This is a very interesting issue, and I’m not sure I disagree with you, even though I think the position taken here by many Catholics is absurd (what exactly is so bad about children being raised by gay parents?). My brother-in-law wrote his dissertation (‘Cultural Rights for Minorities within Minorities’) on essentially this subject, and though I haven’t read it yet I have been thinking about the issue for some time (http://humanrights.uchicago.edu/workshoppapers/preiss.pdf). In this case, if there indeed are other adoption agencies available for homosexual couples, then it is hard to see how homosexuals are denied their rights by the refusal of certain agencies to serve them (it should be noted, however, that homosexuals probably are negatively effected by the Catholic churches staunch and prejudicial positions, because they legitimize hatred and even violence, but this is a different issue). Putting the legal matter aside, however, it is hard to see how refusing adoptions to homosexual couples is practicing what the Church preaches. I would bet that in other cases, children are given to couples who use birth control, or have extra-marital sexual intercourse, or engage in many harmless activities that are often condemned for various reasons by the Church. Now I am just speculating here, but I would guess that precautions are taken to assure that children do not end up in abusive homes, that the adoption would not cause the children harm. So do the agencies take the position, implicitly or explicitly, that being raised by gay parents causes a child harm? Well that’s something that could be settled by a sober analysis of the facts, which as far as I can tell support no such conclusion.

I don’t know that I would claim that the Catholic Church officially legitimizes or encourages hatred or violence against homosexuals; of course they don’t. But I would argue that many parts of the church and people within the church contribute in their own way to the tragic culture of violence and discrimination against homosexuals. If one believes passionately that homosexuality is an ‘abomination to God’, as more than a couple young Christians have put it to me recently, and that God Almighty thinks this behavior is despicable, then I would guess that this will negatively effect their treatment of homosexuals (though I know many Christians who defend the church’s position but whose behaviors towards the homosexuals in their lives seems to be reasonably tolerant and friendly). Also, and I don’t know if this is avoidable or not, their prejudicial or dogma-based objections to homosexuality (which I really don’t think are based solely on theological consideration, but on personal disgust, which I would argue shaped conceptions of God and ethics to begin with…) certainly can provide legitimacy to those who would want in some situations to commit hate crimes; it does not, at least, provide compelling discouragement.

Anyway, it is a delicate issue in the political and moral spheres. I do not really consider myself a Christian, but I was pretty happily raised in what some might call a ‘conservative’ or ‘evangelical’ Christian home and a Lutheran church with what some might call ‘liberal’ tendencies (I kind of think these terms are confusing, and would rather address the specifics). Certainly there are aspects of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and figures in historical and contemporary Christianity, that I find almost wholly admirable. I am somewhat of a ‘secular Christian’ in that I enjoy church and even religious practice, but am fairly ambivalent towards the theology, especially when that theology is used to support otherwise unsupportable ethical propositions, as I think is the case in the wholesale condemnation of homosexual behavior. There are major problems, as philosophers have long realized, with a religious-based ethic, by which I mean an ethic that is based solely on individual subjective experience and not the shared experiences of human moral agents (note that this is not a critique of all religious ethics, but only of religion-based ethics, or versions of what is often called “divine command” or “natural law” ethics). One can make a case, on pretty basic ethical grounds, against theivery and cheating, at least in the vast majority of cases. In the case of a loving and responsible homosexual couple, or even casual homosexual relationships and safe sexual intercourse, this is much harder, if not absolutely impossible without question-begging appeals to religious authority or implicit prejudice.

That’s my take…I’m not sure how politically or legally relevant it is…I pretty much agree with the gist of what you said in the post, which I liked better than others I have read of yours and others. Thanks for the response, Doug.