Where did I ever say that? I didn't.
I said that any adoption agency must put the child's best interest first and therefore look for the best adoptive family regardless of sexuality, marital status etc.
Actually refusing to countenance gay, unmarried or single people as adopters is much more likely to result in the child remaining in an orphanage as it would reduce the potential pool of adopters.
The problem though is that people don't agree on
what is best for the child.
I'm sure the RC agencies in their own way, think that by placing a child in a model stable family, they are
doing the best for the child.
I'm surprised they allow prospective parents to be other than RC. ( following their seeming logic)
The only way I excuse
discrimination in this respect is if the original parents have left such instructions in their wills etc.
An example would be a set of black parents who wanted their child ( should something happen to them) to be brought up by a black couple who shared their ethnic identity and language.
Or if they are of a faith/ religion and want their child brought up in it, which I think was the original idea of God parents.
It does of course run across some socially unacceptable ideas, which is discrimination.
However I do think parents should be able to have some say, and they should be listened to.
My only experience was with a foster child of 15 who gave her child away for adoption.
She met the future parents and she did have some say, so I think the state does sometimes listen, for all the horror stories that you can find on the Internet.
Parents also may have ideas on what is best for their offspring.
There are lots of children who need a loving home and as a standard there should be no discrimination ( unless the parents have left instructions.)
I think it is sometimes important to adopted children to have a sense of roots and the past.
I have only known one person who really didn't care, most I have come across do a lot of searching.
Giving parents some say, or allowing them some requests gives the child a link with their past, rather than uprooting them.
I wouldn't have wanted my two children brought up by very strict religious parents for example, Scientologists or JW or even Catholic.
It is discrimination, but I wouldn't have wanted them to go to someone ( like the evangelist Christians that Floo describes).
I would have wanted someone who was broader in their religious outlook, with an open and enquiring attitude. Atheists wouldn't be excluded but JW would have been.
When you have children you don't want them brought up by some religious code if you feel it's damaging.
In that way, I feel parents should be able to discriminate.
However it's different when agencies discriminate, because it's institutional discrimination and has nothing to do with the parents.
I can't help it, I discriminate, that's because I love my children.
I'm sure the truth is, as parents we all have situations which we would be unhappy about should something have happened to us.
On one hand I
get the whole agency discrimination thing on the other, I feel it's something only parents should do and then only if they feel strongly.
