Notes: Friday, September 3, 2010

"Same-sex adoption bill passes House"

In today's Herald:

BIRTH parents who do not want their children to be adopted by a same-sex couple will be able to make their preference known without fear they will breach anti-discrimination laws by doing so.

A bill granting gay and lesbian couples the same rights under adoption law as homosexual individuals and heterosexual couples was passed narrowly by the NSW Legislative Assembly by a vote of 45 to 43 yesterday.

It will be considered by the Legislative Council next week, where the vote is expected to be similarly close.

Christian adoption agencies, which have lobbied strongly against the bill, welcomed the amendment to allow people involved in each case to freely express their preferences about prospective adoptive parents' faith, ethnicity, family situation and sexuality.

The Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, Frank Sartor, said the preference of birth parents would not be binding, but would be assessed against the best interest of the child.

''Why should not the values of the community, whether expressed by donor parents or service providers, be given their due consideration?'' he said.

[...] The chief executive of Anglicare, Peter Kell, said while he was ''disappointed'' the bill had passed through the lower house, the decision to exempt adoption from anti-discrimination laws would allow the agency to continue providing infant adoptions in Sydney.

The independent MP Clover Moore had agreed on Tuesday to include a clause in the Adoption Act to allow church adoption agencies to refuse to provide services to gay and lesbian couples without breaching anti-discrimination laws.

''It means the faith-based organisations like us can continue to operate within our understanding of what is in the best interests of the child without fear of being sued,'' Mr Kell said.

The Bishop of Wollongong, Peter Ingham, said CatholicCare would also continue to provide adoption services. ''From our perspective these amendments provide greater certainty, thus enabling faith-based agencies to continue to provide this service,'' a spokesman for the bishop, Jude Hennessy, said.

Labor and the Coalition allowed their members a conscience vote. The Premier, Kristina Keneally, and the Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, supported the bill.

MPs who voted in favour included the Deputy Premier, Carmel Tebbutt, the opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, the Community Services Minister, Linda Burney, and her opposition counterpart, Pru Goward. The leader of the Nationals, Andrew Stoner, voted against, as did the shadow treasurer, Mike Baird, who said in future he might consider voting in favour of ''known'' adoptions, where the child already has a relationship with the parent.

''I am not convinced that the research before us justifies a move to legislate against the time-honoured practice of placing children with both a mother and a father,'' Mr Baird said.
[http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/samesex-adoption-bill-passes-house-20100902-14rpt.html?skin=text-only]

See also

" 'What matters is loving parents, not their sexuality' "
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/what-matters-is-loving-parents-not-their-sexuality-20100902-14rpw.html?skin=text-only

And also The Australian's coverage, which gives different figures for the vote count:

Forty-six MPs voted for the historic bill and 44 voted against it yesterday, after a two-day debate.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bill-passed-in-nsw-allowing-gay-couples-to-adopt/story-fn59niix-1225913516368]

And for text of Ms Keneally's Parliamentary speech on the Bill and for related discussion:

http://members7.boardhost.com/CathPews/thread/1283427449.html
(Full Day Hansard Transcript for September 1 available here:
http://www.nswbar.asn.au/circulars/2010/sept/ssa.pdf
More discussion:
http://coo-eesfromthecloister.blogspot.com/2010/09/cmon-george-anthony-pat-geoffrey.html)

And finally: Cardinal Pell in the Sydney Catholic Weekly, via CathNews:

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=23096

Mr. Smeaton on some points in Mr. Blair's memoirs which (points) are interesting from a Catholic/pro-life perspective:

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33505

Two interesting excerpts from two items in today's Vatican Information Service e-mail bulletin:

First item and excerpt:

ACTIVITIES OF POPE BENEDICT XVI IN AUGUST

VATICAN CITY, 2 SEP 2010 (VIS)
- Following is a list of Pope Benedict's activities during the month of August. It includes the Angelus, general and private audiences, other pontifical acts, letters, messages, telegrams and other news. The activities are presented in chronological order under their respective headings.

[...] OTHER NEWS

- 31: Publication of the words pronounced by the Pope at the Mass which concluded his meeting with a group of his former students (Ratzinger Schulerkreis). The meeting took place at Castelgandolfo from 27 to 30 August. [...]
BXVI-ACTIVITIES AUGUST/ VIS 20100902 (1470)

Second item and excerpt:

HOLY SEE-RELATED ACTIVITY IN AUGUST

VATICAN CITY, 2 SEP 2010 (VIS) - Following is a chronological presentation of Holy See-related activities for the month of August:

[...] - 31: Declaration by Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J. announcing that the Pope held a series of conversations at Castelgandolfo from 26 to 31 July with the German journalist Peter Seewald. The contents of their talks will be published - in German and Italian - in a book to be released before the end of the year.
.../ VIS 20100902 (230)

The first principle of Satanist ethics: The same as the first principle of atheist ethics

Here's an interesting comment in the combox of a post at Mr. Muehlenberg's blog:

[Comment author:] Dee Graf
[Comment date and time:] 1.9.10 / 6pm
Aleister Crowley, the great prophet of the hippy generation of the 60’s and of the satanic church had this to say, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”. In other words “if it feels good, do it” or “just do it”. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The essence of the spirit of the Age comes straight from the pit of hell.
Dee Graf
[http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2010/08/30/our-sensate-culture/]

Without God, there is no such thing as moral obligation, and since moral liberty is the absence of moral obligation, an atheist ethics is necessarily one in which one has the moral liberty to do whatever one pleases--murder, steal, lie, whatever takes one's fancy. Thus in the secularist moral precept of 'do whatever you want, no matter how self- or mutually-destructive, as long as the parties involved consent', there is no basis for the 'as long as the parties involved consent' bit; that bit simply does not follow from atheistic first principles. For Satanists as well as atheists, 'do whatever you want, no matter how self- or mutually-destructive' is the whole of the Law (a Law in name only, of course--not law, not even genuine liberty, but license).

CathNews featured website: Australian EJournal of Theology

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=23084
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/

Obviously not a Traditional publication, but there might be some interesting reading in there nonetheless.

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Pius X., Pope, Confessor, A.D. 2010