The needs of children must be considered first and foremost in public discussion on the ‘rights’ of adults.

A friend of mine lives in an inner-city suburb where varieties of ‘family’ are to be found. A lesbian couple live not far from her. Through IVF processes they have a son, a dear little boy. He has two Mummys. It causes some confusion for older-aged neighbours who don’t know which woman to call Mummy when they are talking to him. This may be confusing to those neighbours now, but what about the child when he goes to school? While other children talk of Mummy and Daddy, he will have to talk about Mummy and Mummy. Who ever considered his rights as a young boy? For there’s no doubt, children do have rights.

Last month, Christian groups in Canberra rallied against the ACT Government proposal to introduce legislation that would include a provision for homosexual couples to adopt children. The ACT Governments seems bent on pressing ahead, even though 90 per cent of the public submissions received in their earlier community consultation indicated opposition to this scheme.

This is not the first time such a proposal has surfaced in this country. During Dr Harry Goodhew’s time as Archbishop of Sydney this was being seriously considered in NSW government circles. The Arch-bishop joined with Anglicare in making known the Anglican Church’s opposition to this move and there seems no reason to express any contrary view to their opinions at that time.

In an opinion article published in The Sydney Morning Herald (26/8/96), Dr Goodhew wrote, “Care of children is too important a matter for issues of discrimination to have any primary relevance. The principal consideration must be what is in the best interests of children. Equal opportunity or the rights of any in the adult community, must be secondary.”

All the evidence shows that children are best brought up in a married relationship where there is a mother and a father in a permanent relationship. This is the biblical view of marriage and children usually expressed in Christian marriage liturgies. Think of the explanation of marriage given in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) that provides the primary foundation for Anglican marriages services even to this day:

“First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.” (The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony, BCP). In this BCP service, the second reason for marriage is that it is a remedy against sin and fornication, and thirdly, it is for the mutual help and comfort for the two marriage partners.

In the most recent Anglican prayer book in Australia, A Prayer Book for Australia, there are two marriage services. Both omit the BCP’s second reason and they make the BCP’s third reason the primary goal. Children therefore seem to have become secondary in today’s marriage liturgies.

Father, mother and children together make up the family. This is true even though all recognise that there are many single parent households in the community today where the single parent manages, often magnificently, to raise their children without the presence of the other partner who may have left the family through death, disaster or choice.

There are also couples today who chose from the beginning of their marriage not to have a child, and there is even a website from a group that endorses child-free marriage. Visit the website www.worldchildfree.org and you will find that July 1 was ‘World Childfree Day’.

Boys and girls have the right to start life with a father and a mother. Children need a mother and a father; they need both complementary role models. They also need the stability and security of relationship that comes from parents who have committed themselves to each other for life. As well, they need parents who are committed to them, their children. Married couples have made a public and legal commitment to each other for life. This is why they are the appropriate couples to have the right to adopt a child jointly.

In the matter of adoption, the State must maintain – and be urged to maintain when there is any threat – the rights of children. In social policy setting, these must be held as paramount before the rights of any other group. The agenda of any activist homosexual groups claiming their rights to adopt children above and before the rights of children to have both male and female role models in their parents must be firmly rejected.

Christian congregations should make their views known cogently and forcefully on this issue if ever it arises again in the NSW Parliament.