’ wish to become parents is an expression of what I have termed their ‘reproductive instinct’, which they in turn are seen to be acting out in their sexual behaviour and relationships, i.e. that they might wish to father or mother children naturally – biologically – through their sex lives. In other words, the judgement that the wish of gay people to be parents is unnatural rests on an assumption that this wish is directly expressed in their sex lives and is indissociable from their attraction to persons of the same sex.

This assumption involves a reduction of sexuality to reproduction (i.e. that it is the same as, or at least always expresses, the reproductive instinct) and an assimilation of gender to anatomical sex. By this, I mean that this view of sexual relations assumes that descriptions of sexual desire and activity as ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ are always unambiguous and absolute: that gay sex always reflects the absolute presence of an underlying desire and personality that one can characterise without ambiguity as ‘homosexual’ and therefore as the diametric opposite of ‘heterosexual’; ‘disordered’ as opposed to ‘ordered’. In order to set up this opposition, it is necessary to assimilate anatomical sex (the possession of the male or female reproductive organs) with psycho-social gender (the possession of a male / masculine or female / feminine gender identity or personality). In other words, on this view, gay sex always involves a man (or a woman, of course) whose gender identity and body are both male (female) being attracted to other men (women) whose identity and body are also perceived by them as male (female).

But does sexuality of any sort – gay or straight – work in this unambiguous way? All people arguably have personalities made up of varying combinations of masculine and feminine characteristics, or what they or society identify as masculine or feminine traits. Equally, men and women – straight as well as gay – are attracted in differing degrees to gender characteristics in other people that are associated with their own sex or gender as much as with the ‘opposite sex’. So it is psychologically accurate, at least, to say that most (perhaps all) heterosexual desire and personalities exhibit aspects of attraction to the same sex or gender, and vice-versa: all homosexuality exhibits characteristics one might normally think of as heterosexual, if one extends the definition of sexual orientation to include the idea of ‘gender orientation’ – attraction to the same or other gender alongside, and combined with, attraction to the other or same sex; and that in almost any combination.

Put more simply and conventionally, sexuality and gender are rarely a straightforward matter of either / or: either gay or straight; either feminine or masculine. On the contrary, they are a continuum. If one accepts this proposition, one implication is that it is no longer possible to uphold the view that ‘homosexual’ desire / activity, and the instinct to reproduce / wish to be a parent that is supposedly indissociable from this homosexuality, are completely unnatural and wrong: in diametrical opposition to heterosexual conduct and procreativity that are fully natural and – when potentially or actually expressed in marriage – morally justified.

What is involved here is not so much a moral validation of active homosexuality but rather a refutation that it is possible to maintain rigid categorial and ontological distinctions between homosexuality and heterosexuality. This is only really a problem, in relation to the Church’s teachings, if it is regarded as an absolute truth that sexual desire and behaviour, the reproductive instinct, and the wish to become parents are all, as it were, co-terminous: that the presence of any of these terms and of the realities they denote always implies the presence of both other terms and realities. Because then – if one accepts the idea of a gender / sexuality continuum as described above – where there is gay desire and behaviour, there would also be (inseparable from that) some element of straight desire and behaviour; and hence, bound up with homosexual activity, there would also be a reproductive instinct and a wish to become a parent that is not just like that of straight persons (analogous to it) but is that of (is the same as that of) straight persons. And, conversely, straight persons’ sexual activity, reproductive instinct and wish to parent could be seen as being really in part homosexual: the expression of a ‘same-sex’ / ‘same-gender’ attraction and union alongside, or bound up with, ‘other-sex’ / ‘other-gender’ desire – the mystery of that complementarity between the same and the other perhaps being best captured in the very conjugal idea of union between male and female, between the self and the other (self).

As I have said, these conceptual difficulties arise only if one regards active homosexuality as necessarily expressing a (by definition, distorted) urge to procreate on the part of persons engaged in it. This is another example of the contradictions one can get caught up in if one has a concept of gay sex that is essentially analogous to the Catholic concept of the purpose of straight sex as realised in marriage: that it is inherently both unitive and procreative (see the discussion on this in my last blog, dated 21 March 2007). At the same time as this analogy is posited by the Church in the very terms in which the phenomena of homosexuality are described (‘union’, ‘procreation’, ‘nature / natural’), its validity is denied. One consequence of this is that there is in fact no formal doctrinal language in which the distinctive lived experience of homosexuality can properly be described, because that experience is simply framed from the outset as the antithesis of meaning and truth: ‘improper’, invalid, disordered, meaningless, without purpose, loveless, divisive (as opposed to unitive), destructive (as opposed to procreative) – dead.

Apart from anything else, the refusal to accept that there is any analogy or overlap between heterosexuality and homosexuality completely ignores the experience of bisexual persons. In order to maintain the rigid separation between heterosexuality and homosexuality, bisexuality would have to be described (if it were described at all) as a form of split personality. A psychologically more accurate way to view bisexuals would be as persons in whom the distinctions between gay and straight (and, to a variable degree, between masculine and feminine) break down more than they do for persons whose sexuality lies more towards the gay or straight end of the spectrum.

The necessity to uphold a rigid ontological distinction between straight and gay exists, as I have indicated, in order to make a clear moral distinction between active heterosexuality and active homosexuality viewed as an inherent expression of the reproductive instinct and / or the wish to be a parent: the one is ‘natural’ and capable of being validated, realised and justified in marriage; the other is unnatural, and is therefore incapable of being realised, redeemed and elevated to the level of a true union in and with Christ through the sacrament of marriage – grave sin. But if one accepts the view I have advanced that the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality is in fact quite loose and fluid, then it makes much more sense to configure the relationship between the various desires and actions involved in a different way. OK, describe gay desire and activity as unnatural (and thereby wrong) if you wish. But surely, the root of what is ‘wrong’ about homosexuality, on this view, is the very dissociation between the gay individual’s or couple’s sex life and any wish they might have to reproduce and / or become parents; not the fact, as implicitly posited in the Church’s teaching, that those persons’ urge to procreate is indissociable from their sexual activity.

So it would be more accurate to describe the situation as one where gay persons do indeed have a reproductive instinct; but instead of this being channelled into sexual relationships and activities which present a strong chance of realising this drive to procreate (marriage or just heterosexual sex), the chosen gay sexual activities and partners are not ones that will enable this instinct to be fulfilled. So you could say that gay sex and relationships, to a significant if unquantifiable degree, precisely do not express the reproductive instinct of the persons involved. But, because of this, the wish of such persons to exercise the role of a parent does not just evaporate and can take expression instead in a desire to become a parent through non-natural means, such as adoption: ‘unnatural’, indeed, but in quite a different sense than that which is intended by the Church.

What can be seen as destructive, disordered and immoral about gay sex is this very splitting of the divinely intended unity between, on the one hand, the sexual expression of the love that two persons have for one another and, on the other, the divinely intended fulfilment of that love in the creation of new life (children) that is ‘of one flesh with’ the two persons that have joined themselves together in love. But if gay sexual desire and activity can be condemned – if they are seen as what manifests and actualises this disjunction and deviation from God’s purpose – must the mutual love of two persons of the same sex, and their wish for that love to be fulfilled in parenthood by means such as adoption, thereby also be inherently damnable? Surely, one condemns such love, or denies its validity or existence, at one’s peril, since love is the outpouring of the Spirit, and to condemn the Spirit is the gravest form of blasphemy. Indeed, it is the wish that some gay couples have for their love to find a more complete expression in parenthood that could in fact be said to reveal the quasi-conjugal and the spiritual character of that love; even if that wish – because of the ‘sin’ of homosexual sex – cannot be realised in the flesh through the union of matrimony and the procreation of children of one’s own. This love, and the associated wish for parenthood, can be seen as truly spiritual in character because – like marriage – it reflects the very mystery of the Trinity: the Spirit as the gift and union of love between the Father and the Son (the husband and wife, the lover and the loved) from which all life proceeds, and in which all life is held.

So it could be said that what is sinful about active homosexuality – if one accepts the proposition that it is ‘sinful’ at all – is that it takes something that God has given us (ultimately, in order to share in his own love, life and work of creation / redemption) and diverts it away from that divine purpose. The lived out effects of this fundamental orientation of the will away from God’s purpose can indeed be disastrous, in that sexual pleasure and self-expression can then appear to be goals in themselves, without any inherent reference to love, the divine and the creation of new life. And this can lead the individual to turn their back on God, and define their sexuality and their goals in life in opposition to God, or to any notion of a calling to serve God and dedicate one’s life to him. But equally, this rejection of God and of faith is also often a reaction to the judgement of Christians that homosexual desire and relationships do indeed place the gay individual in opposition to a Christian way of life and to any possibility of living out a Christian calling – other than a calling which simply denies that sexuality: a vocation to celibacy or an expectation that gay persons could be ‘healed’ and ‘converted’ to heterosexuality.

Far more just and Christian, it seems to me, to take the view that the fact of a person’s being homosexual, or bisexual, opens up the possibility of distinctive ways to witness to, and live out, the love of God – based on the experience of the continuing love and compassion of Christ despite (indeed, in some ways, because of) their sexual sins. And one of the ways in which gay and lesbian persons could be especially suited to witnessing to God’s love is through adoption. This is because it is the sadness (as well as the sin) of homosexuality that a gay couple’s sexually expressed love cannot result in their having children of their own. But if one has followed my arguments up to now, loving gay couples still have a natural (God-given) wish to have and love children as parents, even if not as the natural (biological) progenitors.

If gay persons’ wish to become parents can indeed be prompted by the love of Christ acting through their hearts, whether those persons acknowledge Christ or not (and ultimately, the Church would say that it is its role to determine whether this ‘vocation’ exists), then is the Church really exercising right judgement in automatically excluding the idea that adoption by gay couples could in some – perhaps many – cases be precisely in the best needs of certain children?

I began this article by stating that it is the needs of the children that should be considered as paramount; but I have ended up discussing at length issues of right judgement and justice towards gay persons and couples in this area. But the two questions are not distinct: if an injustice is being committed towards gay couples by automatically ruling them out as adoptive parents, this means that love that would have been given to those children by those prospective parents can no longer be given. And it is not only those adoptive parents’ love that is prevented from being expressed but also God’s loving purpose in calling those gay couples (prompting them in their hearts) to transcend the potential for self-centredness and godlessness inherent in their sexuality; and to realise a form of love that is in its fundamentals (its likeness to divine love) analogous to the love that the real (biological) parents would normally have been expected to give to those children.

If the Church is thus standing in the way of letting children come towards a love that is of God’s kingdom, is it not failing in its redemptive mission? This is not just a mission to let children know they are loved, thus giving them the freedom, perhaps only later in life, to be open to the even greater love of Christ; it is also a mission to engage openly and lovingly with gay persons, and to let them experience the saving truth that they are loved unconditionally by Christ even though they sin. What better lived example of the unconditional love of Christ could there be for gay persons than the unconditional love of a child? Is the Church serving the kingdom by preventing gay couples from encountering that kingdom – indeed, encountering Christ – in the open, loving hearts of children?