Christians being denied for adoptions?

The Alberta government is being taken to court over a decision by the provincial Ministry of Children’s Services to deny a Christian couple’s application to adopt a child. The case is being launched by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms in Calgary. The Centre’s John Carpay says initially, the home study had approved the couple’s application to adopt an older child. However, he says, the government didn’t like couple’s response to the question of how they would respond if the child was same-sex attracted and wanted to “explore their sexuality.” The couple’s response, Carpay says, was that they believed in the Bible, and that they believed sex is a gift reserved for heterosexual marriage, and that they wouldn’t encourage the child to “explore his (or her) sexuality.”

“I think they would say the same thing whether the child was same-sex attracted or opposite-sex attracted,” Carpay says.  Carpay says irrespective of the child’s sexual orientation, the couple made it clear they would love the child “unconditionally”.  In that sense, he says the response was “kind of what you’d expect from evangelical Christians or, for that matter, Muslims, orthodox Jews, practicing Catholics, Sikhs, or Hindus.”

The rejection was actually delivered by the “Catholic Social Services” agency in Edmonton, and Carpay says while that’s disappointing it’s also not surprising. “Ultimately, Catholic Social Services gets over 90% of its funding from government, and they take their marching orders from government… and it was the involvement of the Child and Family government ministry that really made this determination.”

Meantime, Mike Schouten at We Need a Law has been watching this case, and he says illustrates the inconsistency of those who oppose the pro-life message. “It made me think of all the people who, when we’re advocating… for pre-born human rights, will tell us ‘Oh, you Christians only care about people before they’re born, that’s all you care about, you don’t care about them after they’re born, how come you’re not helping them after they’re born.’ And here we have another example of Christians who, out of the goodness of their heart, want to help born children who need a stable home, and then they get told they can’t because their values, their ideologies don’t line up with those of a particular government at the time.”

The case won’t likely end up in court till late next year.