Minister says British govt unlikely to allow Catholic adoption agencies to bar gay couples

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday that the government will announce a decision next week on a proposed regulation, opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, barring discrimination against gay couples wanting to adopt children.

Blair personally favors the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt, but in a statement being issued Thursday, he did not declare whether he was for or against giving the church the exemption it has sought from the regulation, his office said.

The issue will be put to a vote in Parliament within a month, his office said.

Church officials said earlier this week that Catholic adoption agencies would be forced to shut down if they are made to consider gay couples as prospective parents, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the church in England and Wales, wrote a letter to Blair asking for an exemption.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson said the government was unlikely to grant the request despite protests from Catholic and Anglican leaders.

"I've never seen the case for an exemption,'' Johnson said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "To me this is legislation to prevent discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and you cannot do that and at the same time allow discrimination in one area.''

Asked about Blair's position, Johnson said: "I don't think the prime minister is in favor of an exemption.''

In his letter, published on Tuesday, Murphy-O'Connor said the church believed "it would be unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics for the government to insist that if they wish to continue to work with local authorities, Catholic adoption agencies must act against the teaching of the church and their own consciences by being obliged in law to provide such a service.''

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Archbishop of York John Sentamu, the leaders of the Church of England, subsequently sided with the cardinal.

"The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning,'' they said in a letter to Blair.

The government said last year, when it began a consultation process on the proposed regulation, that it saw no case for an exemption, Johnson said.

"The argument comes from the consultation and the Catholic Church who wrote a very public letter saying we deserve an exemption,'' Johnson said.

"That means we have to debate the issues when there's a very clear response and a sensitive issue involving one particular faith group. They are entitled to make their response, and we are entitled to debate that and that's what we do in Cabinet all the time,'' he said.