ECtHR: Banning gay adoption is illegal

Earlier today, the European Court of Human Rights made an interesting ruling over adoption (word doc).

It ruled by a majority of 10-7 that France's ban on gay adoption was illegal, even though homosexuality had been "if not explicit, at least implicit" to the case, as well as slating the French courts for caring too much about "the lack of a paternal referent in the household".

I'm in favour of this ruling for two main reasons:

• I don't see how much worse gay parents could be than straight ones, and the Court seem to have agreed as they noted that French allow single straight people to adopt, so they've said, "Why not let single gays adopt?"; and because
  
• It shows that for once the government was right in saying that religious groups wouldn't be able to opt-out of laws on discrimination, as the Catholic Church had wanted an exemption.
  

The only down side is that the case went to the ECtHR at the end of 2002!