Catholic adoption agencies that each year find hundreds of families for orphaned or abandoned children could be discriminated against by proposed new legislation of the British government aimed at guaranteeing the rights of homosexuals. The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales raise the danger of possible discrimination in a document they have just delivered to the British government in which they explain that Catholic agencies could be penalized because they refuse to entrust children to gay couples. According to the Bishops, the new legislation, still under discussion, does not distinguish between homophobia and religious conviction and could have a negative impact on a series of religious organizations, from parishes to schools. The new rules, which ought to be finalized in the autumn, would make discrimination on the basis of sex or race illegal and are aimed at providing protection for homosexuals who, in some cases, have been denied goods and services due to their sexual orientation. The fear of the Catholic Bishops is that the exceptions that the law would provide would not sufficiently safeguard the twelve Catholic adoption agencies that were responsible for the adoption of 220 children last year. The Bishops ask that the law should also provide safeguards for agencies, such as the Catholic ones, that do not take homosexuals into consideration as couples eligible to adopt children, since this is at variance with the criteria laid down by the Church. If this attitude is considered discriminatory by the law, the Catholic agencies could be closed down, maintain the Bishops.
