Prime Minister of Australia rejects homosexual unions and adoptions

Washington D.C., Mar 9, 2004 / 22:00 pm

Speaking on local radio stations, John Howard, Primer Minister of Australia, criticized a regional law that authorizes the adoption of children by homosexual couples and expressed his rejection of the legalization of homosexual unions.

In response to the legalization of adoption by homosexuals in the province of Canberra, Howard said he was “against gay adoption just as I am against gay marriage.”

According to the newspaper “The Australian,” the Howard administration is studying the possibility of outlawing the measure at the national level.

“The ideal thing would be that these children be educated by a mother and a father who are married,” he added, although he admitted that non-married couples can be good parents.  “I believe it is extremely important that people have roll models from both sexes,” he insisted.

The government is set to consider an Attorney-General's Department submission on a bill to override the Canberra law legalizing gay adoption.

But the Australian Solicitor's chief general counsel, Henry Burmester, has advised in a carefully worded opinion that a federal bill banning gay adoption would be unlikely to stop the practice.

According to Burmester, to be effective the federal bill would also have to ban adoption by all single parents for gay adoption to be stopped in Canberra, since so many gay people already use that route to adopt children.