Socialists urge MSP to resign over gay adoption view
Scotland’s socialist Party has condemned moves by Nationalist MSP Roseanna Cunningham to table amendments today which could effectively block gay couples from adopting children.
Ms Cunningham argued ahead of a Holyrood debate today, that moves to allow the Bill to proceed would be “against nature’s design.”
Solidarity party members have called on Ms Cunningham to accept SNP commitments to equality or resign.
Solidarity Co-Convenor Rosemary Byrne said: “During wars, whole generations of children have been raised in homes where
two women manage the household – mothers and grandmothers, aunts, sisters – all have worked efficiently as a family unit, producing well adjusted and well cared for children. It is a nonsense to argue that what those two women may have done in their sexual lives should have any bearing on the well being of the children in the household.”
Solidarity member and manager of the Glasgow LGBT Centre, Ruth Black, called on the SNP to deal with Cunningham’s attack on equality: “The SNP clearly state, on their website, that they believe in “equal rights for all, regardless of race, gender, age, sexuality, faith, belief, ability, status or social background”. We call on SNP members to ask Roseanna Cunningham to accept this fundamental plank of the SNP’s belief’s or to resign from the party and the parliament.”
Currently only 400 children are adopted in Scotland every year, while 6500 remain in care.
The Catholic Church, still a powerful voice in Scotland, has led the campaign to try to stop the new law.
Ms Cunningham, the MSP for Perth and a former candidate for SNP leader, denies she is homophobic.
“This is not about gay rights, this is about children and for me the evidence shows that children do best in what we call a traditional family setting.
“That’s what we should be seeking to replicate for children who have lost their parents,” she told the BBC.
The SNP, while a marginal force in Westminster politics, are the second-largest party in the Scottish Parliament. The rest of the party are expected to vote for the new adoption arrangements.
The Scottish Green Party said it would support the rights of gay and lesbian people. Green MSP Patrick Harvie told the BBC: “Children brought up in a loving relationship do better, children brought up in a stable family environment do better – that’s very clear – but that doesn’t mean that marriage is the only acceptable model.
“The question for the state and for society is how best do we support all families to do the best job they can.
You don’t do that by simply saying that some families are second class.”
The bill will be debated today and is expected to pass.
