Downing Street Says » Adoption Agencies

» Monday, January 22, 2007

Adoption Agencies

Asked for a view about Catholic adoption agencies, the PMOS replied that everyone recognised that there were sensitive issues involved. The Department was considering those and would announce a decision in due course. It was important to take the time and space to consider what were sensitive issues.

Asked if there was not even a hint of a conflict of interest for the Secretary of State, given her own devout Catholic beliefs and membership of Opus Dei, the PMOS said the journalist was treading on dangerous territory. What the question suggested was that any religion, or lack of religion, would disqualify someone from taking a view about anything.

Put that if someone was not only a member of a particular church, but a member of a sect of it, or a freemason, for example, surely they would have to be disqualified, the PMOS said that to disqualify people because of their beliefs or lack of beliefs would be dangerous territory to tread on. It was always a mistake to say that people did not approach subjects from a particular viewpoint; we all had viewpoints, but the important thing was that we developed policy in Government which reflected the view of Government as a whole. The PMOS said that there were difficult issues, and issues which should not be decided on one individual’s view, and there were very sensitive issues here, not least which was the future of the children involved.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.