Freedom or Equality?

There is an important issue that is being battled out in the U.K.

The question is whether or not Church (or religiously) run adoption agencies have the right to disqualify couples based on homosexuality. Specifically, our Catholic betters are on the fighting fields on this one. The Anglican church supports the effort, though its own adoption agencies do not disqualify homosexuals. Muslims also support the exemption laws, though they have no major agencies of their own.

At the heart of the issue is a relatively new British law that prevents the discrimination against couples seeking adoption who are homosexual. The Catholic church maintains that is adoption agencies are privately run and funded, and that placing a child into a home with two same-sex parents would be contrary to Christian doctrine. And the government of Britain and the gay establishment are in an uproar, claiming that this is essentially a "hate crime" and if an organization has the right to refuse service to someone based on homosexuality, then perhaps tomorrow, gay Britons will not be able to rent apartments, buy cars, or shop at grocery stores.

It seems to me, however, that the characterizations of adoption as a "service" and the Church as a "service" seem to be directly intend to slant the issue.

An editorial in The Economist claims that in this situation, Equality should trump Liberty. That's right. I had to read it a few times before it dawned on me exactly what they meant. The "rights" of gay couples to be considered as equal to other couples should trumpt the "freedom" of the Catholic church to follow its doctrine or belief.

Does that make any sense to anyone?