Cabinet rejects exemption on gay adoptions

The Catholic church is almost certain to lose its battle for special treatment over gay adoption rules under a deal agreed by the cabinet to heal damaging divisions between senior ministers.

Cabinet sources said the new proposals would require Catholic adoption agencies to consider gay couples - or close down - after a reasonable delay that would allow them to ensure that the children in their care are properly dealt with.

The transitional period could be up to three years, but ministers concede that some agencies may prefer to close rather than consider gay couples. The compromise is far from the complete exemption demanded by Catholic and Anglican leaders, who wrote to members of the cabinet. Their concerns were raised by Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, who is a staunch Catholic.

Though Downing Street insists the prime minister was not calling for an exemption but merely trying to broker a solution, cabinet colleagues strongly criticised his sympathy for the church's view. Mr Blair's critics will also seize upon the compromise as a sign of his political weakness in the last months of his premiership.

Mr Blair held a meeting with a delegation of Labour MPs, including Angela Eagle, Chris Bryant and David Borrows, and a number of Catholic MPs, all of whom argued for no exemption.

Ms Eagle said: "Transition is certainly possible so long as it is sensible and doesn't have to go on forever. We are not being the dogmatic ones in this argument. We are not demanding that gay couples absolutely in all circumstances have to be approved.

We are saying they should not be ruled out as a priority." The regulations requiring all adoption agencies to consider gay couples are due to be laid in April and sources said the government intended to meet the target.

The gay adoption issue has caused deep divisions in cabinet, with the lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, among those insisting that no faith group can be exempted from the new gay rights laws.

In today's New Statesman Harriet Harman, constitutional affairs minister and a candidate for Labour's deputy leadership, says: "You can either be against discrimination or you can allow for it. You can't be a little bit against discrimination."

Alan Johnson, the education secretary, also made clear his opposition to exempting the Catholic church.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor wrote to the prime minister demanding an exemption for Catholic agencies on the grounds that to "oblige our agencies in law to consider adoption applications from homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents would require them to act against the principles of Catholic teaching". His stand was endorsed by the Anglican archbishops of Canterbury and York.

Guardian