I’m confused over the Catholic gay adoption issue. Regardless of the law banning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, what gay couple in their right mind would approach a Catholic adoption agency? Surely the problem would just go away (unless there are gay couples who just want to irritate Catholics)
So we are left with the principal of whether it’s right to discriminate against people. Short post then, right?
Well, if it weren’t for the fact that we discriminate against people all the time, it would be. Just consider this: in the UK you can’t vote till you’re 16, drive till you’re 17 or buy booze till your 18. The assumption is that the rights to the under age concerned would not be balanced by the responsibilities; few 17 yeard olds would be driving their own cars. There is also the potential for huge costs on the rest of us if 16 yeard olds really are bad drivers, or younger voters would have poorer decision-making skills. The line may be arbitrary but it has to be drawn somewhere in these example and I guess few people would quibble with this kind of discrimination.
Similarly I don’t see a problem with a seller of prestige cars who, with limited time, concludes that race is better indicator of likely income and engages with the WASP instead of a black person. In the latter, the market would drive out discrimination if the signal of race as a predictor of income breaks down. If discrimination was about job ability say, then similarly, as new information enters the market, the signal value of race is eroded.
So what is different about this case of discrimination?
Two things are critical to understanding the issue in a social policy context. Firstly, discrimination means making using base rate information about a group in respect of the individual If you’re base rate data is telling you that gay couples pose a more significant risk to children than hetero couples, that’s a risk it would be unwise to ignore. Acknowledging the risk put us in a better position to make a trade-off between the rights of the couple and the child. It does not mean that a blanket ban all gay couples adopting is required. The same issue arises with foster parents: data show that stepchildren are at a greater risk of child abuse from stepparents than natural parents; again, it’s sensible to be aware of these risks when balancing rights and responsibilities.
Even if the information tells us something about the group, we don’t have to use it at all against the individual. And that’s the second important point; just because we know that groups differ on certain characteristics, we have an ethical choice whether to discriminate in different situations. Numerous studies show the men are, on average, better than women at math. It doesn’t mean all men are though – just as all 16 year olds wouldn’t make poor drivers. What makes this example different from the driver though is the balance between liberty and freedom of women (especially given all the other characteristics that may make a successful maths teacher) and the costs to society. We have decided that women should not be treated differently to men.
As gay adoption has only been recently allowed, there is clearly very little data on risks, but a lot is known about gay individuals, and a great deal is known about what is good for the child. A blanket ban on gay adoption probably is unethical, just as a blanket ban on investment bankers adopting is (because of there greater likely absence from the home), but is it unwise to consider the particular risks that any couple, including the specific risks of a gay couple*, may pose to a child? Probably not.
*There is no such thing as an arbitrary gay couple obviously, but like anything in life, there are degrees of being gay, just as there are some investment bankers who are away from home more than others.
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