Christian couple told they can't adopt due to their views on homosexuality.

[Edwardo Piet]

I am happy to declare that post #137 by theVOID completely changed my viewpoint on this matter. I'm just sorry that I wasn't convinced by an earlier post.

Since there are so many bigoted people, and it would only be truly fair to exclude bigoted people from adopting if all were excluded, that would mess up the foster system up even more than if we allow bigoted people to be foster parents.

Although, as always, I am open to being convinced back again - I just hope that if I am ever to be convinced back over to the other side, it is done for the right rational reasons (as has been done this time).

[theVOID]

All bigotry isn't equal.

I gave you ample opportunity to build a logical case for that claim, all you managed was "protected classes" and I've already pointed out the myriad of problems with them.

You'd throw away decades of people working towards social equality against a majority who didn't want to see it happen just so you can be "right".

That's bullshit, the only way to social equality is a change in social attitudes, that is not something that the government has any role in and it's a much bigger movement than the ground lost to allowing people to say what they like AND adopt/foster in the name of equal opportunity and consistent standards - The benefits to society by giving children stable homes is far greater than the ground lost to potential bigotry too.

The trend to social equality will continue with the changing social attitudes, and we do not need to become authoritarians and sacrifice our principles of equal opportunity and free speech to hurry it along. I do not just think it's unfair on the individual, I think it sets a dangerous precedent in society.

That I'm right means no more than I wasn't the one with the conceptually flawed position. I was right about you having double standards, and I was right about the social implications being worse than the alternative. No problem here.

My point, which you can't or won't see is that we as a society need to be moving away from that & the people who won't, no longer get to participate in all aspects of said society.

We ARE moving away from bigotry, by ourselves and without sacrificing our principles and liberties to the government in order to hurry along one ideal at the expense of others. Take even the southern states of the USA that are highly homophobic, allowing them to adopt or foster is not making the bigotry situation worse, social attitudes are still changing for other reasons, for the right reasons.

We aren't talking about tearing down the entire foster care system, we are talking about changes going forward. You are so worried about what people can or can't do you can't see the accumulated real damage that it does & will do in the future.

You either impose a double standard, sacrificing the principles of equal opportunity and free speech, in order to have a negligible impact on the decline of bigotry OR you maintain your principles and instead use your own freedom of speech to condone bigotry and be part of the change in attitudes, you can change attitudes without the heavy hand of the government and without setting dangerous authoritarian precedents.

You think my point is bad for the individual & I think yours is bad for society.

I think your point is bad for both society and individuals.

[Skipper]

Since there are so many bigoted people, and it would only be truly fair to exclude bigoted people from adopting if all were excluded, that would mess up the foster system up even more than if we allow bigoted people to be foster parents.

I'd suggest that when bigoted views such as the ones this couple have are found, then the applicants are excluded from the adoption system. And yet we still have an adoption system. No doubt there are people who hold similar or worse views that get unnoticed and are allowed to adopt but that's no reason to let the ones we do find also adopt, minimisation has got to better than just giving up to "make it fair" to all bigots. This was a ruling that suggests a precedent for future applicants who hold other religiously backed prejudices and beliefs. They won't be tolerated over already in place human, secular laws. That's a good thing.

[Edwardo Piet]

If no bigoted people were allowed to adopt wouldn't that make a lack of foster parents?

[theVOID]

If no bigoted people were allowed to adopt wouldn't that make a lack of foster parents?

Absolutely, they are already in short supply.

[Welsh cake]

The Local Authorities, foster carers and agencies must all abide by the Equality Act 2010 to ensure services, recruitment and general business do not discriminate on the grounds of any protected characteristic.

...and yet part of the Equality Act 2010 (which you conveniently listed below) states that the same services cannot discriminate on the grounds of "religion & belief", which is exactly what this City Council did.

It doesn't matter how you interpret it to be discriminatory, it's the law, it's current legislation - foster agencies as employers must comply with it. The Equality Act 2010 means people cannot use any of the aforementioned protected characteristics to discriminate the other. You cannot hide simply behind the veil of Christianity and behave like a bigot towards anyone else on those grounds, in this particular instance, sexual orientation. It’s all to do with equality and diversity, no one has any more rights than the other, and no one gets to use their characteristics as an instrument to discriminate another. It does not just apply to beliefs, which is after all just one of the protected characteristics – for example an asexual individual cannot act with prejudice in the workplace towards a heterosexual couple.

...and also breaking the same act they used to condemn the couple. This is why the Equality Act of 2010 is a piece of bullshit; it contains contradictions that ultimately result in an unfair hierarchy of equality.

No, the person was merely doing their job. You wouldn't last one week in the civil service or any other governmental department Adrian, you'd be dismissed for gross misconduct.

I bolded the line I want to draw attention to, in hindsight that wasn't a particular clever thing of you say, in fact you (and by extension the people who thought you made sense by handing out kudos) are at best ignorant and at worse borderline insulting. The Act actually forces employers and service providers to make reasonable adjustments to their workplaces to overcome barriers experienced by disabled people. You seriously think they are worthless?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_Act_2010

So long as it does not discriminate on the grounds of any protected characteristic of Equality Act 2010.

-Age
-Disability
-Gender
-Gender Reassignment
-Marriage or Civil Partnership
-Pregnancy and maternity
-Race & Ethnicity
-Religion & Belief (or the lack thereof)
-Sexual orientation
-Religious beliefs

http://www.equalities.gov.uk/equality_act_2010.aspx

There you are, I've bolded the section that I find to be in complete contrast to everything said here.

All you've done is made a observational selection fallacy. I expected better from you.

You don't grasp how direct and indirect discrimination are prohibited nor how equality is enforced under the new legislation. Kindly take the time to understand the law before condemning it outright:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents

[Tiberius]

...and so you admit that all your arguments are based on nothing more than your own biased opinions, and cannot therefore be applied to the general way of things without resorting to some form of authoritarianism. Exactly what we stated at the beginning.

Not at all. Protected classes aren't an opinion Adrian. Neither is child psychology. I'm not an anarchist like you. I realize society needs some laws & that mob rule is a bad thing. You may too when you get older.

Protected classes are an opinion; they are just an opinion supported by the government and the law, which is what we were debating in this thread. I also never said that child psychology was an opinion. Just an FYI, but using strawmen in a debate isn't usually thought of as clever.

Oh, and I'm not an anarchist; I'm a Libertarian, or a minarchist. In other words, I too realise that society needs some laws and that mob rule is a bad thing. I just believe that the government should treat everyone equally, rather than creating special groups of people who need "protection". There are some things that the government should stay out of, and people's beliefs is one of them. If those beliefs cause them to commit a crime, then the government can get involved, but just because someone is a racist doesn't mean they are going to go around committing racial attacks.

You keep harping on authoritarianism. I dare you to walk down your street nude (freedom of expression) or yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre (freedom of speech) & see how long your cries of "authoritarianism" keep you out of jail.

In a truly libertarian country, you could do both and avoid jail (although with the latter, you'd probably get banned from the theatre). However, where I live (UK), both major parties are on the authoritarian end of the scale. So no, I'm not going to do either. I follow the rules of the country and seek to change them through legal means.

Just as an aside, you are woefully ignorant of the civil-rights struggle in the USA.

No I'm not. Just because I disagree with the current system doesn't mean I'm not aware of its history. I stand by my position; I think companies should be able to hire whomever they want to. I trust the public enough to make their own decisions on whether to do business with those companies without having the government forcing them.

It doesn't matter how you interpret it to be discriminatory, it's the law, it's current legislation - foster agencies as employers must comply with it. The Equality Act 2010 means people cannot use any of the aforementioned protected characteristics to discriminate the other. You cannot hide simply behind the veil of Christianity and behave like a bigot towards anyone else on those grounds, in this particular instance, sexual orientation. It’s all to do with equality and diversity, no one has any more rights than the other, and no one gets to use their characteristics as an instrument to discriminate another. It does not just apply to beliefs, which is after all just one of the protected characteristics – for example an asexual individual cannot act with prejudice in the workplace towards a heterosexual couple.

Yes, I'm aware it's the current legislation; but apparently you are not aware that its contradictory nature has been noted time and time again by lawyers fighting for the rights of both religious people and homosexuals. It is consistently noted that sexual orientation often trumps religious beliefs, despite the fact that both are considered part of the "equality" act.

No, the person was merely doing their job. You wouldn't last one week in the civil service or any other governmental department Adrian, you'd be dismissed for gross misconduct.

I never said they weren't doing their job, I merely commented on the fact that because the law is contradictory, they can come to what I consider to be bad decisions (such as the one we are debating in this thread).

I bolded the line I want to draw attention to, in hindsight that wasn't a particular clever thing of you say, in fact you (and by extension the people who thought you made sense by handing out kudos) are at best ignorant and at worse borderline insulting. The Act actually forces employers and service providers to make reasonable adjustments to their workplaces to overcome barriers experienced by disabled people. You seriously think they are worthless?

No, I don't think they are worthless. How do you even manage to get to that position based on me calling what I consider a flawed and unfair "equality" act bullshit? What I've said before is that companies shouldn't be forced into employing people they don't want to, or making adjustments. If the employees don't like it, they don't have to put up with it. I believe that companies should be controlled by their consumers; and that consumers ultimately hold more power than any law or industrial action can.

All you've done is made a observational selection fallacy. I expected better from you.

There was no fallacy. I pointed out the fact that there is a massive contradiction in the law; some equalities are more equal than others.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

If no bigoted people were allowed to adopt wouldn't that make a lack of foster parents?

Absolutely, they are already in short supply.

Yair,like rocking horse shit.

[tackattack]

The adoptions rates for statistics I could find showed that 46% of the children placed in foster care is into a non-relaive home, yet only 18% of the children that entered foster care got adopted. ref

So yes the, children in need of a good home still far outnumber the amount of qualified foster parents.

[Shell B]

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

This is a really fuzzy statement. How exactly did she express concern? What did she say to them that caused them to withdraw their application? These little questions would play a big role in my opinion of how the government handled it, so I can't really form an opinion here. There is also the fact that it doesn't say she was concerned that the child would be exposed to anti-homosexual views. It states that the worker was concerned that the applicants said they would not tell a child that being gay is okay. Odd that the applicants would be expected to tell the children that being gay is okay. Something about this seems shady to me. We're obviously not privy to something or that article just did a really poor job of quoting people.

In my experience, many parents that don't tell their kids being gay is okay are not bigots at all. It's the position of most parents to simply not talk about it if it isn't necessary. To be honest, I think the age of the couple in question is more of an issue than this.

All of this being said, none of us know how the couple expressed their distaste for homosexuality. The news is so incomplete that it infuriates me sometimes. The social worker may have asked them what they would do if they found out the child was homosexual and their response could have been, "Throw him out." I would say that the decision would have been a sound one if such was the case. However, the decision not to follow through seems to be that of the potential foster parents. They had already withdrawn before the court case. From there, they weren't reopening the foster application, from what I can see. They were petitioning the courts on something regarding religious rights. Of course, the article doesn't state the full nature of the court case and why it even went that far, considering they had already dropped their application.

Now, foster parenting in the United States is a highly abused system of get the kid, get paid. So, my opinions on screening foster parents are based on how poorly the system is run here and therefore, cannot apply to foster parenting in the UK. I do think that foster parents should be very careful what they teach foster children because they are not providing a permanent home. If the child later gets a permanent home, those teachings could conflict and confuse the child. Do I think the government should control this? No. For many reasons. Not the least of which being that it would be impossible to facilitate without wasting already low funds and further displacing children. As for permanent adoption, in the U.S., and adopted child is legally the same as a biological child. You have the same rights to make choices regarding the child's medical care, schooling and religious beliefs. If you abuse the child, then the state has a say. Being a stepparent, I don't have the same rights as a biological or adoptive parent. My rights are even looser given that my "marriage" is mostly for his benefit. Nonetheless, I would flip my shit if the state tried to tell me what to teach my child regarding religion.