An English GP has asked the UK Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, to give doctors the right to refuse to provide positive references for homosexual couples on grounds of conscience.Dr John Lockley, a Bedfordshire GP, is an adviser to a non-religious adoption agency. He says that under the Equality Act if a doctor refuses to provide a positive reference for a gay couple wanting to adopt, even on grounds of conscience, he can be taken to court and even struck off.
Most GPs have to conduct examinations on potential adoptive parents and this may well cause a 'crisis of conscience' for GPs who have religious objections to homosexual adoption.
The campaign comes in the wake of the Government's refusal to grant an opt-out on conscience grounds to Catholic adoption agencies, in spite of appeals from both the head of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor and the head of the Anglican Church, Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
'I will be failing to comply with the Government's proposed Sexual Orientations Regulations if I object to a homosexual couple as potential adoptive parents,' Dr Lockley said. 'If I am found to have discriminated against the couple and the claimants inform the General Medical Council, it will investigate and GPs who persistently refuse on conscience grounds to provide positive references for gay patients will risk being struck off.'
Dr Lockley said he had a 'very good relationship' with gay patients on his list. However, he added that if he was asked to provide detailed information about their suitability to bring up a child in a same-sex partnership, he would find it difficult 'on Christian conscience grounds'.
He believes Mrs Hewitt should ensure that the final regulations ought to offer GPs an opt-out clause, similar to Section 4 of the 1967 Abortion Act. This clause preserves the right of doctors to refuse to be involved in an abortion if they would be forced to act against their own conscience or ethics, though they must ensure the patient is referred to another clinician.
Meanwhile, the heads of a university closely aligned to the Church of England plan to ban civil partnership ceremonies on campus. The vice-chancellor, chair of governors and deputy pro-chancellor of Canterbury Christ Church University argue that the church's position on homosexuality makes it wrong to conduct lesbian and gay 'marriages' on the university's premises.
However, the plans have been opposed by student groups and members of staff, who believe that the proposal will damage the university's reputation.
Solicitor Katharine Landells, who has written a book on civil partnerships, says at the moment Canterbury Christ Church University is within its legal rights not to conduct civil partnerships because it is a private organisation.
But she says that the university will have to choose between conducting all civil marriages - gay and heterosexual - or none at all, if new equality legislation comes into force that forbids institutions licensed for civil marriage ceremonies to refuse to conduct civil partnerships without an opt-out clause for religious organisations.
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