Some Are More Equal
Ruth Kelly, the Communities Minister, somehow tends to get the tag '"Equality minister" attached to her role too, even though she appears to be the very epitome of one who believes in equality only as far as it doesn't affect her family or conflict with her religious indoctrination.
The Minister, possibly the nearest thing to pure evil in a Cabinet seat since David Blunkett was bounced again (though John Reid is obviously a serious contender), is once again displaying her willingness to put her minority religious views ahead of the just treatment of people in the society she's meant to represent as a whole, by attempting to create exemptions to the laws designed to ensure that lesbians and gay men cannot be refused access to services on the basis of their sexuality. Specifically: that Catholic adoption organisations can refuse to place children with lesbian and gay couples even though British law says that they can legally adopt.
Setting aside the sheer strangeness of any gay couple actually going to a Catholic agency in the first place, the job of an agency is surely to identify which would-be adopters will offer the best, most loving, supportive, understanding and stable environment for a child, none of which should be fundamentally affected by their sexuality. And what about gay kids and their need to be understood and accepted without judgement? Presumably the Catholic church would rather hang on to them and beat it out of them before passing them on to 'normal' parents, or if it's a boy hand him over to one of the priesthood for their own special brand of care and education.
As reported in today's Independent:
Ms Kelly refuses to say whether she regards homosexuality as a sin. She has defended failing to vote for civil partnerships or gay adoption on the grounds that they are "issues of conscience".
So she thinks that equality for all members of her society is an issue of conscience, rather than a matter of basic human dignity? That gives me massive confidence in this 'equality minister' and her ability to represent all our interests.