I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them - Isaac Asimov

Thursday, October 25, 2007

I’m sorry. I’m with the fundies on this one:

They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 30 vulnerable children.

But Vincent and Pauline Matherick will this week have their latest foster son taken away because they have refused to sign new sexual equality regulations.To do so, they claim, would force them to promote homosexuality and go against their Christian faith.

The 11-year-old boy, who has been in their care for two years, will be placed in a council hostel this week and the Mathericks will no longer be given children to look after.

The devastated couple, who have three grown up children of their own, became foster parents in 2001 and have since cared for 28 children at their home in Chard, Somerset.

Earlier this year, Somerset County Council’s social services department asked them to sign a contract to implement Labour’s new Sexual Orientation Regulations, part of the Equality Act 2006, which make discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal.

Officials told the couple that under the regulations they would be required to discuss same-sex relationships with children as young as 11 and tell them that gay partnerships were just as acceptable as heterosexual marriages.

They could also be required to take teenagers to gay association meetings.

When the Mathericks objected, they were told they would be taken off the register of foster parents.

I’m not British, so maybe I’m missing something. Does the UK have such a surplus of good caring foster parents that they can now start excluding people because of their religious views?

In these sort of fights, I tend to get asked whose side I’m on. The answer is that I’m on the side of the individual. Gays should be allowed to live their lives and anti-homo Christians should be allowed to live theirs. There are too many unloved children in this world and I see no reason to exclude anyone from being a temporary or permanent parent either because they are gay or because they do not accept gays. Read the whole article. These are good people. They are anti-matter to the view of Christians that people like Christopher Hitchens have. They live their beliefs and have helped dozens of kids, including single mothers. But because they think homosexuality is wrong, they are considered no more fit to be a foster parent than a sex offender.

I think a huge part of the problem with the gay rights movement is crap like this. It’s not enough to have a “live and let live” attitude toward gays or to confine your anti-homosexual view to your private life and/or faith. You have to accept gays, you have to embrace the lifestyle, you have to “celebrate their differences”.

Garbage. Forcing people to accept gays is no different than forcing people to hate them. It’s a fundamental attack on freedom of conscience. I think these people’s view on gays are wrong. But they are not so wrong nor so evil that we should be ripping kids out of their arms and tossing them into a “council hostel”.

For God’s sake, get some perspective. This is literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater.