Sep 4, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Scotland’s top clergyman says the Scottish executive should tread cautiously with recommendations that unmarried and same-sex couples should be given the right to adopt.
“I cannot understand this view. A mass of evidence attests to the instability of unmarried relationships and the chronic instability of same-sex partnerships, yet worryingly our ‘experts’ ignore it,” Cardinal Keith O’Brien wrote in the Sunday Times - Scotland Edition.
Four years ago the Scottish executive launched a review of the adoption system, which has been experiencing a crisis. Currently, 6,500 children are in the care of government, and adoption applications have dropped from 1,000 to 400 in the last 20 years.
An expert group produced a report in June, supported by the Scottish executive, containing more than 100 recommendations and suggestions, including that unmarried and same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt.