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Catholic agency bucks gay law

The Catholic Church has been accused of acting “above the law” after it emerged it is to use a legal loophole to allow its Scottish adoption agency to reject same-sex couples.

The church’s St Margaret’s Adoption and Child Care Society in Glasgow has changed its constitution to rely on laws which ban discrimination on religious grounds to continue its policy of assessing only single people and heterosexual married couples as adoptive parents.

The constitution has been reworded in a way that refers specifically to the society’s religious character. The move is in response to the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs), approved by MPs at Westminster in January 2007, which made it illegal under the 2006 Equality Act to discriminate against gay people in the provision of goods and services.

Lawyers said the move by the Glasgow agency, whose president is Mario Conti, Archbishop of Glasgow, would allow it to comply with the SORs and be protected under the Equality Act 2006, which prevents local authorities from discriminating against groups on religious grounds.

It would also be protected by the Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Full story at the Sunday Times.