Gay Adoption Vote Due For Lords

New rules requiring religious adoption agencies to accept gay couples as adoptive parents are due to be debated in the House of Lords. Church leaders say Parliament has not had enough time to debate the changes, part of the new Equality Act.

The Church of England’s General Synod has written to bishops in the Lords asking them to oppose the measures. But all Labour and Liberal Democrat peers are being told to vote for them, making a government defeat unlikely.

The Bishop of Winchester, the Right Reverend Michael Scott-Joynt, has said the rights of gay people have been allowed to trump those of others. But the government insists standard parliamentary procedure has been followed, and argues the reforms are necessary to combat discrimination.

The Equality Act is due to come into effect in England, Wales and Scotland in April. It outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of sexual orientation.

The Catholic Church sought earlier this year to persuade ministers not to bring the regulations – passed in the Commons last year – into force. They said they would have to shut adoption agencies, which handle some of the most difficult-to-place children, rather than act contrary to its beliefs.

However, after reports of heated battles in Cabinet, the government announced it would push ahead with bringing the regulations into force without an exemption for faith-based adoption agencies.

Although there was no exemption, Tony Blair said religious agencies would be given a 21 month transitional period to prepare for the new laws. He said the hope was that extra time would allow expertise and knowledge to be passed onto the secular sector, rather than being lost altogether.

A similar attempt in the Lords to overturn similar laws in Northern Ireland failed earlier this year.