{"id":3239,"date":"2007-01-25T10:54:47","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T10:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/from-the-uk.html"},"modified":"2007-01-25T10:54:47","modified_gmt":"2007-01-25T10:54:47","slug":"from-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/from-the-uk.html","title":{"rendered":"From the UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a huge row about the Catholic Church, adoption, and homosexuals. You’ve probably heard about it. I just have time for a few quick links:<\/p>\n

The latest:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

In an unexpected move, the Prime Minister issued a brief statement which all but confirmed that he had bowed to his Cabinet ministers and ruled out giving Catholic adoption agencies an opt-out from new laws that would make it illegal for them to refuse to deal with gay couples.<\/p>\n

Instead, he is expected to introduce proposals – which will be voted on by Parliament next month – for a \u201ctransition\u201d period of around a year to allow the agencies adapt to the new gay rights laws. <\/p>\n

Earlier this week Mr Blair had infuriated ministers by saying he wanted to find a compromise that respected the \u201csensitivities\u201d of both the Church and supporters of gay rights. <\/p>\n

His comments came after Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O\u2019Connor, the Roman Catholic leader in England and Wales, warned that the church would close its adoption agencies if it was forced to accept the new laws. <\/p>\n

However, senior Cabinet ministers swiftly lined up to say they would oppose any move to give Catholic adoption agencies exemptions from the new Sexual Orientation Regulations. <\/p>\n

Only a handful of ministers, including Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary and a devout Roman Catholic, backed Mr Blair. <\/p>\n

Labour MPs are already speculating whether Miss Kelly will be able to remain in the Cabinet following the Prime Minister\u2019s retreat. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York had written to Blair in favor of the RC position.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a huge row about the Catholic Church, adoption, and homosexuals. You’ve probably heard about it. I just have time for a few quick links: The latest: In an unexpected move, the Prime Minister issued a brief statement which all but confirmed that he had bowed to his Cabinet ministers and ruled out giving Catholic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the UK - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/from-the-uk.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From the UK - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There’s a huge row about the Catholic Church, adoption, and homosexuals. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}