Parental dispute

Tim Hopkins (Letters, 28 January) says that “research shows that children do as well with two parents of the same sex as with mixed-sex parents”. I would be interested to hear more about this “evidence”.

“Same-sex parents” are not parents. The term has been invented to conceal the impossibility of gay couples being parents. It is an attempt to give legal reality to a fiction: two people of the same sex cannot be parents except in the reduced sense of emotional and educational roles.

The term “parents” includes the anthropological distinction between men and women; it is a “sexed” term, with sexual 
difference at its heart. To accept the term “same-sex parents” means to get rid of the biological, corporal meaning which is intrinsic to the term, and it would be extremely unlikely that a child could ever find his identity in relation to them.

A child needs to know he is the product of the loving union of a man, his father, and a woman, his mother, thanks to the sexual difference of his parents. Adopted children, too, know they are the products of the love and desire of their parents, even if it is not their parents who are raising them. Mr Hopkins is correct when he says “the needs of children should be paramount”, however, what is happening here is that children are no longer the subjects of rights, but objects which people claim to have a right to.

Martin Conroy

Oldhamstocks

East Lothian

Tim Hopkins of the self-styled “Equality Network” rightly states that “the needs of children should be paramount in the adoption system”. And yet the Equality Network, National Secular Society et al, support and campaign for the closure of Catholic (and other Christian) adoption agencies, which dare to believe that children are better off with a mother and father.

As a result, thousands of children have not been placed within loving homes which could have provided for their needs. Once again, the ideological approach of the new moralists trumps common sense and practical considerations.

It seems that some are more equal than others.

David Robertson
Solas CPC
St Peters Free Church

St Peter Street
Dundee

Dr Stephen Moreton (Letters, 28 January) may not be entirely accurate in suggesting the Catholic Church maintains opposition to equality for gay people.

Having been opposed to civil partnerships when they were first introduced a few years earlier, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nicholls, said at a bishops’ conference in November 2011: “We would want to emphasise that civil partnerships actually provide 
a structure in which people of the same sex who want a lifelong relationship [and] a 
lifelong partnership can find their place and protection and legal provision.

“As a Church, we are very committed to the notion of equality so that people are treated the same across all the activities of life. The Church holds great store by the value of commitment in relationships and undertakings that people give.”

These “activities of life” include the right to be considered for adopting children.

The Archbishop has also previously confirmed that Catholic adoption agencies have placed children with single gay people.

Alistair McBay

National Secular Society

Atholl Crescent

Edinburgh