ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of religion in debates over two pieces of legislation that bear directly on the ability of same-sex couples to engage in legally recognised practices of parenting: the Adoption and Children Act (ACA) 2002 and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (HFEA) 2008. The chapter provides a critical analysis of these failed efforts on the part of religious opponents of homosexual law reform. The process of formulating what would become the ACA 2002 took place at a time when religious opposition had recently played an important role in preventing the repeal of Section 28, which characterised same-sex couples and families as pretended family relationships. The Ashbourne-Ryder episode illustrates that while the deployment of religiously inflected objections to adult homosexual relationships required careful navigation due to their increasing discursive displacement there remained significant disquiet amongst parliamentarians about the nature of non-heterosexual people's relationships with children.
