A UK court has sensibly ruled<\/a> that a couple of self-styled “traditional Christians” can’t be foster carers because of their views on gay people.
\nHas the High Court suddenly taken to ruling on foster carers’ acceptability on a case by case basis? <\/p>\n

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.(from the BBC) <\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah. So it was the couple who took the case to the High Court, then. Generally not the most cost-effective action. In fact, a High Court case usually costs thousands of pounds. You might think that, as “traditional Christians”, they maybe could have given all the money that this cost to the poor, instead. However, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount words, in the lost Gospel of Perrymason, clearly stated that “whosoever will take legal action in the name of prejudice shall inherit the earth”<\/em>
\nThe BBC reported that the <\/p>\n

.. Christian Legal Centre reacted to the ruling with dismay and warned that “fostering by Christians is now in doubt”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s our old friends, the Christian Legal Centre, who are – of course – neither the paralegal wing of the Anglican Church nor a crack tactical team of solicitors operating out of the Vatican.
\nI’d hate to be represented by them, given their cavalier treatment of the facts (so it’s a good job that I’m not a fundamentalist Christian with a legal problem.) The judges in the case explicitly said that this ruling didn’t imply that religious belief was a bar to adoption and fostering, only that laws protecting people from discrimination must take precedence.
\nSo, “fostering by Christians is now in doubt”<\/em> can best be put in the ever-expanding category of “lying for Jesus”.
\nThe headline for this story on their site<\/a> is:<\/p>\n

“Breaking News: High Court Judgment suggests Christian beliefs harmful to children. Fostering by Christians now in doubt.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would refer them to the words of the judges in the case:<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, m’luds, that just wasn’t clear enough for the Christian Legal Centre’s lawyers to understand.
\nHowever, you have to assume that they did understand perfectly but don’t want anyone else to. The true purpose of the Christian Legal Centre seems to be to get free media exposure – witness their media page<\/a> – by acting as rent-a-quotes always happy to misrepresent their strange ideas as the “Christian” view whenever media researchers are stuck for a soundbite.
\n(The couple with a bed and breakfast hotel who got prosecuted for refusing a room to a gay couple were their last major media success story a few weeks ago)
\nOk, you have to take off your hat to the skillful marketing and you even have to feel a bit sorry for the low-level big*ts who are their cannon fodder.
\nBut all the same, it seriously pisses me off that they are winning every skirmish in their campaign to convince the average Daily Mail\/Express\/Telegraph and Star reading idiot in the UK that “Christians” are under threat .<\/p>\n

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