The newspapers have gone to town with the case of Owen and Eunice Johns, a Christian couple who were not allowed by their local authority to continue as foster parents - to children under 10 years old - because they were not willing to promote a homosexual lifestyle to a young child temporarily in their care.The High Court was asked for a ruling.
Two judges decided that if children were placed with foster parents with traditional Christian views there might be a conflict with the local authority's duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children;
that equality laws concerning sexual orientation should take preference over laws regarding freedom from religious discrimination;
that a local authority can require positive attitudes to be demonstrated towards homosexuality;
that the Johns were not being religiously discriminated against because they were excluded from fostering due to their moral views on sexual ethics, not their Christian beliefs; and
that Article 9 of the Human Rights Act provides only a qualified right to manifest religious belief, 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.
The Telegraph called it "the new Inquisition" and "a disgrace." Michael Kelly at the Scotsman called it "downright insulting to traditional Christians and their beliefs." Melanie Phillips called it "a grotesque judgment" and "utterly appalling."
Said Andrea Williams, of Christian Concern: "If Christian morals are harmful to children and unacceptable by the state, how many years do we have before natural children start being taken away from Christians?
"Britain is now leading Europe in intolerance against religious belief."
Under a heading "Christianity isn't dying, it's being eradicated," Cristina Odone wrote on her Telegraph blog: "It's official. Britain is no longer a Christian nation. In banning Eunice and Owen Johns, a devout Christian couple, from fostering children, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson declared that we live in a secular state, and the Johns' religious convictions disqualified them from raising citizens of that state. . .
"As the judges wagged their fingers about the secularist principles that, they claim, define the nation (and which 'ought to be, but seemingly are not, well understood'), they were not describing the status quo: a strong majority of Britons still consider themselves to be Christian. Instead, they were making clear their desire to steer this country in a direction of their own choosing - one that matches the views of an increasingly strident group that is determined to scrub Christianity from public life. . .
"According to our learned judges, 'the aphorism that "Christianity is part of the common law of England" is now mere rhetoric.'"
This is, says Ms Odone, "excruciatingly unjust." Unfortunately, she doesn't offer a remedy.
