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Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien resigned in December 2008 as president of St Andrew’s Children’s Society after it decided to consider applications from same sex couples looking to adopt children.
The Society, of which Cardinal O’Brien has been president since 1985, said it wants to recruit adoptive parents from “a broad spectrum of people”, including same-sex couples, in compliance with the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs).
Cardinal O’Brien has in the past argued that children “need a male and a female role model in a permanent relationship”.
Read on in
The Christian Institute...
Postscript:If you wish to send a message to the officials concerned (as one person has done - see 'Comment' section below) the e-mail address for the Education Convenor can be accessed from the link above (
Marilyne Maclaren). If you are sending a message it might also be worthwhile to send a copy to the
Lord Provost's Office (the Lord Provost is the Convenor of the Council).
If you wish to write to MP and MSPs, you can obtain their names and contact details by clicking on the logo for contact details and guidance.
Updates: 29/01/09
Dr. Calvin L. Smith, College Principal writes:"How did we ever reach this stage in our society? Why did we sit by and let it happens? And make no mistake, there are countless such stories in the UK, I come across them all the time. The power of the state is truly scary, and frankly once on Social Services radar it seems no parent is safe from having their children taken from them and put in care.
Enough is enough. The question is, are we ready to be counted and act today? After all, one day it could be your children they take away. After all, they’ve already stopped adoptions by some Christian couples."
Scroll to
Comments below to read in full...
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City faces probe call in row over gay adoption -
Edinburgh Evening NewsEdinburgh City Councillor Jeremy Balfour has stated:
"I have written to the director of social work to clarify this situation."If the allegations made are correct, I have a couple of concerns. Firstly, how the grandparents have been treated. Secondly, there seems to be an issue of age discrimination.
"If this is the case, it seems to me there needs to be an investigation."
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Social services remove young children from grandparents and arrange adoption by gay coupleThe TelegraphThe distraught grandfather said: "It breaks my heart to think that our grandchildren are being forced to grow up in an environment without a mother-figure.
"We are not prejudiced, but I defy anyone to explain to us how this can be in their best interests.
"The ideal for any child is to have a loving father and a loving mother in their lives."
His wife added: "It's so important for children to fit in, and I feel our grandchildren will be marked out from the start when they draw pictures of their two dads."
The case raises fears about state interference in family arrangements, and concerns about the practice of adoption by same-sex couples.
Social workers at the City of Edinburgh Council have been accused of waging a "two-year campaign" through the courts to strip the grandparents of their legal rights as carers of the children.
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Family outrage at gay adoption: Mum speaks out as children placed -
Press and JournalA RECOVERING drug addict whose two children are reportedly to be adopted by a gay couple told last night how she had wanted them to have a “mum and dad”.
The woman, who has not been identified, was unable to look after her five-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister.
The children, from Edinburgh, had been cared for by their grandparents but were, according to a newspaper, placed in foster care and are to be adopted by a gay couple.
She said: “I did not under any circumstances want my children to be placed with gay men. I wanted them to have a mum and a dad.”
Mother's anger over gay couple's adoption of her children -
The TelegraphSpeaking about the last conversation she had with the children before they were taken from her she said: "I told them, 'Listen, Mummy is not going to see you for a while'."
She said her son replied: "But Mummy, I want to come and stay with you and Granny and Granddad."
On the last occassion she saw her children at a zoo before they were taken into foster care by social services in August,she said: "They told me not to cry and be strong so as not to upset the children.
"How can you tell a mother that when she's never going to see her children again?"
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Edinburgh adoption case: gay couple preferred over grandparents - Russia Today
Updates 30/01/09
Social services Stasi should hang their heads in shameAmanda Platell -
The MailShould proof ever be needed of the scandalous social engineering now so casually carried out by our state, it comes in the case of the loving grandparents of two small children who desperately sought to adopt them but saw them instead placed with a gay couple.
The decision was made to refuse the grandparents the right to raise their own blood relatives and instead give them away to two gay men ‘in accordance with who can best meet their needs’, according to the social services jargon.
But how can two strangers – gay or straight – best meet the needs of two children abandoned by a drug-addict mother for whom the only constants in their short, difficult lives have been their loving grandparents?
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Adoption row: 'To threaten the grandparents is despicable' Edinburgh Evening NewsTHERE is an expectation that social workers make the right decisions when the welfare of children is at stake.
Edinburgh City Council was rightly pilloried in 1991 when it failed to take action to remove Caleb Ness from the custody of his drug-addicted mother and deranged father, who subsequently shook him to death. More recently, social workers at Haringey
Council in London were understandably condemned when they failed to intervene to save the life of Baby P, who died a violent death at the hands of his parents. Why neither council acted as they should have is beyond understanding. Had they done so both children might still be alive today.
But the decision by social workers to remove a brother and sister from their loving grandparents in Edinburgh to have them adopted by a gay couple is equally beyond comprehension.
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What kind of selfish couple would want to adopt these 'stolen' children? The MailRichard Littlejohn
Two young children are snatched from the bosom of their family.
Their grandparents are warned menacingly by the kidnap gang that if they try to resist or go to the police, they will never see their grandson and granddaughter again.
It emerges that the brother and sister are believed to have been stolen to order and handed over to a homosexual couple biologically incapable of having babies of their own.
The story leads every national newspaper and television news bulletin in the land.
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In praise of grandparents: They have so much to offer families. So why does the State reject them? -
The MailBel Mooney
Like most people, I read the details of the story (covered at length in the Mail this week) with disbelief. For ideological pigheadedness and sheer cruelty, it takes state interference to a loathsome low.
The grandparents have been deprived of their grandchildren because their health is not good (they'd cope, for heaven's sake), but also because, at 59 and 46, they were written off as too old.
If somebody insulted my 62-year-old self by calling me 'too old' to look after any hypothetical grandchild, I promise you my boxing workouts would be put to good thwacking use.
As an example of ageism it's as ridiculous as disgusting. Yet surely we have to ask ourselves how the highly-educated professionals learned such a lack of respect for the grandparental role?
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Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland - Rev. Neil RossRegarding the decision of Edinburgh City Council to give two children for adoption to two homosexual men, despite the children's grandparents' wish to care for them, and several other suitable heterosexual couples wanting to adopt them, my main comment is that this shocking decision is grossly wrong.
It was certainly wrong of the Council to threaten the grandparents that if they objected to the adoption of the children by gay men they would not be allowed to see them again; and so very wrong to despotically intrude into family life.
But what is most seriously wrong is that the children are forced into a domestic situation that is exceedinly offensive to God. Scripture condemns the homosexual lifestyle as most sinful and unnatural. It is also very harmful. Being intrinsically and fundamentally wrong, it will have harmful effects upon the children.
Child care policy that is driven by political correctness and not Christian principles leads to further problems and misery. All in all, it is a grosteque and deeply disturbing decision which seems to be the totalitarian imposition of the norms of a vocal minority on society.
The least we can do is protest to Edinburgh City Council.
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Tt is very important to retain the natural family link; it provides the children with their roots
Baptist Union of ScotlandRev. Bill Slack
The Baptist Union of Scotland and the churches which it represents is of the opinion that we are not in favour of gay adoption. It's important that children are brought up in a family environment with both male and female role models.
As a Baptist community in Scotland we feel that the children should be adopted and brought up by their grandparents if it is at all possible. We feel that it is very important to retain the natural family link; it provides the children with their roots. Roots are important to us all in terms of our identity, we want to know where we come from and to whom we belong, so it makes sense to have the children left with their grandparents.
The psychological well-being of the children should be paramount. The grandparents want to have them and the children should be allowed to know that their grandparents want them; and the children will probably want to go with their grandparents. The health issues of the grandparents should not be allowed to disqualify them from being allowed to adopt the children.
We stand side-by-side with other churches in Scotland on this. On the wider issue, we were against gay adoption from the beginning and our views have not changed.
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Our principal concern is for the well-being of the children -
Free Church of ScotlandRev. Iver Martin
This situation flies in the face of all reason. All research shows that childen are best raised by a heterosexual couple - a man and a woman. Although it may be that the Social Services have information that they cannot make public, it would seem that the well-being of the children is being subverted in this case.
Whilst the Free Church of Scotland is totally against adoption by gay couples on moral grounds, the principal issue in this particular case is the extent to which the obvious and most common sense approach, along with the wishes of the grandparents and their concern for the children's welfare, have been discarded.
One is given to suspect that there is a deeper agenda at work.
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Gay adoption set to be blocked -
Edinburgh Evening NewsPLANS for a gay couple to adopt two Edinburgh children against their grandparents' wishes could fall through because of the furore over the decision.
The adoption of the boy, five, and the girl, four, is in the process of being finalised, despite the vehement opposition of the grandparents.
But now uproar over the decision has raised concerns it could result in the arrangement becoming unworkable.
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Edinburgh council may be probed over gay adoption - The Christian InstituteEdinburgh City Council may face an inquiry over the decision to place two small children for adoption with a gay couple against their family’s wishes.
Social workers rejected the protests of the children’s grandparents, telling them to accept the decision or lose access to the four-year-old girl and five-year-old boy.
A Conservative councillor in Edinburgh has expressed concerns over the case and has called for an investigation.
Jeremy Balfour said: “I have written to the director of social work to clarify this situation.
Update 31/01/09
Tycoon backs grandparents fighting gay adoption bid -
The MailA multi-millionaire is funding a legal challenge to halt the controversial adoption of two young children by a gay couple.
In a move brokered by the Catholic Church in Scotland, the businessman has agreed to help meet the legal costs of a court bid to block plans to hand the brother and sister to two men.
Update 03/02/09
Clock ticking as family battle to halt gay adoption -
Edinburgh Evening ExpressTHE family fighting plans for a gay couple to adopt two children are facing a race against time to halt the controversial move.
It is understood the five-year-old boy and his sister, four, are weeks away from moving from a foster family to live with the two men lined up as their new parents.
