Or so you'd think if you trusted the uber-conservative WorldNetDaily "News" site. WND has a story about a Christian couple who wants nothing more than to be good foster parents and help little children. Alas, they've become the target of a vicious persecution campaign by the United Kingdom's anti-Christian legal system!
"... Christians who want to provide foster care for needy children must promote homosexuality to them, and that there is only a "qualified" right to exercise their Christian beliefs." [emphasis added]Got that? They're required by the court to promote homosexuality, in violation of their Christian beliefs!
Nothing could be further from the truth. Like just about everything the nutcase WorldNetDaily.com "news" organization reports, it's a distortion of the facts. They're deliberately hiding the truth. These foster parents were breaking both the law and their commitment to the children under their care.
The real truth is that when you become a foster parent, one of your most important duties is to respect the religion of the child's family. You aren't the parent. You are helping during a terrible time when a child needs nothing but love and support. The child has been yanked from home and family (which were probably bad to begin with) and thrust into a series of dormitories, juvenile homes and courtrooms. The child wants nothing more than to go home. The very best thing that can happen is for the parents to get help, get back on their feet and the child to rejoin a happier, healthier family.
Now imagine you are a parent of a child in foster care. How would you feel if your child's foster parents were allowed to convert your child to a different religion? Would it be OK with you to discover your Christian child had been converted to Judaism or Islam? If you were a Buddhist, how would you feel if your child returned to you as a Rastafarian? Would you appreciate it if your Atheist child was returned to you spouting Christian biblical passages?
Of course not. Because foster parents are not the children's permanent parents. Most foster parents are wonderful, generous and loving people who care for their foster kids as long as the kids need help. Good foster parents respect the culture and religion of the children in their care. Their job is to help children through a troubled part of their young lives. Foster parents are supposed to provide shelter, love and emotional support. If they do their jobs well, the children rest and gain strength in a safe environment, and eventually return to a better and stronger family.
So when WND claims that foster parents are required to "promote" homosexuality, it's a lie, plain and simple. The real truth is that the Court ordered these Christian foster parents to stop proselytizing the kids. The foster parents, Eunice and Owen Johns, were deliberately teaching their homophobic hate-filled beliefs to young, impressionable children, against the wishes of the parents and the children. And they were knowingly violating the law as well as their promise to respect the religion of the children in their care.
Sadly, WND is enormously popular. People actually believe this stuff, and WND has a huge readership. Their articles are widely cited by other Christian blogs and web sites. All sorts of Christians will read this WND article and be convinced that their way of life is threatened. They'll believe that they're the persecuted minority. Ironically, it is the Christian couple in this story that is doing the persecution.
It's amazing how well the "Underdog Meme" works.
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As a Christian foster parent, I disagree with you. When a child comes into my home, he becomes part of our family. We all go to church and follow God's word from the Bible. To ask me to not teach that child about God, would be like asking me to withhold his medicine from him.I want this child to be saved just like I want everyone I love to be saved. The childs parents can and do request that their child can only go to a home that their religion is practiced, but sometimes that's not possible. We were friends with a foster child whose mom was Hare Kristna and only wanted her daughter to go to Kristna homes. She was kicked out of each one of them. She was placed with a christian lady, thrived and chose to stay there, until she was on her own. Their are choices you have, even when your child is taken from you.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Then you shouldn't be a foster parent. If you can't respect the child, the child's family, and the family's religion, then you have no business taking in children into your home. I'm sorry, but you're just wrong. I admire your desire to help, but if you were being truly charitable and helping out children and their families, you would put your religious beliefs aside.
ReplyDeleteYou ARE being asked "not to teach that child about God." When you sign up to be a foster parent, that's one of the things you agree to do. You have no right to push your religion on children, against the wishes of the parents, merely because the parents have fallen into difficulties.
If you were truly charitable, you would welcome a Muslim, Jew, Hari Krishna or Hindu into your home, and you would be sure to take that child to the Mosque or Temple of their choice every week. And if you set a good example yourself by attending your Christian church every week, maybe when that child grows up they'll come back to you and ask more questions.
But it's immoral to force your religion onto another family's child during that family's time of need, merely because they're vulnerable and accessible. If you can't see why this is true, then I question the morality of your religion.