AUSTRALIA: High Court OK’s Adoption By Lesbian Couple Over Objections By Catholic Birth Mother

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

A court has allowed a four-year-old girl to be adopted by a same-sex couple despite her birth parents’ opposition on the basis of their Catholic faith. The girl was taken from her birth mother at four days old due to the mother’s long history of drug use and conviction for the manslaughter of her infant son seven years earlier.

The seven-month boy died from methadone and benzodiazepine poisoning and while his mother was found guilty over giving the boy the drugs causing his death, she continues to blame her then-partner for administrating the fatal drugs.

A same-sex couple who have cared for the girl – known for legal reasons as CJD – since she was six months old wished to legally adopt her. However, the birth mother opposed the adoption because the foster parents would not commit to raising the child as a Catholic.

The NSW Supreme Court heard the birth mother was “a practising Catholic and she is not comfortable with the placement of CJD with the proposed adoptive parents because of her upbringing and religious values”.

Together for more than a decade, the lesbian couple reportedly told the court that they would not raise the girl as a Catholic because of the church’s opposition to homosexuality. Adoption by same-sex couples was legalized by New South Wales in 2010.