Foster Couple With Traditional Religious Views On Homosexuality Lose Battle To Care For Kids In British High Court

The BBC reports that "a Christian couple opposed to homosexuality have lost a battle over their right to become foster carers. Eunice and Owen Johns, 62 and 65, from Derby, said the city council did not want them to look after children because of their traditional views. The pair, who are Pentecostal Christians, say they were 'doomed not to be approved'. The High Court ruled that laws protecting people from sexual discrimination should take precedence. The Pentecostal Christian couple had applied to Derby City Council to be respite carers. They withdrew their application after a social worker expressed concerns when they said they could not tell a child a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable. At the High Court, they asked judges to rule that their faith should not be a bar to them becoming carers, and the law should protect their Christian values... But Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation 'should take precedence' over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds. They said that if children were placed with carers who objected to homosexuality and same-sex relationships, 'there may well be a conflict with the local authority's duty to 'safeguard and promote the welfare' of looked-after children'."

This is absolutely ludicrous, but it should not be a complete shock that shifting the legal landscape and culture ends up having ramifications on those that will continue to maintain traditional values. Not only that, but the High Court actually put in the language of the "welfare" of children, the children apparently actually needing to be "protected" by the government from traditional Christian values. As the opinion itself states, "It is important to realize that reliance upon religious belief, however conscientious the belief and however ancient and respectable the religion, can never of itself immunize the believer from the reach of the secular law." And so when the secular law begins to treat those that hold these conscientious traditional beliefs as no better than racists and bigots, then you can expect those traditional beliefs to come under assault. It seems it begins with decisions like these allowing traditional Christians to be banned as foster parents, or forcing traditional religious adoption agencies to close down (See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7952526/Last-Catholic-adoption-agency-faces-closure-after-Charity-Commission-ruling.html).

The High Court opinion itself states, "No one is asserting that Christians - or, for that matter, Jews or Muslims - are not fit and proper persons to foster or adopt. No-one is contending for a blanket ban." So one's religion is not a bar to being a foster parent, but you have to be a socially liberal Christian, Jew, or Muslim. Being a follower, however, of traditional Christianity, Judaism, or Islam means you can per se be disqualified from becoming a foster parent. Adherence to or belief in traditional sexual mores is cause to allow you to be banned from becoming a foster parent to protect the "welfare" of the child from those, who in the words of the British High Court, "evince an antipathy, objection to or disapproval of, homosexuality and same-sex relationships."

Why would the British High Court rule this way? The only answer is that the High Court is allowing for children to be protected from the religious views of these parents, insofar as it relates to traditional sexual mores (though I am not sure why it should be logically limited to this), because heaven forbid the foster child be influenced in the direction of traditional values. As the Court itself said, "If children, whether they are known to be homosexuals or not, are placed with carers who … evince an antipathy, objection to or disapproval of, homosexuality and same-sex relationships, there may well be a conflict with the local authority's duty to 'safeguard and promote' the 'welfare' of looked-after children." This ruling is specifically regardless of whether the children "are known to be homosexuals," because it is about protecting the children from the traditional Christian views of these potential foster parents. The children are being "safeguarded" for their own "welfare" from "disapproval of...same-sex relationships."

Let this serve as a warning to all not to believe those that advocate shifting the legal landscape on these important social issues when they pretend, at least in public, that the changes will either not have any unforeseen radical future consequences or that none are intended. It is clear that when the government begins to adopt the position that essentially says there is no difference between traditional sexual mores and white supremacy, that the sexual mores will be treated and targeted in the same way as that worst form of bigotry.

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