THE Catholic Church has been accused of acting “above the law” after it emerged it is to use a legal loophole to allow its Scottish adoption agency to reject same-sex couples.

The church’s St Margaret’s Adoption and Child Care Society in Glasgow has changed its constitution to rely on laws which ban discrimination on religious grounds to continue its policy of assessing only single people and heterosexual married couples as adoptive parents.

The constitution has been reworded in a way that refers specifically to the society’s religious character. The move is in response to the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs), approved by MPs at Westminster in January 2007, which made it illegal under the 2006 Equality Act to discriminate against gay people in the provision of goods and services.

The Catholic Church was given an exemption for its adoption agencies until January 1, 2009, to give it time to find a solution, after it warned the government that it would face closure because it could not remain Catholic and assess same-sex couples as adoptive parents.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien was forced last week to resign as president of the St Andrew’s Children’s Society in Edinburgh as a result of the new law.

Pope Benedict XVI has described gay adoption as “gravely immoral” and the cardinal felt unable to remain in a position that would have signalled his support for such practices.

The society said that the loophole would not apply to it because, although O’Brien was the organisation’s figurehead, it had severed its official links with the Catholic Church 16 years ago.

Lawyers said the move by the Glasgow agency, whose president is Mario Conti, Archbishop of Glasgow, would allow it to comply with the SORs and be protected under the Equality Act 2006, which prevents local authorities from discriminating against groups on religious grounds.

It would also be protected by the Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights activist, said the church’s position was without any “legal or moral foundation”.

He said: “What the Catholic Church wants is exemption from the equality laws that apply to everyone else. This is special pleading that the Catholic Church should be above the law.

“Allowing gay people to foster and adopt children doesn’t diminish the rights of Catholics to foster and adopt children. It is therefore not discrimination.”

Patrick Harvie MSP, the Green Party leader, said he found the society’s action “disappointing”.

A spokesman for St Margaret’s said it had acted on “sound” legal advice and intended to carry on operating as normal.

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