There has been a worrying development this week in the UK's creeping discrimination against people who adhere to traditional Christian morality. Not only must the Catholic Adoption Agencies close, Christian foster parents will be struck off too.Vincent Matherick (a non-conformist minister) and his wife, Pauline became foster parents in 2001 and have since fostered 28 vulnerable children through Somerset County Council's Social Services Department.
Social Services asked the Mathericks to sign a contract implementing the Sexual Orientation Regulations. The foster parents were told that they would have to discuss homosexual relationships with children of 11 and to explain how gay people date. It was made clear that they would have to present homosexual relationships as being just as acceptable as heterosexual relationships.
The Mathericks considered that this was a requirement for them to promote homosexuality and not simply a question of non-discrimination; they refused to sign the contract. Social Services told them that they would be taken off the register of foster carers and so they decided to resign.
As a result, their 11 year old foster son will be placed in a council hostel on Friday.
Newspaper coverage:
Daily Telegraph
The Times
Daily Mail
H/T St John's Valdosta
24 comments:
Dear Father:
I hope some barrister can be found to challenge this policy, which is oppressive to the free exercise of the ancient Christian faith.
If UK law is of no avail, perhaps this can be addressed at the EU level under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
"Article 18.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
JB
Disgusting. Shameful for the country and those who would be in charge of the "safety and well-being" of the children.
Sadly the biggest "mistake" they have made is to decide not to sign the forms and then completely ignore what they undertook to do when signing the forms...but it has always been the case that few have had the courage to stand their ground and to not just ignore these things but to publically say NO.
I am sadly coming to the conclusion that the core of the problem is that there are far too many people with far too much money and time on their hands.
The only way the west can now be saved is by an almighty economic crash that utterly devastates western economies and most importantly devastates them to the extent that 2/3rds of public officials have to be sacked because there is no money to pay them.
Until the state beauracratic monster is slayed we will continue to be at the whim of state funded fanatics hobby horses.
Fortunately with increasing evidence that oil production is peaking and will soon decline the scenario I have outlined will soon happen.
The only thing that saddens me is that millions of ordinary people will lose their houses and jobs in the inevitable disaster (this has already started in the USA where people can no longer afford to commute to work because of Petrol Prices - one major factor in the USA house price crash), but the Church will always be there to pick up the pieces.
This is vile and extremely shocking. We'll be praying for you.
Father, does a state that demands you to lie have a right to your obedience?
Are such contracts morally binding in the sight of God? The Church did much to counter the Nazi's immoral actions by pretending to take a neutral stance and thereby saved thousands of Jews. Is the same lip service allowed here? I will admit that there isn't a physical life-and-death dilemma here, but, worse, there is a moral one.
As well as being immoral, this sounds like an extremely tendentious interpretation of the legislation on the part of Somerset County Council. The Department of Communities and Local Government’s own guidance on the Regulations specifically states that “the duties of public authorities are solely to comply with the requirement not to discriminate unlawfully” and that there is no positive duty to “promote” equality of opportunity, as there is, for example, in Section 71(1)(b) of the Race Relations Act 1976. In other words, the Council have no legal authority to require the Matherick’s to sign the contract (allegedly) implementing the Regulations.
I would advise the Mathericks to fight this in the courts and to sue the Council.
God bless them for standing up for the truth.
It's shameful. The situation will get worse for Christians. Then we will see those who stick true to their principles isolated from those who are willing to compromise. Let's hope our bishops give a clear lead on such issues!
"As a result their 11 year old foster son will be placed in a council hostel."
What sort of future will he face there ?
Without any personal knowledge of the facts in this particular case, I would say :
This sounds less like bureacracy run riot, and more like cruel, vindictive barbarism.
I'd like to hear the Council's side of the story.
I would be very glad to be told I have misunderstood the situation.
But I can almost hear their response :
"We cannot comment on individual cases."
I thought the Sexual Orientation Regulations covered the provision of goods or services. What do the gay lobby and this government think foster children are? Goods or services? Or is it that parenthood, or foster-parenthood is a 'service' rather than an altruistic act of love.
This government makes me sick
Note to anon#1: Unfortunately, the SOR’s are not policy - they are law. There is no guarantee that ECHR (Article 9) or UNHR (Article 18) rights of freedom of religion/conscience will be upheld in the Strasbourg or Geneva courts. E.g., Article 9 ECHR provides for qualified rights, since they may be made subject - by government - to such limitations prescribed by law and “as may be necessary in a democratic society - in the UK’s case, the Equality Act 2006 – and hence we have this right limited by the right “not to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation”. And thus the problem faced by these foster parents.
The difference in position between the government and the Catholic Church (and others) on homosexual adoption/other issues concerns not so much competing rights existing in the same legal system, but, more fundamentally, jurisprudence and conflicting theories of law. Catholics’ objections to the SOR’s are based on the higher, eternal, moral natural law - the lex naturalis - which will underpin Catholic conscience-based objection to any immoral law under Catholic teaching, including abortion, euthanasia, unjust war. By contrast, the SOR’s are grounded in the jurisprudence of legal relativism or positivism, a school of thought holding that “law” is no more than the command of the sovereign, or parliament (a most extreme example of positivist law is Nazi legislation). It is firmly rooted in secularism: an unchanging moral norm is not a necessary condition for its validity.
The EU has no separate legal personality, so cannot accede to instruments such as UNHR. The proposed draft EU Reform Treaty discussed last week in Portugal proposes to change this: the EU will have legal personality and intends to accede to ECHR. As far as I know there is no intention to accede to UNHR – EU is not a “State”, hence cannot accede. Even if it could there would be conflicts of laws issues created.
There is also, however, the EU’s Charter on Fundamental Rights - a new “human rights” development - annexed to the Reform Treaty. UK and Poland have opted-out of the Charter, which, for Catholics (in my view) may be a good thing. Poland’s strategy behind this is that it will not be dictated to on absolute moral issues such as abortion by relativist secular values (such as in UNHR, ECHR) – which is what could happen if it accedes to the Charter (cf. similar issue with ECHR and the recent Tysiac abortion case – in which the Strasbourg Court just rapped Poland over the knuckles for not abiding by its own national laws. Tysiac does not establish abortion as a human right (as abortionists have been alleging at the global abortion fest hosted by Marie Stops International in London this week). Bottom line: acceding to human rights instruments in international law can backfire against Catholics: these instruments are used to tackle “right wing” national laws; they can be used to interpret human rights in a very secularist way, subjecting them to the “dictatorship of relativism” - to borrow a phrase from Papa B XVI.
WE have a national shortage of foster parents. I have seen first hand the HUGE problems getting vulnerable children into a good foster home-and so now some crass rule means there will be even less foster parents and more screwed up kids.
And where is the outcry? Where are the Tories or Lib Dems? Hark, is that bored silence I hear?
Sick!
My husband and I have been approved to adopt for over 5 years - we have been approved once by a local authority, and when, after 3 years, no child had been placed with us, we had to go through the approval process again, and were re-approved, but still, no child was placed with us. We then moved to a new area, went through the approval process again, and guess what?... we're still waiting. Why could this be, mmmm, let's see, we've been married for 12 years - longterm stable relationship, we have one birthchild, who everyone deems to be very normal, capable, and likely to be able to cope with a new sibling, we have a 3 bed semi, with a big garden, in a pleasant, not too middle class, not too working class location, we have one parent willing to stay at home and look after the children....what's wrong then? could it be that we are CATHOLIC, and heterosexual, and even more weirdly, we home educate our son!!!Yep, folks, we LIKE children enough to want to spend time with them, but of course, the social workers don't see us as "normal", and they, after all, are "God".
How long, I wonder, before my own (natural) children are taken into care because of the teaching they have received from my wife and me?
My 14 year old son recently got asked not to contribute to a class discussion on homosexuality because his views might offend some in his class. When he said that the views the teacher was expressing were offensive to him, he was told that he had to be more tolerant.
We are in the business of making martyrs. We may not see blood spilled any time soon but social ostracisation and legal discrimination is here already.
Where is the outcry and rallying 'call to arms' against this direct and brazen anti-Catholic and anti-family 'new world order' from our Lordships? The silence is deafening! Decades of comfortable inaction, keeping quiet so as not to rock the boat and a lukewarm approach to solid formation and catechesis of the Catholic faithful has led to the current secular moral vacuum we call Britain. Will our Bishops never speak out against moral evil! Are the flock now so scattered to the winds and without leadership that the devil's work is almost handed him on a plate. Shame. God Bless the Mathericks they need our prayers as does the poor lad who would sooner be placed in a homosexual environment than with a loving foster mother and father. Surely it is the lad's first and foremost human right to be loved by a mother and father - not homosexuals, not approved council carers or a bunch of chimpanzees! This country has sunk yet lower still, but I fear there's probably more to come.
St Michael the Archangel pray for us. Holy Mother of God protect us.
Thank God for the United States Constitution, and in particular, for the First Amendment and Bill of Rights. We in the U. S. take the Constitution for granted. We should not do so.
"My 14 year old son recently got asked not to contribute to a class discussion on homosexuality because his views might offend some in his class. When he said that the views the teacher was expressing were offensive to him, he was told that he had to be more tolerant."
To have been put down by the teacher in that way would have been an honour indeed when I was at school
What a sad reflection on British schoolchildren today (not your son - his classmates)
Were a teacher to take such a manifestly absurd position when I was at school and put a child down in doing so (on any subject), there would have been a chorus of interruptions along the lines of "why shouldn't **they** be more tolerant", just for the sake of it, especially if it was likely this would annoy the teacher.
This would be followed by the whole debate degenerating into ungovernable chaos as the boys (mainly) deliberately took absurdly extreme positions, eg some would have been calling for homosexuality to be mandatory and others calling for the death penalty along with ribald enquiries about the teachers personal life.
The result would have been a teacher nearing nervous exhaustion at the end of the lesson and the kids gleefully spending the rest of the day discussing the extreme position they took and how it horrified the teacher. The teacher otoh would be a bit more careful what they said next time.
Don't kids believe in undermining authority anymore?
(mind you I did go to an inner London comprehensive)
Dear CatholicLawyer-
Thank you for your highly thoughtful analysis.
Even if these international declarations are not helpful in court, they can still be a useful political tool.
When passed in 1975, the Helsinki Accords were initially viewed as a giveaway to the Soviets. (The Accords were thought to legitimize the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.)
Later, dissidents used the Human Rights provisions of the Accords to rally against the Soviet empire, which later collapsed.
Perhaps Catholics and Christians could pursue a similar strategy.
We need to something!
We have been losing the political battle for many years, partly because we have been unable to focus our arguments.
(The sex abuse scandal in the church has also done *immeasurable* harm.)
But all is not lost - we are smart people & can turn this around.
Around the world, the Silent Majority (as Richard Nixon used to call them) will join with us if we deliver a clear message.
We need to articulate to the press, our courts and our politicians that:
1. Christians have a right to express their religious beliefs in both public and private settings.
2. A government cannot require a Christian to engage in an activity counter to his religious beliefs as a condition of:
- participation in a profession,
- performance of business activity, or
-receipt of a public contract or benefit.
The SOR regulations are just one front in a larger war.
Here is the US, some states are forcing Catholic pharmacists to distribute abortion pills. If you don't like it, you are advised to turn in your license.
The ACLU is attempting to chisel the Christian crosses off every war memorial in the country.
Saying "Merry Christmas" is increasingly verboten. ("Happy Winter.")
Doctors who dare to refuse Viagra to promiscuous AIDS patients would face discrimination lawsuits, loss of professional licensure and worse.
I could go on and on...
Sorry for the anonymous post, by the way. I am a senior attorney in a branch of the US government and need to stay under the radar.
JB
JB/ Anon,
I agree - very useful political mileage in these int'l rights intruments - we just have to get better at using them to our advantage stategically and pro-actively when policies are formulated by the abortionists' think tanks for use at fora such as EU,UN and the various "equality" "women's health" sub committees etc). We should talk! I too need to stay well under the radar screen.
lizzied, I think one has to guard against paranoia, sometimes (not that I'm one to talk).
Mr Morgan, using terms like "offensive" is a bad idea. I prefer "wrong" (and "right").
CatholicLawyer and others, my understanding is that unfortunately the right to private and family life comes before conscience and religion, and it is that article that is used to justify homosexuality. At the moment of course the law is only being applied to foster parents, but sooner or later it will be applied to actual parents as well, and then in a sick, Orwellian nightmare, the "right to family life" will be used effectively to destroy family life in this country once and for all.
Oliver, the issue is not as straightforward as you would believe. Which jurisdiction, or which court are you talking about? In Strasbourg (ECtHR), Article 8 - right to private life - has been used for the “tolerance” of homosexual practice. The Strasbourg Court’s jurisprudence on right to conscience objection is complicated, often inconsistent (shows the Court is struggling, split), and the right to CO/right to family life cannot simply be said to be trumped by the right to private life etc. There is no such judgment which make that pronouncement. In fact, there will now be new test cases in this area - because some of us intend to take them to Strasbourg if, once exhasuted, our domestic court decisions or remedies prove unsuccessful or unhelpful.
In the UK, in relation to SOR's (the foster couple) the right we are talking about is right to equality of homosexually-oriented people, or stated differently, the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation. It's written all over the SOR's, especially the policy statements and preambles.
I do not believe it will be applied against natural or biological families as you pessimistically maintain. The judges are not so incautious or dense as to be - nor do they want to be - the ones sounding the death knell for the natural family. Forget about legal arguments and theoretical rights enshrined in constitutions and Treaty instruments; everyone has the common sense to recognise the primacy of the biological family as the most basic unit of the family, including sociologists, anthropologists, and, hopefully, politicians at some point too.
Err... sorry, that should read "the primacy of the biological family as the most basic unit of SOCIETY" (typing too fast).
Another key point in the analysis: the SOR's apply to the provision of goods and services. Applying this (reductionist, Marxist) view of man to the natural family: is parenting a "service"? Creating, loving children, growing them up, ... is that a “service” to which "equality" shall be made to apply? Shows the absurdity of the argument that in applying homosexual rights to non-discrimonation, the right to family life will be trumped. As Wittgenstein said: “..when we understand everything, we will still be left with the mystery of the human heart”. Will the Government/courts really attempt to regulate that too?
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