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Posted on 10/24/2007 5:13:08 AM PDT by UKrepublican
BARRED, THE CHRISTIAN FOSTER PARENTS WHO REFUSED TO TELL BOYS: IT'S GREAT BEING GAY
CHRISTIAN couple who fostered 28 children have been forced to quit because they refuse to promote homosexuality.
Vincent Matherick, 65, and wife Pauline, 61, have also had their 11-year-old foster son removed from their care after their failure to sign a contract enforcing sexual equality.
They say social services told them they must tell children it is “good” to be homosexual. They must also take them to gay meetings if they were curious about same-sex relationships.
The Mathericks’ “crime” was to refuse to sign, on principle, an agreement implementing new laws which promote sexual equality.
The couple say they neither condemn nor condone homosexuality but cannot promote it because of their religious beliefs.
Officials told them they would be taken off the foster carers’ register and be unable to care for any more children if they objected – which they did.
Their 11-year-old foster son, who has been with them for two years, will go to a council hostel. Mr Matherick, a retired travel agent who is now a Christian minister, said they had been forced to retire from fostering rather than be deregistered.
The primary school governor said: “I could not agree to do it because it is against my central beliefs. We have never discriminated against anybody but I cannot preach the benefits of homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God.”
The Mathericks have three children of their own, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild and both are ministers at the non-conformist South Chard Christian Church, near their home in Chard, Somerset.
They began fostering in 2001, taking in single mothers with their babies, and then moved on to caring for children of primary school age. In the last seven years they have fostered 28 children through Somerset County Council’s social services and are still in contact with many.
In February a social worker arrived at their home to tell them about the implementation of the Sexual Orientation Regulations which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of sexuality.
Mr Matherick says an official told them: “You have to agree to promote homosexuality. If you don’t, you will be deregistered.”
The couple have decided to retire rather than be humiliated.
They asked if they could continue caring for their foster son until he was found another home but the council refused.
Mrs Matherick said they had been forced to hide the truth of the row from their foster son and simply say they were retiring.
“He was very upset,” she said. “We are all very close but he’s a mature young man and he’s dealing with it. I hope he doesn’t find out about the reality.”
Mr Matherick said: “It’s terrible that we’ve been forced into this corner. There are not enough foster carers around anyway without these rules. They said we had to be prepared to talk about sexuality with 11-year-olds and to explain how gay people date.
“They said we would even have to take a teenager to gay association meetings. How can I do that when it’s against what I believe?
“I can’t condone homosexuality but we don’t confront people about it.” Somerset Council, which has 72 children which it is unable to house with foster parents, said the row was “not about promoting homosexuality but about carers being aware of equality issues.”
Charlotte Thorneycroft of Christian Concern for Our Nation, said it was “discrimination against Christians” to stop a couple fostering because of their belief in the traditional family.
Tory MP David Davies said: “I’m certain social services would never dare to ask a member of any other established religion to agree to such a stance on homosexuality.”
The Mathericks will fight the case with the help of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship.
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those who foster hate crimes legislation in the US are aiming for this type society.
Why don’t they just ban Christians from being foster parents? See where it gets them.
Any ROP foster caregivers there?...............
I doubt they dare to ask potential Muslim foster parents to do the same. Even if they do, the Muslim foster parents simply sign the document but ignore it. When people ask why the kid is not brought to the homosexuality meetings, they simply say our culture prevents it, and people would stop asking.
They are, in all practicality, here now. If anyone says anything, even remotely, that is considered (by them) libelous toward a "protected" class or group, all hell breaks loose in denouncing that person or organization. They may not get their Hate Crimes Laws passed, but they WILL be enforced...............
I wager a bet that most of the foster parents are Christians. Let’s see them whine about a shortage of foster parents.
That's the whole point, my dear. They've already driven Catholic Social Services to disband; now they're going after individual foster parents. They want NO believers to foster children, even if that means the kids will be stuck in institutional care until they're 18 or dead, whichever comes first.
I heard the lady in this story interviewed by BBC Radio.
They played a soundbite of her in the Radio 2 news at 8AM Monday morning UK time.
I wonder if the police will now knock on her door for “inciting hatred.”
That happened to a woman who opposed gay adoption in another BBC Radio interview.
I really wonder why the left is promoting this so fanatically. Is it because they hate Christianity? Or do they hate Christianity because they love this “alternate life style”?
Do they want the human race to become extinct? Do they want to destroy the family and have all births be by test tube?
It won’t happen, though. This is just a one-family incident. I’m suggesting that if all Christians stood up for their principles, they would not get away with it because of what you just said. No matter what they think about people who won’t tow the line on their politically correct mandates, they aren’t going to just herd these kids into institutions for the rest of their childhood. They’ll pretend that it’s not an issue in order to get Christians to come back to the table.
The problem is that you can’t make any headway when it’s only one family that has a problem with their mandates.
Wasn’t it in the UK (Scotland maybe) where a homosexual couple routinely sexually abused the childen in their foster home and the “state” did nothing fearing a backlash for hounding homosexuals?
I believe you are correct - it wasn’t long ago, I think I posted the story.
Disgusting
Here's what a Christian would say: The essence of sin is the refusal to submit to God as supreme master. It happens that He invented sex for purposes of His own (one of which is our enjoyment, btw), and to accomplish those purposes, He has set down some rules for it.
What we call the left is just a political expression of the rejection of God as Master. Leftists consider that they have the right to make all their own rules. Their ideal is absolute personal autonomy, but that is not possible in a world with more than one person in it. The minute you put two people within contact distance, each is curbed to some extent by the other. It turns out that the left is willing to accept practically any sort of limitation in tradeoff as long as it leaves them free to chase what is for them The Big One: absolute sexual freedom. You can tax them, regulate them, herd them here and there, but don't tell them who they can't take to bed. Especially, you don't remind them that Somebody Whom they would rather ignore has something to say about it.
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