MSPs support adoption law reform for Scotland

MSPs from all the important political parties in Scotland have expressed support for adoption law reform to give unmarried and same sex couples the opportunity to adopt children jointly; eligibility will still, and quite rightly, be based on individual assessment. At present adoptions involving unmarried or same sex couples include only one of the partners as the legal parent. One political party has, though, simply spouted the usual formula adopted when something is proposed with which many probably don't agree, with a spokesman announcing they will permit s 'free vote' on the matter - you won't need more than one guess to find out which Party this is [*]. There has also, equally unsurprisingly, been vocal opposition from one of the major faith groups to the proposed changes.

As you will see from the dateline of the first link above, this is not a 'new' story - I overlooked writing about it earlier because I was pre-occupied with completing my tax return, but one item of note from that document that is relevant here is that the box about marital status now includes the following options: "Say if you are single, married/in a civil partnership, widowed/a surviving civil partner, divorced/civil partnership dissolved or separated", as a result of the Civil Partnerships Act having become law last year.

[*] Another interesting point was highlighted only this morning (on 'The Politics Show' on ITV2) by Michael Brown, now a journalist although formerly a Conservative MP, who left politics soon after it became known he is gay as a result of a minor tabloid scandal. He noted that whilst David Cameron has recently, and bizarrely, 'apologised' for Thatcherism, he has not yet chosen to issue a mea culpa for his own personal voting record in the House of Commons in pretty recent times on matters touching on homosexuality - so the question remains whether the Conservatives have changed as much as they wrould have us believe. Until we hear a lot more about their detailed policies, rather than the 'mood music' that we have had since David Cameron became Leader, it is impossible to say.