The state of Massachusetts recently forced the Catholic Church out of the business of placing children in the homes of couples seeking to adopt. Maggie Gallagher writes about the ramifications of gay "marriage," and so-called anti-discrimination laws (which always seem to end up discriminating against someone), in the new issue of the Weekly Standard. Scary stuff!

To comply with state law, Catholic Charities of Boston would have to violate church law. Catholic Charities refuses to place children in homes without both a mother and a father. The state demands that they do this, by allowing homosexuals to use their services to adopt children. The state won't allow for a religious exemption to its anti-discrimination statutes, so now Catholic Charities of Boston, one of the oldest and largest providers of adoption services in the Bay State, cannot get licensed to provide adoptions in Massachusetts. Religious liberty suffers. Children suffer. Adult babies, who place their own selfish desires ahead of children in need of normal families, win. Adoption thus becomes about the "rights" of adults to experience parenthood, and not about the needs of children to parents--mother and father.

Gallagher writes: "a mere two years after the introduction of gay marriage in America, a number of latent concerns about the impact of this innovation on religious freedom ceased to be theoretical. How could Adam and Steve's marriage possibly hurt anyone else? When religious-right leaders prophesy negative consequences from gay marriage, they are often seen as overwrought. The First Amendment, we are told, will protect religious groups from persecution for their views about marriage." But gay marriage in Massachusetts tells a different story. The introduction of state-endorsed homosexual unions, forced on the commonwealth by four judges, resulted in the curtailment of the religious liberties of Catholics.

What's next?

Will the state compel churches to perform same-sex marriages? Will the state shut down private schools that have codes of conduct offensive to homosexuals? Will one man's freedom of speech become cause for another man's harassment lawsuit?

Perhaps, and the prospect doesn't seem to bother Georgetown Law professor Chai Feldblum: "Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner." Don't religious people have dignity worth affirming, or at least tolerating?

This would seem to be an appropriate book for the subject: Rights Talk : The Impoverishment of Political Discourse

Do see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you #@!$ a stranger in the ASS?

That quote from the G-town law prof is absurdly stupid and unreflective. I'm sure the guy is brilliant, but some people are just blinded by their politics.

I've spoken to Mr. Feldblum on many occasions discussing everything from his academic pursuits to social responsibility. I due say he is and odd chap. How should I put it....when Chai Feldblum burps he actually farts...quite repulsive.

So is Georgetown Catholic? It is just too convenient for the anti-Christian avatars of sexual revolution, in this case sodomy, to have advocates prominently placed at Catholic universities. Prof. Feldblum (she is a woman H.S., you shoulda read the article) simply should not be teaching at a Catholic university. It is scandalous.

Oh, but here I am advocating discrimination in the hiring practices of Catholic universities. I think I just committed a "hate crime." Shoot.

We Boomers have done such a stellar job skewing reality by making our own selfish little world.

We've gone from the Greatest Generation to the Weakest Generation.

Dan, you forgot this quote from Chai Feldblum:
"I do believe a state should be permitted to withhold tax exempt status, as in the Bob Jones case, from a group that is clearly contrary to the state's policy. But to go further and say to a group that it is not permitted to engage in a particular type of work, such as adoptions, unless it also does adoptions for gay couples, that's a heavier hand from the state. And I would hope we could have a dialogue about this and not just accusations of bad faith from either side."

But to respond to the quote you gave, yeah, I don't like what she said. I believe that when two rights seem to be in conflict, at least one of the two has been mis-framed to create that illusion. And if anyone asks you to prioritize one over the other, they are manipulating you (either intentionally or without realizing). But by applying clear and rational thought, you can sort out the framing and clear the conflict.

In this case, the church has the right to believe what they believe and they have the right to express their beliefs. The church can even provide adoption services, but they have to meet the same standards that any other organization would. If they choose not to provide adoption, that is their own choice. Just because they were in the business before the new standards went into effect, it doesn't mean they are entitled to continue operating without implementing those standards.

We do have state-provided standards for adoption, and they are for the children. Children must not be placed into a bad home with unfit parents. We have to judge the merit of potential adopters before we hand them a baby, and we do it entirely for the sake of the children. But prejudices aren't justified, and they distract us from quality evaluation. To put it simply: While we are required to judge the merit of potential adopters, they should not be judged the orientation of their sexuality, but by the content of their character.

Brian Rogers: (1) The Boston Church isn't in this case judging potentially adoptive households according to the people's "orientation" -- or even necessarily what they DO with their bodies (which is certainly relevant to their character), but according to whether the households have a father and a mother.

(2) You base your argument on the state's right to have standards, for the child's sake, about the type of people who get to adopt. But in this case the problem is NOT failing to meet state standards, but of EXCEEDING standards. The Church of Boston enforces a more stringent standard than the state demands, and perversely that is why they aren't allowed to facilitate adoptions any more.

(3) Some discrimintation is morally justified, and some isn't. By calling discrimination against two homosexuals who want to experience child raising "prejudice" you are begging the question, assuming (a) that this hasn't been rationally thought through, (b) that it is immoral. You are wrong on both counts.

Yes Brian R.,

Let's make sure to frame rules for adoption that put the welfare and safety of the children first. Therefore, we do not have the luxury of pretending that homosexuals can capably raise children. Reality doesn't work that way. Here is the testimony of an adult child of a homosexual man and his various lovers:

http://www.ncregister.com/articulo4.php?artkod=NDM2

Everything she points out is completely obvious to anyone with the slightest knowledge of or acquaintance with homosexuals. To pretend otherwise is irrational, self-serving (it makes liberal heteros feel superior to conservatives), and constitutes endangerment of children.

Skeptic is dead on. This is a clear case of liberal intolerance and anti-Catholic legislating. Of course, the victims of this will be the children who remain unadopted and those who grow up sexually confused and morally stunted by exposure to the homo subculture.

Skeptic:

1. You have a point there, that this is another mis-framed issue. The church is simply requiring both a mother and a father. Therefore technically, they are not discriminating based on sexual orientation. They are, however, basing their decision on the genders of the people wanting to adopt, and that is sex discrimination.

2. First, to nitpick, it is not the state's "right", it is their duty. Second, it is a fallacy to say that just by adding more restrictions they achieve a better standard. You could pledge to abstain from sex, then I could match that and promise not to eat animals, then you could top that by not eating or using animal products. Then I could abstain from football, and you could refuse to answer your phone on Fridays. But unless we can explain how the behavior we swore off is immoral, the only thing we've increased about our moral code is its word count.

3. Some discrimination is justified, due to the word "discrimination" being fairly broad. I did not use that word, though. I used "prejudice", and I will now give the definition from dictionary.com:

Prejudice: An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts.

In this case, the adoption organization in question comes to the judgment that a person or couple isn't fit to raise children, without actually testing their fitness. The couple could be quizzed on their parenting knowledge, their home environment could be inspected, and people from the church could talk to friends of the couple as character references. But when the two people are of the same sex, it is an immediate disqualification; the church is assuming something they don't actually know about the individuals, based on a generalization. Instead of acquiring knowledge specific to the individuals, they make an assumption. That is prejudice.

As far as the accusation of begging the question goes, keep in mind that there are many issues here: Whether the discrimination is moral, whether it is legal, and whether it should be legal. In addition, there's the issue of simply understanding what each other's positions are, as well as understanding the general liberal and conservative positions. Any comment that addresses at least one of these issues is worth it, even if that comment is begging the question as far as another issue is concerned. Now that I've said that, I'm ready to address the other Brian's response.

Brian:

First, every belief is self-serving in the sense that the believer feels they know something that people who don't share the belief don't know. Even more when the belief relates to morals.

Second, the link you gave is an anecdote. All it shows is that it is possible for a homosexual man to be a bad parent, and that there is at least one that was. It does not justify your statement that refers to homosexuals in a collective sense and generalizes the entire group as incapable of raising children properly. You also seem to allude to some personal experience, but you word it in a way that suggests that anyone else's personal experience would be the same as yours. I guarantee you that people will have all kinds of personal experiences that are different from yours. The reason is that personal experience is anecdotal.

Finally, you should take the time to understand a position, even if you don't agree with it. You referred to the anti-discrimination law as intolerant and anti-Catholic, implying that it was created by some evil mean-spirited liberals to bully the Catholic church. Yet it is well-known that liberals believe government should treat gays (and other people/groups) equally, giving them equal rights and standing in our society, and making laws to protect that equal standing. You may not agree with this opinion, but you need to recognise that it alone is enough reason for liberals to ban discrimination against gays for adoption. No need to make up ulterior motives.

Brian R:
2. To nitpick: I didn't say exceeding the standard meant improving the standard. They are certainly exceeding state standards; I also think they are improving them, but I didn't equate the two. The argument would imvolve whether their additional criteria do in fact improve their chances of finding good adoptive parents.
3. Is this prejudice? Well, it has been "rationally thought through" (my words) rather than being merely "formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts" (dictionary.com). You can disagree with the church's considered judgment that a kid does better with a mom and a dad, but that doesn't make it a predudice. The question is whether the discrimination against adopting households without a mother and father is rationally thought through. It has been. Now, you imply it is prejudice because they are using it as a criteria rather than looking at each homosexual couple de novo. NB: the way you seem to be using 'prejudice' would make all standardized criteria prejudices--do you want to do that? All generalizations must be rejected as unresponsible? Seems like the state might not be able to enforce standard at all, then.

Brian R.

Your first point is a cynical paean to moral relativism. However, if you want to affect that stance than why claim for government the role of defending human rights in the form of "equal rights" in society? You are simply despising reason by refusing to allow your political philosophy, grounded in an abstract moral equivalence of all persons, to be subject to criticism. That is terribly "illiberal" of you (classically understood of course).

As to your second response, of course the anecdote I linked to was an anecdote. What is useful about anecdotes is not the particular facts but the universals that one can discern through studying them. Again you strike a wholly skeptical tone: "personal experience is anecdotal." Whereby, you reduce political action to simply the application of completely abstract principles which are apparently not up for debate and clearly not derived from experience of nature/reality. Presumably, as a liberal, you would maintain that these "principles" are "self-evident" and the product of an enlightened mind. While this angle is illuminating regarding the parochial and imperious mindset of the liberal it does nothing to settle the controversy at hand. One universal truism taken from the anecdote of Dawn Stefanowicz's upbringing is that "It’s important that a little girl sees her gender valued." Or "Little boys need to see how their father relates to their mother." According to you "father" and "mother" are non-gendered terms (since you believe restricting adoption to married couples to be sex discrimination), but you have decided to not provide argumentation for such an unnatural claim. The burden of proof "a rebours" is on your position; which seeks to overturn the testimony of common sense and consistent experiences of the vanity and confusion at the heart of the homosexual compulsion.

Third my reference to the law being anti-Catholic was not to "imply" any particular viewpoints to those pushing for it and enacting it. The law itself *is* in itself an act of discrimination towards Catholics who are being coerced into accepting the very abstract principle of "equal treatment" and "equal standing" which you hide behind as a lofty ideal which apparently ends all debate as regards any legislation cloaked with the vaunted aim of ensuring said "equality."

From the lofty heights of (Jacobin) idealism it is easy to avoid the hard work of arguing for a morally prudent course of legislation as regards adoption policy. Again, all that gets sacrificed in this is the welfare of innocent children. But who cares about that when there are more important issues at hand, such as assuaging the vanity of the homosexual in the name of "equality."

Skeptic:

2. What else could 'exceeding' mean? It sounds like a good thing, like "above and beyond", but it ultimately has ambiguous meaning. The most accurate and meaningful way I can think of to describe the church's standard is that it is more restrictive (or less inclusive) than the state's.

Any unnecessary exclusion of adoptive parents lowers the standard that is being met. By limiting adoption to just opposite-sex couples, the church reduces the number of children that find new homes. They underperform.

3. Standardized criteria would be things like the driving age. To say that everyone under 16 lacks the physical and mental maturity to safely drive a car would be a generalization. But passing a law requiring a minimum age to drive isn't necessarily the same as making this generalization. The law could instead be justified by a practical concern, in which case we accept the imperfect law because it is still an improvement over the status quo. In the case of driving, it makes sure people mature a bit more than they otherwise would before they start driving, therefore reducing the number of car accidents and the resulting injuries and fatalities.

Though I don't see it as perfect, I accept the notion of having criteria like that in law. On the other hand, with issues like employment, housing, and adoption, there are social ramifications of discrimination to consider. The point is that people should get a chance to qualify for the important opportunities in life. Especially when the government is managing something (like adoption), they have an obligation to their citizens not to discriminate, and to delegate the task only under the terms of non-discrimination.

But to get back to prejudice, no I don't believe the church has thought their position out. If they did, they would have something to show for it, yet all I have ever seen them give is biblical arguments and appeals to the authority of doctrine and tradition.

Brian X:

Moral relativism? I don't believe in moral relativism, so it's hard for me to tell where you saw it. You are talking about the first point I addressed specifically to you, right?

You had said that everything in a given article was totally obvious to anyone, and you said that any contrary belief is self-serving. In fact, you actually used the word "pretend", implying that liberals don't even believe it, but are lying. Put simply, you attacked the people holding a position rather than attacking the position. It is also a strawman to suggest bad reasons for another person to believe what he believes, and serves no constructive purpose in debate.

I chose to respond to that by pointing out that the same argument could be made against you, or against anyone holding any belief. It's a generic argument that can be used against anything.

You misunderstand my position. I'm not trying to claim that everyone is equal. My philosophy is not based on that notion. But I believe that everyone should have equal opportunity. This means that you shouldn't be assumed to be unintelligent because somebody else was unintelligent. A single parent shouldn't be assumed to be incapable of parenthood because some other single parent did a bad job. And society shouldn't form stereotypes and push everyone toward conformance with them.

I never said that "mother" and "father" are non-gendered terms. I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. I'll have to get back to you on Dawn Stefanowicz, as I could probably write a lot and I've already waited long enough before finishing and posting this response.

Is the law anti-Catholic? Some people say that gays have the same rights as the rest of us because they, like everyone else, are allowed to marry the opposite sex. I agree with them. That logic is fine. My objection to laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples is that they require the government to engage in sex-discrimination. Men are discriminated against because they are not allowed to marry men, even though women can, and women are discriminated against because they are not allowed to marry women, even though men can. Similar to gays, the Catholic Church has the same right as any other organization to provide non-discriminatory adoption. However, there is no law specifically barring Catholic involvement in adoption, like there is barring men from marrying men and women from marrying women.

Brian R.: Wow, talk about backsliding.

(a) Now you are condemning "discrimination" (when you've already granted that some discrimination is justified).

(b) You are once again calling something you disagree with a "prejudice" that clearly doesn't fit the definition because the people holding it have thought it through SO thoroughly. Catholics using the BIBLE to defend their adoption position? (1) I doubt you have heard much of this, because generally it is not how Catholics construct arguments about natural law (this is not a matter of positive divine law); (2) that still wouldn't make it a prejudice. Perhaps you should remember a bit about how well developed (even if you disagree with it) Catholic moral philosophy and theology are before you say that their position here isn't thought through.

(c) All law and policy is both discriminatory and prejudicial in the sense of being general (based on standardized criteria), and has the typical fault of generalizations -- sometimes the particular doesn't quite fit perfectly. Now there is nothing in principle different about the justice of having a standardized driving age and that of the homosexual adoptive parents standard.

(d) Notice that you are appealing to what Dan's title makes fun of. Instead of arguing about the in/justice of the Church's criterion measured by the standard of what's good for the adopted children, you argue in the end for the in/justice of the criterion based on what's good for the adopting people-- you want gay couples to have "the important opportunities in life." But again, that is a derivative question, one that is not interesting until we have concluded that the Church's criterion doesn't serve children well. You have, as yet, presented no argument to that effect yet. Is your rejection of their claim reasonably thought through? I haven't seen the reasoning. May I say it??? --"prejudice."