BRITAIN:Senior British government ministers, including chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown and home secretary John Reid, have been warned that Catholic Church leaders will campaign against Labour candidates in the Scottish elections if the government requires Catholic adoption agencies to allow gay couples to adopt.
Mario Conti, the Catholic archbishop of Glasgow, has written to five Scottish cabinet members repeating his warning to Tony Blair that preventing Catholic agencies from discriminating will be a "betrayal".
Senior Catholic officials said yesterday they planned to turn the controversy into a major political issue in May's elections, and pointed to the Scottish National Party's (SNP) claims this week that it would retain the right of Catholic agencies to bar gay couples. Church leaders will urge Catholic voters to remember the track record of each party and cast their vote for the parties and candidates who were closest to the moral stance of the church.
Last night the church said it planned to defy the new equality law. Rather than close its two adoption agencies, which handle up to 40 adoptions a year, it will continue to operate them until they are closed down by local authorities.
Asked whether church leaders would raise the issue at Mass and encourage voters to take account of it in May, a spokesman said: "Yes, of course. This is already a political issue, of course it is."
The issue could have an impact in traditionally urban working-class areas. "I can't see it being avoided at the election. The SNP has already made it an electoral issue," the spokesman added.
Targeting Labour votes could prove uncomfortable for some candidates, particularly in the Glasgow area, where Catholics traditionally have strong allegiances to the party and the SNP is mounting a strong challenge.
Although neither is standing for the Scottish parliament in Holyrood, both Mr Reid and defence secretary Des Browne are Catholics and will be under pressure from the church to take up its cause. Mr Reid yesterday cited John F Kennedy's view that in government, responsibility to the country took priority over faith.