The Catholic Church has a curious definition of "family values," said Joyce Kauffman in The Boston Globe. For 103 years, the welfare agency Catholic Charities has been placing "abused, neglected," and handicapped children with loving families that want them. In the last couple of decades, the agency’s social workers have quietly placed some kids with gay and lesbian parents. But this month, the church hierarchy ordered Catholic Charities in both Boston and San Francisco to get out of adoptions altogether, rather than accept state mandates barring discrimination against gay couples. Placing children with gays, the church said, was "gravely immoral."

The way gays are carrying on, said John Leo in the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch, you’d think they could no longer adopt. But under the new rules, they simply can’t "adopt through a particular church." That’s entirely justifiable; the government has no business telling the Catholic Church that it must violate its own moral teachings by handing children to two daddies, or two mommies. That’s just the tip of the issue, said Sara Butler Nardo in The Weekly Standard. Through adoption, gays are quietly changing the definition of parenthood—and without the public debate that greeted their attempts to change the definition of marriage. Thanks to these activists’ efforts, at least 10 states have adopted "de facto parenthood," whereby a judge can award custody if the relationship to the child "appears sufficiently ’parent-like.’" In this brave new world, terms such as "mother," "father," and "marriage" are no longer relevant, and gays and single people can create families out of any group of individuals they wish.

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