Some readers may be shocked to hear that last week I turned down a number of invitations to appear on radio and television, writes John Waters.
The topic was homosexual adoption, which had featured in a number of newspaper reports suggesting a change in policy by the Adoption Authority. Some of my reasons were personal. I have become wary of an increasing tendency in what remains an overwhelmingly illiberal "liberal" media to present set-piece items on certain issues with a view to creating a particular aftertaste on the public palate.
In this instance, the token raging reactionary might be pitted against the gay grandee pluckily asserting his "rights". The presenter would likely feel the need to assert his or her "liberal" credentials by weighing in on behalf of the homosexual, resulting in the not entirely subliminal message that a powerless band of marginalised progressives are winning out against entrenched moral majoritarianism. Or something. After two or three such appearances, the word would go out that John Waters is "obsessed with homosexual adoption". (The imputation of "obsession" to political opponents is one of the recent tactics of "liberal" ideologues. Some columnists can write three columns a month about, oh, paedophile priests, but to write twice a year about the obscenity that is family law is to be an "obsessive".)
There was another reason for my declining to bat: the story, which originated with a claim in the Irish Catholic that several individuals living in homosexual relationships have applied to adopt, was a trifle overstretched. What had emerged was that, because is it now permissible for single people (for which read "single women") to adopt, it has become theoretically possible for homosexual couples to "acquire" a child, if one "partner" in such a relationship is successful in an adoption application.
Although the law insists that couples wishing to adopt must be married, single people may apply to adopt even if they are living with someone else. And since adoption procedures must nowadays comply with "all relevant equality legislation", it is not possible for the authorities to object to the orientation of an applicant's sexual relationship, even if they wished to do so.
People will decide about this on the basis of ideological or "moral" outlook. But it seems to me that the true abomination implicit in these developments remains out of sight.
Once, children could be adopted only by unimpeachable married couples, but the more recent requirements of what is termed "equality" have ensured the decommissioning of such judgments. There is little point in being surprised by the inevitable consequences - indeed, it is probably only a matter of time before quota requirements ensure that a fixed proportion of all adoptions must be by gays. My objection to these developments is not especially related to homosexuality. I simply point out that almost every child who becomes available for adoption has a father as well as a mother, and that, even were common sense unavailable, the emerging science of child-rearing emphasises more and more the importance to psychic health of the presence of one or both parents in the early life of every human being.
Many adoptions nowadays are of foreign children, and these can have their own complications. When the child is Irish, the situation can seem straightforward, but only because a corrupted culture circumscribes our view of reality. Many domestic adoptions arise because an unmarried mother doesn't want to keep a child. There is a statutory requirement that the adoption authorities "take such steps as are reasonably practicable" to "consult" the child's father. But if the mother says she does not know who the father is, or where he can be found, this is enough to enable the process to proceed. It is possible for a father, if "consulted", to impede an adoption by applying to court for joint guardianship and, if successful, challenging the procedure; but it is unheard of for a father to be allowed simply to bundle up his child and take him or her home.
Hence the true obscenity of our adoption regulations is not that they have dispensed with moral judgment in relation to sexual proclivity, but that, in spite of such moves towards what is depicted as enlightenment, they have continued to perpetrate a grotesque denial of the mutual rights of fathers and children, on which the future well-being of those children may so heavily depend.
The result of the selective abolition of judgmentalism is that adoption legislation nowadays discriminates against just one category of human being: the child's father. Any natural father, given the opportunity to contemplate the matter, would be metaphysically offended by the prospect of his child being raised by another man, regardless of sexual orientation. If you wish to dismiss this as John Waters's "obsession", then be my guest. Just remember that this father may one day be your son, your brother or your nephew. It might even, conceivably, be you.