About Those Adoption Services

We now learn that, in Boston at least, Catholic Charities closed their adoption services on direct orders from the Vatican, over the protest of its Board. From the Bangor Daily News:

“This is just frankly not true at all,” said [Peter] Meade [former board chairman] during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. The call was organized by a group called Mainers United for Marriage, which favors legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine. “I’ve heard [campaigns using the Boston Catholic Charities example] and frankly presumed because it was incorrect that people would straighten it out. That is certainly not what happened. I know in campaigns that people sometimes stretch credulity, but this is going way beyond that. Opponents of the freedom to marry in Maine have tried to rewrite history to create fear and uncertainty among voters.”

Catholic Charities of Boston formerly held a state-issued contract funded by taxpayer dollars to provide adoption services, and placed 13 children with same-sex couples between 1989 and 2006. The work was done in accordance with a Massachusetts anti-discrimination law that requires taxpayer-funded services to be provided equitably and without regard to sexual orientation, among other things.

Meade said that the Vatican demanded in 2006 that Catholic Charities end its adoption service, despite a unanimous vote by the charity’s local board to continue adoptions.

“Frankly, the only criteria for us was what was in the best interest of the child and we thought the Vatican was changing that,” said Meade. “People are suggesting in the campaign that it had something to do with the [same-sex marriage law] that allowed for marriage equality. That’s not correct.”

So basically, the Church had no objection to placing children with same-sex couples over the course of seventeen years, but when marriage equality entered the picture, suddenly it's the end of the world. It would be interesting to know how much taxpayer funding the CC of Boston gave up on this move.

I'm not going to comment on the fact that the anti-marriage groups continue to lie about this, except to note that, if you read this blog, you know that's an assumption, and a well-founded one. Most of what the professional gay-bashers come up with is nowhere near being factual.

John Aravosis has an interesting take on the whole funding question:

It’s interesting that Catholic Charities is trying to claim that it’s still the Catholic Church, so civil rights laws shouldn’t apply to it. Really? The American taxpayer is funding the Catholic Church’s proselytizing to the tune of $2.8 billion a year? Really? I’m a bit confused about that one. I didn’t think our government funded any faith. If the Catholic Church is getting nearly $3bn a year to practice its faith, then I hope reform Judaism and the nice Protestants are each getting $3bn as well. Are they? I doubt it. So how is it that the Catholic church is now claiming that its charity work is somehow its faith, when we’d never fund such proselytizing in the first place?

(Via.)