Catholic parents fight gay couple’s adoption

Catholic parents fight gay couple’s adoption

THE NSW Supreme Court has allowed a same-sex couple to adopt a four-year-old girl despite her Catholic birth parents’ opposition.

The girl has been raised by lesbian foster parents since the age of six months. The couple wanted to adopt her legally, but it was opposed by the birth family because the foster parents would not commit to a Catholic upbringing.

The court heard that the birth mother is “a practising Catholic and she is not comfortable with the placement of [the child] with the proposed adoptive parents because of her upbringing and religious values.”

The birth father also told the court he was from a Catholic family and wanted his daughter raised in the faith.

The gay couple have been in a stable relationship for almost a decade. They told the court they couldn’t raise the girl Catholic due to the religion’s opposition to gay relationships.

Various experts testified that the child saw her foster parents as family and breaking that attachment would cause psychological harm.

Justice John Sacker found the birth parents were incapable of caring for the child and ruled that the foster parents be allowed to adopt her.

He said that while the law required cultural and religious ties to be preserved “as far as possible”, those factors should not outweigh the child’s best interests.

“While the birth parents’ religious beliefs must be respected, the proposed adoptive parents’ attitude to the Catholic faith requires equal respect,” he said.

The court also ruled that the child’s surname should be changed to that of her adoptive parents.

Adoption by same-sex couples has been permitted in NSW since 2010.

You May Also Like

4 responses to “Catholic parents fight gay couple’s adoption”

  1. What an excellent outcome in terms of upholding gay adoption right here in NSW! Will the NSW Supreme Court grant same-sex marriage next? I and my partner of 18 years was in the US in front of the SCOTUS, when the 5-4 ruling on same-sex marriage was breaking news at 10.04am local time on 26 June, 2015. We here in Australia are usually smarter and more ahead of the US on LGBTI and other social issues, but this is no longer the case. This has to change for the better!

  2. The sheer audacity here it almost unbelievable except I was raised catholic so I can understand where they think they are coming from. Directly from God!! They are incapable of caring for a child and yet seem to think they can still insist it is raised catholic. Being catholic has worked out for them teaching them important life lessons like humility, tolerance, acceptance, love, peace, thankfulness, sharing and open mindedness.

  3. This case alone could set up common-law precent on other jurisdictions within Australia. This is welcome news. The Northern Territory however still bans both gay couples and unmarried heterosexual couples from adopting children, the only place within Australia to have this archaicness ban from 1994.

  4. Sorry…these birth parents were deemed unfit to be parents. For this reason they should have nothing to say about the rearing of the child. We have adopted three children and each of the their birth parents were “car crashes”. We only know where one is today…prison.