BRITAIN:The office of British prime minister Tony Blair has denied any knowledge of threatened cabinet resignations in the growing row over adoption and equal rights for gay couples.
However, the pressure continued to build inside the Labour Party last night as a group of senior backbenchers urged Mr Blair to resist calls from the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England fcor exemptions from proposed new regulations banning discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the provision of goods and services.
Mr Blair was believed keen to find a compromise after a warning from the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, that the church in England and Wales would be forced to close down its adoption agencies if bound by new rules requiring them to place children with gay couples in defiance of its teaching.
And the pressure intensified yesterday after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, backed the cardinal, insisting "rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well-meaning". Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor has received the backing of Roman Catholic bishops in Scotland. In a letter signed by Archbishop of Glasgow Dr Mario Conti, they said the proposed regulations put in jeopardy the ability of their adoption services to operate in line with their beliefs.
In their letter to Mr Blair, the Church of England leaders observed that exceptions have already been made for those whose consciences dictate they cannot take part in certain work, such as NHS doctors unwilling to perform abortions.
The two archbishops said: "In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups the government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk."
Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Archbishop Sentamu insisted he, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor were against discrimination. He also made clear he did not agree with the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality. However, that did not mean that on adoption agencies the cardinal did not have "a case".