Liz suggests

Email registration

Free weekly email update

Great products and special offers for Spectator readers

Click here for great value reader offers and events

Click here for the latest Spectator Wine Offers

The adoption of an oppressive law

Wednesday, 31st October 2007

It is now the case that if you sit on an adoption panel in Britain, you may no longer act in the best interests of children by insisting upon placing them for adoption with a mother and a father; nor may you freely exercise your conscientious refusal to place them in a household where you suspect their interests might be harmed. Today, the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled against Andrew McClintock, a Justice of the Peace and a member of an adoption panel. He had asked to be relieved of the duty to hear cases which might raise the possibility of children being handed to same-sex couples for adoption. This was because

...he considered that there was insufficient evidence that this was in the child’s best interests and he felt that children should not be treated like guinea pigs in the name of politically correct legislation.

Since the Department of Constitutional Affairs refused to allow him exercise this conscientious objection, McClintock had no option but to resign from the adoption panel. As he is a Christian, he believed that this constituted discrimination and harassment. The Tribunal ruled not only that this was not the case, since McClintock had not indicated that his objections were rooted in any religious or philosophical belief, but that the DCA

was justified in requiring him to carry out the full duties of the office in accordance with his judicial oath.

But that oath requires those who swear it to

‘…do right to all manner of People, after the laws and usage of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.’

McClintock believed that he would not be doing right to children by placing them for adoption in same-sex households. He argued:

‘It is possible to argue that a child is likely to thrive in same-sex households. What is much more difficult to argue, however, is that, in the present state of knowledge, such a placement is anything other than experimental. There is no quantity of research that can say “this arrangement has been tried, and found to prepare the child for adulthood as well as an upbringing in a household that is single parent or traditionally heterosexual.” Accordingly, and irrespective of our views of the arrangement in itself, the question arises: Is not a placement of that kind an experiment in social science? Is it possible to accept the statutory obligation to remove a child from one kind of harm, and then to place that child where the emotional atmosphere has unproven consequences and where the risk of being teased at school (for having two daddies) could easily be harmful? …’

The Appeal Tribunal rejected this argument on the grounds that McClintock had brought his case

on the basis of the matter which concerned him being under-researched.

This is disingenuous to a high degree. The overwhelming weight of evidence is that children do best if they are brought up by their mother and father. The reason adopted children do so well is that this situation as replicated as closely as possible. As far as I know, there are no reliable studies of same–sex adoptions, for the obvious reason that they are such a new phenomenon. There is a small body of research into same-sex parenting, although most of this is into lesbian households with virtually no studies of parenting by two gay men. This data, inadequate as it is, has nevertheless raised some concerns about the interests of children in such households.

So McClintock was absolutely right to characterise same-sex adoption placements as a social experiment, with the most vulnerable of children used as guinea-pigs. It is now clear that the DCA is not only happy for the most vulnerable of children to be used in this way – it insists upon it. Anyone who objects cannot serve on adoption panels. There is thus no possibility whatever of conscientious objection.

The original tribunal said in its judgment:

‘…To have allowed the Appellant, or anyone else for that matter, to opt out cases where they disapproved or were less than enamoured with the law because of their views on a particular matter or because their conscience would not allow them to consider doing something, would have been abdication of the responsibilities of those whose task it is to uphold the administration of justice in this country. Even if a Judge personally has particular views on any subject, he or she must put those views to the back his or her mind when applying the law of the land impartially as their judicial oaths of office require them to do. It is the only way the public can place any trust in the law. To allow Judges with a particular point of view the ability to avoid cases which come before them because they feel it will likely cause them embarrassment or difficulty could, apart from anything else, impose greater burdens on others or lead to a situation whereby another pool of Judges with views in another direction might have to sit and adjudicate on such cases. The Respondent’s stance was therefore wholly proportionate and wholly justified and, in our view, wholly necessary. In a country where there is such a diverse range of opinions and beliefs held and expounded by people from many religions and walks of life, it would be invidious were judges to pick and choose which cases they were prepared to sit on. It would undermine the basis of our judicial system, one that ‘warts and all’ has served people well for a very long time.’

The tribunal had a short memory. During the miners’ strike in 1984 there were magistrates who were allowed to ‘recuse’ themselves from hearing public order cases against striking miners on the grounds that they were members of the miners’ union and therefore sympathetic to their cause. And in any event, insisting that the law must be applied regardless ignores the fact that such a law may be in conflict with another law. For example, the Children Act enjoins public authorities to act in the best interests of the child. That is exactly what McClintock thought he was doing.

This is but another example of how the law is being used as a wrecking ball against mainstream western moral values and the interests of the vulnerable. A law passed ostensibly to eradicate prejudice and discrimination actually discriminates instead against those who want to protect the interests of the vulnerable and defend mainstream social mores. This is not an expansion of freedom but its eclipse.