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Gay couples allowed to adopt |
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Same-sex couples are now allowed to adopt children together, as part of the biggest overhaul of British adoption law in 30 years.
The new law went into effect last week, three years after it was first passed by Parliament.
Previously, same-sex couples had to choose which partner would adopt the child, giving the other partner fewer parental rights.
The changes will also open up adoption to unmarried heterosexual couples.
Felicity Collier, chief executive of the British Association for
Adoption and Fostering, said the changes brought the law into the 21st
century.
"Opening up adoption to unmarried partners will encourage more people to consider adoption," she said.
"This is very important at a time when too many children wait too long
in temporary care waiting for an adoptive family or, in some cases,
never have the chance of adoption at all."
"Every child has a right to a permanent legal relationship with both the people who are looking after them," she told the BBC.
These changes came after same-sex couples across the country began taking advantage of the new civil partnership laws.
Grainne Close of Northern Ireland and her American partner, Shannon
Sickels became the first same-sex couple to exchange vows in the United
Kingdom on December the 19th.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said the new laws are "correcting an obvious injustice" for gay men and lesbians.
"In general, past hostility and suspicions have been replaced with
tolerance and understanding. Our laws and political culture, however,
had simply not kept pace with these changes," he wrote in an article
for the Independent newspaper last month.
"There is, of course, no room for complacency," Blair warned. "There is
still too much injustice, discrimination and unfairness."
Source: Gay.com
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Civil Partnerships 
