Telegraph leader: Sexual disorientation

The Sexual Orientation Regulations are a bad piece of law-making, cobbled together, through EU pressure, under the Equality Act 2006. They throw up many anomalies in an attempt to force providers of all services to make them available on demand to those of any sexual orientation. A Muslim printer could be charged for declining to publish a handout for a gay pride march. Yet a private club – a lesbian-only bar, say – could still specify a particular sexual orientation as a condition for membership.

Huge numbers of objections met the draft proposals, but only now, over adoption, has resistance grown so strong that the Prime Minister is said to be seeking a way through "that respects the sensitivities of both sides". The "side" opposing the regulations includes the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, who wrote to Tony Blair stating that Catholic adoption agencies, which provide a third of voluntary placements, would have to close if requirements outlawed teachings "about the foundations of family life" – teachings "shared not only by other Christian Churches, but also other faiths". The Archbishops of Canterbury and York then raised their voices against "the rights of conscience" being crushed by regulations. These are due to come into force first in Northern Ireland, used as a guinea-pig through the high-handedness of Peter Hain, the Secretary of State controlling the province. Read more