Babies for Jesus

My wife and I adopted a lovely baby girl from China last year (Jialan's picture is below; is she cute or what?!). Now we're ready for daughter number two, and as before, the amount of paperwork is mind-boggling. Among other things, our perfectly wonderful adoption agency is asking us to once again submit letters of reference from friends and relatives (understandably, the agency folks are trying to make sure we'll make good parents). So a few kind people who know us will attest to our sparkling characters. They'll basically write that yes, we can be trusted not to smoke crack around our kids, and that our idea of a good time does not involve the reckless discharge of firearms in brothels or gambling parlors. No problem.

Well, actually, there's one problem.

The agency's “International Reference Letter Request for Adoptive Couple” asks the prospective letter writers to address nine points about us, including this one:

“Do they attend synagogue/church, to what extent do they participate in religious activities, and do they practice their beliefs in their daily lives?”

OK, maybe I'm too thin-skinned for my own good, but this rubs me the wrong way. The other eight questions the agency wants answered clearly help gauge our fitness for parenthood. Whether we're emotionally stable is, of course, important to our adoptive kids' future welfare. I get that — I want the agency to ask about that. The same goes for the safety and cleanliness of our home, our financial well-being, whether we have a history of alcohol or drug abuse, and so on. But the religion question stands out for its irrelevance. Whether or not I believe in a Higher Being, and whether or not I frequently visit a church, has nothing to do with how fit I am to be a father.

What bugs me is the conflation of morality and religiosity — the unspoken notion that they're pretty much the same thing. That's hooey, as everyone knows who occasionally reads the paper. There are many fervent Christians and members of other faiths who make stunningly amoral choices, from priests who are pedophiles to Islamic fanatics who praise God while decapitating aid workers (or slaughtering Dutch filmmakers). By the same token, there are throngs of atheists who lead exemplary lives — many with great respect and concern for their fellow man, and genuinely committed to the values of enlightenment, such as liberty and justice.

The agency we're working with has a Christian origin and background. They're great people who deserve to feel very proud of the organization's 100-plus years of accomplishments, and of the faith that has inspired these feats. That said, they simply have no business asking anyone about my religious practices. My religiosity, or lack thereof, is a terrible predictor of my fitness to be a father. To suggest otherwise is to disparage the tens of millions of Americans who do not subscribe to a theist worldview (not that we aren't used to disparagement, natch).

Now, to be fair, the agency doesn't seem to regard an applicant’s religious beliefs as a litmus test. At least, they didn't turn this non-believer down last time, and they probably won't this time either. But that only reinforces my point. If the question of an adoptive parent’s religion has no bearing on whether — or how — the agency proceeds with the application, that question is of zero practical use. Its only effect is to mark the beliefs of theists as moral, while suggesting that everyone else somehow falls short.

The adoption folks have every right to ask my letter-writing character witnesses whether I can be expected to raise my kids to be upstanding citizens. You know: fair-minded, kind, responsible, ethical. But my religious beliefs, if any, just don't factor into it. Or at least they shouldn't.

Comments

[Frank Fisher]

Fascinating Rogier - I agree with you, but it is an interesting conjunction, and one that's easy to arrive at. People assume religon=morality as a shorthand view of the world. The problem with humanism, or atheism (viewed from the outside) is that there doesn't appear to be a foundation stone for moral codes. And most non-believers have different moral foundation stones, or even transient ones. For myself I used to reckon that anything that doesn't harm someone else is okay. But.... how can you tell if it does or not? The unintentional effects of your life can spread wide and far - so now I tend to feel that the worst sin is lack of curiosity. Without curiosity you wont' ask enough questions to establish 'right and wrong' - unless you do accept a faith, and its rules.