Lawful Scotland - Illegal England (Gay Adoptions)

The Roman Catholic church is wrong to refuse help to gay couples seeking adoption. But what no one has been able to explain to me is why a compromise that was struck in Scotland on gay adoption was deemed unlawful in England.

Under the 2006 Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act, Catholic adoption agencies are allowed to continue dealing exclusively with heterosexual couples as long as they refer gay couples to another agency that can help them. An attempt by Labour MSPs to place a formal exemption from equality laws was, quite rightly, voted down by the Scottish parliament.

But the church seemed reasonably happy with the voluntary agreement and so were the gay organisations. Neither of them liked it, of course. But they accepted the fudge as a reasoned compromise, which would ensure that gay couples and adoptive children got the best service available without forcing the two faith agencies to close. The Scottish executive's legal advice was that this would comply with EU equality law.

The gay adoption issue had died in Scotland until Ruth Kelly tried to revisit the formal exemption in Westminster during the passage of the equality bill and all hell broke loose in the cabinet. Ministers such as Harriet Harman suddenly discovered their consciences after years of docile acquiescence to the leadership line. It turned into a culture war against homophobic clerics.

Then, last week, the education secretary, Alan Johnson, rang up the Scottish executive and told them that they would have to scrap their compromise and force the Catholic adoption agencies to close. The first minister, Jack McConnell, was furious, not least because it means the votes of Scotland's 600,000 Catholics may go to the SNP, who are citing all this as London interference in Scottish affairs.

Now, I'm not a constitutional lawyer, nor am I a Roman Catholic, but as I understand it, the argument in Scotland was this. In Europe, equality legislation principally applies to things like discrimination in the workplace. There is latitude for religious groups to associate exclusively with people of their own faith on grounds of conscience provided there is no harm to non-believers.

This is kind of obvious, really, because by definition churches require that their members share their beliefs. If equality law were to be applied rigidly, there could be no Muslim associations or Catholic schools because they all exercise discrimination. Some women's groups might be illegal, and gay rights organisations might fall foul of the law if they refused to help heterosexuals. Now, the Roman Catholic church has handled this whole affair badly. It is wrong to regard homosexuality as a sin, or in some way unchristian. It seems perverse for the church to accept single parent gay adoption but not couples in a civil partnership. In the end, it is going to have to enter the 20th century if the church is to survive in the 21st.

But there is an air of contrivance about this whole row.

Why have ministers like Harriet Harman not been objecting to Catholic schools, which select on the basis of religion? This surely represents discrimination against non-Catholics. No one would be able to open schools if they selected on the basis of race, so why are they allowed to do so on the basis of faith? The government backed down recently on imposing even a modest requirement that faith schools should make 25% of their intake non-denominational.

It looks to me as if this was an easy target, rather like fox hunting - an opportunity for contenders for the deputy leadership to display their radicalism.

There are far more serious matters to rebel over - and they could start with Iraq.

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