This story focuses on England, but it is becoming true in the U.S. as well. J.E. Dyer writes:
Presumably, that’s how the advertisements will read from now on. Britain’s High Court has ruled that a Pentecostal couple who have fostered young children for years will no longer be allowed to do so because – when asked; they didn’t bring it up themselves – they told a social worker they could not tell children under the age of 10 that a homosexual lifestyle is acceptable. (H/t: The Weekly Standard.)
The basis for this ruling is Britain’s set of Sexual Orientation Regulations, which make it an offense to “discriminate on the grounds that someone is heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.” By the definition implied in this ruling, it is “discrimination” to be unwilling to affirmatively endorse someone else’s beliefs or behavior, even in one’s own home where only third parties are present.
This interpretation of the law is idiotic on its face. But it was handed down by the British High Court. The next obvious step is ruling that parents must endorse homosexuality to their own children.
Think not? This extended treatment of the court’s ruling shows that it contains every precept that would be necessary to intervene between parents and their natural children. Besides affirming that government authorities “can require positive attitudes to be demonstrated towards homosexuality,” and that the Sexual Orientation Regulations take precedence over the right against religious discrimination, the court opined as follows:
Article 9 [of the European Human Rights Act] only provides a ‘qualified’ right to manifest religious belief and … this will be particularly so where a person in whose care a child is placed wishes to manifest a belief that is inimical to the interests of children.
This passage echoes language used by Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, which, in a brief on the case, “suggested to the Court that a child should not, in their own words, be ‘infected’ with Christian moral beliefs.”
I think Dyer's next paragraph absolutely true (as is the rest of her article):
I am 100% certain that when the Sexual Orientation Regulations were being debated early in the decade (they were implemented in 2003), opponents theorized that things just like this could happen – and advocates of the regulations swore that that was ridiculous: such ideas were the wild imaginings of fevered minds. As always, the naysayers who warned of special-interest encroachment on individual liberty were correct.
If the British High Court deems Christian beliefs on homosexuality “inimical to the interests of children,” it will justify intervening between parents and their natural children, just as governments do the world over when child welfare is at issue. If this kind of ruling isn’t what Parliament had in mind, back when it was considering the Sexual Orientation Regulations, now would be a good time to do something about that.
J.E. Dyer blogs at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions” and as The Optimistic Conservative. She writes a weekly column for Patheos.