Australia moves to ban gay couples from adopting overseas

The Australian government is moving forward with legislation to prohibit the recognition of adoptions of foreign children by same-sex couples. The bill will be introduced in the new session of Parliament that begins next week, the government said on Aug. 2. Under the legislation any child adopted legally overseas would not be granted a visa to enter Australia. Gays and lesbians have frequently gone abroad -- mainly to Asian countries -- to adopt. Australia's largest LGBT civil rights organization said that the bill shows the government of Prime Minister John Howard believes a child is better off in an Asian orphanage than with a loving same-sex couple. "For a government to deliberately set out to stigmatize same-sex couples and their children to win a few votes in the lead up to an election is beneath contempt," Rodney Croome, of the Australian Coalition for Equality told the AAP news service. "The government clearly believes children are better off in a Chinese orphanage or on the streets of Manila than in the care of a loving same-sex couple in Australia." A spokesperson for the Attorney General said that the bill, if passed by Parliament, would override laws in Australian states and territories which currently allow gays to adopt overseas. The bill is only the latest assault on gay and lesbian couple rights in Australia. In 2004 the federal government of Prime Minister John Howard passed legislation limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. In February for the second time Howard's government quashed an attempt by the Australian Capital Territory to enact civil union legislation. The government said that it violated the gay marriage ban.