It’s about the child
From John Parfitt
Sir: Matthew Parris should do better than his elegant nonsense about so-called gay adoption (Another voice, 3 February). Until the inclusiveness lobby turned the word ‘discriminating’ into a boo-word, it was a compliment, meaning the ability to know the difference between good and bad, deserving and undeserving; to prefer Beethoven to Big Brother. We all discriminate every day, and why not? We favour the things we like. Likewise, if my Catholic friends wish to run an adoption service for married couples, why not, especially when others are catered for elsewhere? Or will the government now insist that the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society make grants to pranged motorists and that the British Legion welcome conscientious objectors?
John Parfitt
Painswick, Gloucestershire
From Robert Triggs
Sir: Although one would find it hard to believe from Matthew Parris’s article — with its focus on gays, lesbians, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and the Catholic Church, Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly et al. — the most important person in any discussion of any adoption is the child. The adoptive child has been let down, for whatever reasons, at the beginning of his/her life, and that child’s interests must now be paramount.
The researches of child psychiatrists reveal overwhelmingly that a child brought up by a mother and a father — with two distinctive role-models to emulate — has an infinitely better chance of facing the challenges of life as a mature and balanced individual than one brought up by single-sex ‘parents’. Gays and lesbians are becoming increasingly vociferous in demanding their rights — to marry, to bring up children and to enjoy equality of status with heterosexual couples. Maybe they also have an obligation to listen — in this case to the still, small voice of the child.
Robert Triggs
Oxford
Who’s this professor?
From Tom Burkard
Sir: However much educational standards have deteriorated in recent years, it seems that editorial standards have fallen even further (‘Look back in anger’, 3 February). Hansard reveals that only 6.9 per cent of our pupils are educated privately, not 13 per cent, as Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth state. Their expert, ‘Professor Michael Shayler’, if he exists, has published nothing that can be found on Google, and certainly not an article in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. This has the appearance of outright fabrication, and not merely careless reporting.
Tom Burkard
Director, The Promethean Trust
Norwich
My money’s on Mitt
From Michael R.V. Whitman
Sir: James Forsyth says that either John McCain — bound for ever to the Iraq debacle and a major player in the late and unlamented Monkey Congress — or Rudy Giuliani — pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-gay marriage — will be the US Republican nominee (‘Hillary v. Obama is the real race’, 27 January). Not on this planet. Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Give Mr Forsyth my address and tell him I’ll give him the entire field against Romney at even money.
Michael R. V. Whitman
San Francisco, USA
The death of Planet Earth
From Nick Reeves
Sir: Charles Moore is wrong to suggest that environmentalists are predicting the end of Planet Earth unless we act now on climate change (The Spectator’s Notes, 3 February). If the planet dies, that will likely be for other reasons. Failure to mitigate the worst effects of a warming world will lead to a new geological era that will cause the decline of western lifestyles. Many people will die or become environmental migrants. That is what environmentalists are saying. And, sadly, it will probably take a natural catastrophe in the USA or Europe before the developed world is spooked into action.
Nick Reeves
Executive Director, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management,
London WC1
A time-honoured trade
From David Roberts
Sir: What’s all the fuss about selling honours? They’ve always been for sale. In The Inimitable Jeeves (1924) Bingo’s uncle is raised to the peerage. ‘A gracious Sovereign has been pleased to bestow on me a signal mark of his favour in the shape of — ah — peerage’. Later Bingo tells Bertie, ‘…that peerage cost the old devil the deuce of a sum. Even baronetcies have gone up frightfully nowadays, I’m told.’
David Roberts
London NW1
Just blame the Zionists
From Alexander Massey
Sir: Israel guilty of destabilising ‘not just the Middle East but much of the rest of the world’ (Jonathan Sumption, Books, 3 February)? Sure, and global warming is all the Zionists’ fault as well.
Alexander Massey
London N1
Blast from the 1960s
From Sir Tim Rice
Sir: I was thrilled beyond measure to see a cartoon in this week’s Spectator which could only be appreciated by those familiar with the Marcels’ 1961 No. 1 hit ‘Blue Moon’. That was a terrific year for popular music and I hope your pictorial humourists will soon be making us chuckle with gags that depend upon an interest in Del Shannon, the Everly Brothers and Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry.
Tim Rice
London SW13
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