Christian foster parents will most likely be the new religious right cause celebre

Something happened today overseas which I know will play out in this country:

Mr and Mrs Johns said they could not tell a child homosexuality was an acceptable lifestyle.

Eunice and Owen Johns, 62 and 65, of Derby, said the city council did not want them to look after children because of their traditional views.

They claim they were "doomed not to be approved" due to their opinions.

The Pentecostal Christian couple had applied to Derby City Council to be respite carers.

They withdrew their application after a social worker expressed concerns when they said they could not tell a child a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable.

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.

But Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruled that laws protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation "should take precedence" over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.

They said that if children were placed with carers who objected to homosexuality and same-sex relationships, "there may well be a conflict with the local authority's duty to 'safeguard and promote the welfare' of looked-after children".

And while we know the religious right will be chomping at the bit over this (Lifesite News has already started), the situation to me is not as simple as folks will most likely make it.

While I have nothing against the couple, I do have a problem with their failure to acknowledge the plain possibility that one of the children they seek to foster may turn out to be an lgbt.

And then what will happen to that child in that environment?

This isn't a matter of the lgbt community trying to strong arm the law in our favor. It's a matter of a creating the best environment for a child to be nurtured.

 And  no matter how Christian and nurturing as the Johns family claims to be, the chance that an lgbt child may be placed in this unaccepting household is a chance that shouldn't be taken.

The words of Robert Pigott, BBC religious affairs correspondent, says it better than me:

The case is likely to be seen as a landmark decision, as senior judges ruled so decisively against any idea that attitudes might be justified purely because they were Christian in origin.

The court discriminated between kinds of Christianity, saying that Christians in general might well make good foster parents, while people with traditionalist Christian views like Mr and Mrs Johns might well not.

Such views, said the judges, might conflict with the welfare of children.

Will the House of Representative defend DOMA with FRC lies? and other Monday midday news briefs

To Block A Gay-Straight Alliance, Texas High School Shuts Down All Extracurricular Clubs - Just unbelievable how some people will stoop. Was all of this really necessary?

John Boehner: I'd Be Very Surprised If The House Doesn't Decide To Defend DOMA - Given what I said in my post this morning, one has to wonder if the House does defend DOMA, will it adopt the Family Research Council's propaganda against the lgbt community.

Black, Gay & Elderly - A VERY important documentary which should have a wider audience.

Right-Wing Commentator Calls Marriage Equality "An Act of Societal Suicide" - They just can't help themselves with their rhetoric.

Hey CBN: Why not ask Peter Sprigg about 'exporting' or criminalizing certain humans? - If Peter Sprigg wants to "debate" then why does he keep running away from the debate?

Family Research Council pulling the 'gay = promiscuous pedophiles' card to defend DOMA

Audacity is always rooted in what someone feels he or she can get away with.

In other words, if no one calls you out for lying then you are mostly likely going to do it again.

It's helpful to keep this in mind while perusing a Family Research Council's website directed solely at Defending DOMA.

One has to hand it to the organization for not letting a moment - in this case, the Justice Department saying that it will no longer defend DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) in court cases - go by without using it as an opportunity to  fund raise.

But in attacking the decision not to defend DOMA - and gay marriage in general - FRC uses the page to push incredibly ridiculous arguments having nothing to do with gay marriage.

And when it does attack gay marriage head in, the organization uses tactics which led to its being called out several times in the past (most recently by the Southern Poverty Law Center) for deliberately passing along awful anti-gay propaganda and distorting legitimate science to quantify this propaganda.

Two sections of the webpage (Ten Arguments From Social Science Against Same-Sex 'Marriage, and Q&A What's Wrong With Letting Same-Sex Couples Marry?) are rife with deception.

For today, let's look at Q&A: What's Wrong with Letting Same-Sex Couples Marry?

A following passage in this piece is a perfect example of the low road FRC has chosen to travel in order to defend DOMA:

Do homosexuals pose a threat to children?

Homosexual men are far more likely to engage in child sexual abuse than are heterosexuals. The evidence for this lies in the findings that:

·  Almost all child sexual abuse is committed by men; and

·  Less than three percent of American men identify themselves as homosexual; yet

·  Nearly a third of all cases of child sexual abuse are homosexual in nature (that is, they involve men molesting boys). This is a rate of homosexual child abuse about ten times higher than one would expect based on the first two facts.

These figures are essentially undisputed. However, pro-homosexual activists seek to explain them away by claiming that men who molest boys are not usually homosexual in their adult sexual orientation. Yet a study of convicted child molesters, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that "86 percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual" (W. D. Erickson, M.D., et al., in Archives of Sexual Behavior 17:1, 1988).

This does not mean that all, or even most, homosexual men are child molesters--but it does prove that homosexuality is a significant risk factor for this horrible crime.

That's right. FRC is pulling the homosexuality = pedophilia lie and distorting legitimate work prove this point.