Ethnic insult to families

THE case of a Sikh couple prevented from adopting a white child made me angry. What a cruel and stupid decision when so many youngsters could go to a good home.

i assume these decisions are made because care services believe children of a different skin colour from potential parents will negatively affect them somehow: white children won’t connect with a dark-skinned mum and dad or vice-versa.

How incredibly insulting to families across the world who are naturally different skin colours from each other.

it’s quite possible — albeit unusual — for two people to produce babies with a different skin colour. i’m white and have a mum who is dark-skinned because her grandfather was afro-Caribbean. Out of her four children, three of us are pale like our dad.

My older brother, Brian, and i were blue-eyed and blond as children. But my younger brother, david, has always had a dark complexion and my youngest brother, Stephen, has red hair. You wouldn’t think that they were related.

The gene line is crazy sometimes but that doesn’t make it emotionally damaging because you are a different skin colour to other members of the family. Your parents are who you call your mum and dad, whatever appearances suggest. EMILIE LAMPLOUGH,

Trowbridge, Wilts.