Catholic adoption agency wins appeal against implementing gay equality law

Catholic adoption agency Catholic Care has won its High Court appeal against the Charity Tribunal's refusal to allow it to exclude homosexual couples from using its adoption service.

Mr Justice Briggs has ordered the Charity Commission to reconsider the decision of the First-Tier Charity Tribunal to order Catholic Care to remove its prohibition on homosexual couples and ordered it to pay Catholic Care's costs.

The charity argued that the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 contain “an exemption regulation which could be read as giving it the chance to discriminate if amending its constitution will help it achieve its aims”.

The discrimination would be justifiable, the charity's barrister said, because the good work it carried out with children "far outweighed" the harm from denying its services to same sex couples who would still be able to go to other adoption agencies. Catholic Care claims that it has a higher success rate with “hard to place” children than other agencies, in part because Church funding enables it to provide more support after children have been placed.

The Charity Commission has not given an indication on whether it appeal the decision. In a statement, it said: "The Charity Commission notes the High Court judgement today regarding the appeal by Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds), registered charity number 513063, against the Decision of the First-Tier Charity Tribunal on 1 June 2009.  The High Court has overturned the Tribunal's decision and has remitted the case to the Commission to decide whether Catholic Care should be permitted to adopt the proposed objects."

Catholic Care, which operates in the dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough and Hallam in South Yorkshire, was the last Catholic adoption in England and Wales to continue its fight against the regulations after the Roman Catholic Church's campaign to exempt Catholic agencies from the regulations failed.

The Charity Tribunal found against Catholic Care in June last year, but allowed the agency to appeal to the High Court in order to provide a judicial ruling on the correct interpretation of regulation 18 of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.