Same story, different side of the pond:

Dr Sheila Matthews wants to European Court to rule on whether professional medical advice regarding the best interests of children should take precedence over homosexual rights.

Dr Matthews claims she was forced out of her job on the Northamptonshire Council Adoption Panel because of her Christian beliefs that children should be placed with a father and mother rather than a homosexual couple.

She resigned from her post in March after being barred from sitting on the adoption panel.

[...]

Dr Matthews said: “I sought to do my job to a high standard to support the making of good decisions in the best interests of these children.

“I understand that legislation permits same sex couples to adopt and they are positively encouraged to apply, but I have professional concerns, based on educational and psychological evidence, of the influences on children growing up in homosexual households and I feel this is not the best possible option for a child.”

Here is the thing:  Dr. Matthews may be claiming that she has “professional concerns, based on educational and psychological evidence,” but she’s being represented by the UK equivalent of the Alliance Defense Fund, which is what fundamentalists do when they want a special pass to practice in an inferior way due to their religious beliefs.  No one is “discriminating against her,” any more than they would be if she, due to deep religious beliefs, refused to prescribe medicine for her patients, relying instead on prayer.  Dr. Matthews is obviously entitled to her beliefs, but she’s not entitled to give poor care to other, unwitting people.  But that is what she seems to want.

We shall see how the European court reacts.

This is one of those stories that, if you simply look at the bones of it, without any context, might seem as if, indeed, Christians are being discriminated against simply for their beliefs.  Of course, that’s not quite the case:

Gay rights laws are eroding Christianity and stifling free speech, Church of England bishops warned yesterday.

Senior clerics, including former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, spoke out ahead of a High Court ‘clash of rights’ hearing over whether Christians are fit to foster or adopt children.

The test case starting today involves a couple who say they have been barred from fostering because they refuse to give up their religious belief that homosexuality is unacceptable.

Here is the thing, though. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the couple is Christian. It has to do with the fact that they are using their Christianity as a smokescreen for their homophobia. Many, many Christians are not homophobes, and their ability to foster children is not at issue.

Look how dramatically the bishops and religious leaders are framing this:

Supporters hope their legal challenge will set a precedent for the rights of Christians to foster children without compromising their faith.

But senior bishops fear that if the ruling goes against them, it could have devastating consequences for those with religious beliefs.

Either way, they believe the case will determine whether Christians can continue to express their beliefs in this country.

Oh, my god. Tiniest violin in the world, I am playing.

Let me explain this in very simple terms: When you are a foster parent, you are charged with protecting and caring for children. In the real world, it is understood that among minor children, there will be some who are gay. It is a dangerous thing to put a gay child, unknowingly, in the home of homophobes who will bully them with anti-gay religious bigotry. It is not a safe environment for those children, and since we cannot know with 100% certainty which kids in the system are and are not gay, it’s best to put the needs of all children first, and keep them out of homes where they will be spiritually abused.

Or in the words of a prominent UK gay rights leader:

However Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights charity Stonewall, said: ‘Too often in fostering cases nowadays it’s forgotten that it is the interests of a child, and not the prejudices of a parent, that matter.

‘Many Christian parents of gay children will be shocked at Mr and Mrs Johns’s views, which are more redolent of the 19th century than the 21st.’

Exactly. This has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. I wouldn’t place a child for foster care with radicalized Muslims either. The fact that this couple is going to court over this, that their homophobia is so intense that it’s in the public square, should be a red flag to anyone considering releasing a child into their care.

Good morning! I am Father John — standing in for Father Clifford Banes who is in court on unspecified charges today.

Today we are blessed, dear Catholic brothers and sisters, with a reading from the Book of Wikipedia:

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (10:25-37). In the parable, a Jewish traveler is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan comes by. Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured Jew.

Jesus is described as telling the parable in response to a question regarding the identity of the “neighbor” which Leviticus 19:18 says should be loved.

This is the word of the Internet Lord.

(Thanks be to God.)

My dear Catholic brothers and sisters. Clearly Jesus was an idiot. We must take heed of the idiocy of today’s reading, and learn from our brothers in Britain who show us the way to true holiness.

Britain’s charity regulatory commission has ruled that the Catholic Care adoption agency must serve gay couples. The agency had demanded that it be exempt from the nation’s anti-discrimination laws. … “The charity is very disappointed with the outcome, Catholic Care will now consider whether there is any other way in which the charity can continue to support families seeking to adopt children in need,” the group said in a statement.

Dear brothers and sisters, the Romans are at our doorstep — threatening to force us to be like the wicked Samaritan who helps the unholy in times of need. We are being persecuted, my children. Stand alert!

Do you want to be holy like me, the priest of the parable, or do you want to be brought down to the level of a despicable Samaritan?

Let us now rise and sing righteous songs of self-praise. For we are God’s people — and they are not!

Hotty toddy godalmighty, we haven’t visited Peter in a while, have we?

Let’s jump in the crazy pool:

The Homosexual Activist Movement, aided and abetted by liberal straights, currently is the greatest threat to religious freedom in the United States.

“Homosexual Activist Movement” is capitalized because Peter accidentally found out that we’ve replaced “LGBT” with “HAM.”  It’s easier, because people kept adding letters to LGBT, and you really can’t add letters to “ham.”

Already, we in the USA are seeing the same sort of persecution for opposing homosexuality as is occurring in Great Britain, only on a lesser scale.

Yes, we haven’t quite reached the level of anti-Christian mass murder and knife crime that’s currently being inflicted on the violent, lawless nation of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It will only get worse if homosexuality- and transsexuality-based special “rights” are federalized under the proposed “Employment Non-Discrimination Act.”

Yes, that would be so terrible, because then fundamentalists who hate gay people would have to abide by the rules of everyone else who owns a business, and they couldn’t fire a gay person from the Country Kitchen, or whatever greasy malcontented businesses they own.

(A Note on “Islamophobia”: the effort to push for acceptance of Islam — insofar as it becomes official government policy — is also a threat to liberty; however, unlike in the U.K., state punishment of “Islamophobia” in the United States has not reached a fever pitch. But isn’t it interesting how activist Muslims, who utterly reject homosexuality as sinful and bemoan Western promotion of homosexuality, have nevertheless copied the manipulative “gay” tactic of accusing opponents of possessing an irrational “phobia”?)

It was awkward when the mullahs started signing up for classes at the gay and lesbian community center.  At first we just thought they were particularly unkempt Bears from a far off land, but when they started draping burkhas over the drag queens, we knew there was a problem.

Anyway, note the competing hatreds in Peter’s tiny mind:  The radical Islamists, who hold to an ideology that’s pretty much identical to his, nonetheless inspire an insane fear in him, just as gays do, so he mentally contorts himself into a position where the Islamists are just like gays, so there, nanny nanny boo boo.

Another key difference between the USA and Britain is that biblical Christianity is much more vibrant and common here, although of course its strength varies geographically. That is why homosexual activists are struggling to “re-interpret” the Word of God and turn it into a “gay”-affirming text.

Whatever.  That’s not my department.  Anyway, he’s talking about the UK so that he can bitch about Tony Blair, who is apparently one of his boogeymen:

Not only did Mr. Blair make Britain safe for same-sex immorality, as it were, but he helped establish a legal “anti-discrimination” system that led inexorably to Christians and moral-minded British citizens being investigated and even jailed for “anti-gay” discrimination. See this recent case of a Dale McAlpine, a British evangelist who was arrested for preaching against the sin of homosexuality (the charge against him was ultimately dropped).

And WHY was it dropped, asked I to the dingus?  Oh, this is why:

A spokeswoman said: “We keep cases under constant review and following a further review of all the evidence in this case we were no longer satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and we have therefore discontinued the proceedings against Mr Mcalpine.”

Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell condemned the arrest and urged the home secretary to issue new guidelines to the police.

He said: “Although I disagree with Dale Mcalpine and support protests against his homophobic views, he should not have been arrested and charged. Criminalisation is a step too far.”

Oh my god, even Peter Tatchell agreed that it was over the line!  Perhaps Peter is soiling both ends of his Duckheads for no reason.  Has Peter LaBarbera ever even been to the United Kingdom?

Blair with his New Age-ish brand of (c)hristianity certainly has “led” on homosexual rights — but doesn’t that mean that he utterly failed to model godly, biblical leadership?

Well, since he was the prime minister of a nation, rather than a radical Christian theocracy…

It’s so funny watching people like Peter caterwaulering about persecution when all that’s being asked of them is to recognize that not everybody holds their illiterate backwoods beliefs, and not to impose them on the rest of halfway intelligent society.

Once again it’s that pesky homosexual issue — if we publicly agree with the God of the Bible on this issue, there is a price to pay in worldly fame — one apparently too great for many who still claim the mantle of moral leadership. Just ask Rick Warren, or Dr. Laura Schlessinger, or Tony Blair.

HARLOTS, all of them!  Especially that Rick Warren character!  Might as well braid his natty gray chest hair into an ‘A’ and dye it red!

(I am very sorry for using the phrase “natty gray chest hair” in reference to Rick Warren.  If you need to close this tab and cleanse your palate, I will understand.)

Anyway, that’s basically it.  To summarize the parts I left out:  Peter’s trying to start a jihad against Bill Hybels, the pastor of the Willow Creek Community Church, which is basically a big pit of Evangelicals, and they honored Tony Blair, and Tony Blair scares Peter because Tony Blair is a heterosexual man who isn’t deathly afraid of gay men.  I find inter-Christian squabbling to be tiresome, pathetic and ultimately, more boring than watching paint dry.

Until next time, then?

This is rich. The Guardian reports that, on the eve of his first visit to the United Kingdom, Pope Ratzi is condemning various legislation in that nation that gives a fuller measure of equality to gay and lesbian citizens:

Pope Benedict XVI has condemned British equality legislation for running contrary to “natural law” as he confirmed his first visit to the UK later this year.

(…)

[H]e criticised UK legislation for creating “limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs”. It is thought his comments relate to laws that came in last year preventing adoption agencies from discriminating against gay couples and also Harriet Harman’s equality bill, currently going through parliament.

(…)

[Bishops and priests] told him sexual orientation legislation that came into effect on 1 January 2009 had forced the closure of half the Roman Catholic adoption agencies because the law making it illegal to discriminate against gay applicants went against their beliefs.

Yeah, first of all, just as in the United States, no Catholic adoption agency was “forced” to close. They simply decided to put anti-gay animus above serving children. You have to understand their reasoning, though. Adopting children to nice gay and lesbian couples could lower the chances that those kids would stay in the church, where the priests and bishops have full access to them.

Second of all, it’s been established that the phrase “natural law” when used by the pope is approximately as meaningless and unscientific as the phrase “macroevolution” when used by creationists.

Whatever, Ratzi.

UPDATE: The National Secular Society has a petition drive to ask that the Catholic Church, rather than British taxpayers, pay for the Pope’s visit. Go sign if you like that idea.

(h/t John Aravosis)

Eighteen months ago, British antigay activist Stephen Green was planning to open an “ex-gay” school to perform fake miracles against LGBT people — for a profit, of course.

Now, however, Green prefers a more direct solution for homosexuals:

Execute them.

(According to PinkNews, Green also believes husbands have a Biblical allowance to rape their wives.)

The prime ministers of Britain and Canada last week protested, in the strongest terms, Uganda’s plan to execute its sexually active LGBT and HIV-positive citizens — and to imprison their families, doctors, clergy if they fail to turn in patients and loved ones to the police.

The two nations’ top leaders implied that Uganda might lose foreign aid and membership in the Commonwealth if it proceeds.

Compare these condemnations to the official statement of the highest-ranking U.S. executive-branch official, Eric Goosby. He is the head of the U.S. State Department’s foreign-aid program for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, known as PEPFAR.

As Truth Wins Out pointed out on Friday, Goosby said:

My role is to be supportive and helpful to the patients who need these services. It is not to tell a country how to put forward their legislation. But I will engage them in conversation around my concern and knowledge of what this is going to do to that population, and our ability to stop the movement of the virus into the general population.

Update: Goosby’s statement is much softer and more generous to Uganda than a U.S. embassy officer’s prior statement:

“If adopted, a bill further criminalizing homosexuality would constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda,” the embassy’ public affairs officer Joann Lockard said in an email. “We urge states to take all necessary measures to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention.”

Americans must take urgent action to let the State Department know that it IS their job to prevent the misuse of taxpayers’ HIV/AIDS dollars to slaughter gay people, enrich evangelicals, and deny Africans access to condoms.

Please write letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding a hold on Uganda’s PEPFAR funding until strict human-rights, privacy, and free-speech controls can be imposed upon all PEPFAR aid. PEPFAR aid must not be given to sectarian religious interests, especially those with violent and inhumane intentions.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
(202) 647-4000

Please THANK Rep. Tammy Baldwin for her support and urge her office to continue fighting against The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 by e-mailing Amber Shipley:

Amber.Shipley @ mail.house.gov

Please THANK Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for her support via phone call or letter and urge her to continue using her position in the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs to hold Uganda accountable.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
2470 Rayburn H.O.B.
Washington, DC 20515-0918
(202) 225-3931

The United Reformed Church of the United Kingdom said Wednesday that it is “appalled” at the “draconian measures” in Uganda’s proposed antigay death penalty. The legislation calls for the execution of gay, sexually active persons who are HIV-positive or whose partner is underage or disabled. The legislation also broadens the existing life-imprisonment sentence for consensual intimacy among gay couples; adds new punishments for pastors, friends, and family members who fail to report a gay person to the police; and criminalizes comprehensive sex education and health care which might be perceived as tolerating homosexual behavior.

PinkNews.co.uk points out that the church has asked Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, who grew up in Uganda, to condemn the legislation. As yet, neither has responded.

Four nations have taken preliminary action against the brewing human-rights disaster in Uganda.

As previously reported, passage is expected in January of a law requiring execution of Ugandan HIV-positive homosexuals and long prison sentences for pastors and family members who refuse to turn in someone they know to be gay. The law would also ban all speech that discusses homosexuality in a neutral or tolerant fashion, thus inhibiting health care and sound science, and it would effectively prohibit human-rights advocacy and legal defense of LGBT persons.

The penalty for homosexual orientation in Uganda is life imprisonment.

In Britain, according to PinkNews.co.uk, a spokeswoman from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said:

We are concerned by the introduction of a private member’s bill on anti-homosexuality in Uganda.

Adoption of the bill could do serious damage to efforts to tackle HIV and its criminalisation of organisations that support homosexuality could, in theory, encompass most donor agencies and international NGOs.

The UK, alongside our EU partners, has raised our concerns about the draft bill and LGBT rights more broadly with the government of Uganda, including with the prime minister and several other ministers, the Ugandan Human Rights Commission, and senior officials from the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

We will continue to track the passage of the bill and to lobby against its introduction.

France’s foreign ministry released a statement:

France expresses deep concern regarding the bill currently before the Ugandan parliament.

France reiterates its commitment to the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In the United States, four members of Congress wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warning that the legislation had severe implications for the freedom and safety of gay people and for freedom of speech and public health in Uganda.

However, In Australia, the national senate declined to condemn the death-penalty and family-imprisonment legislation. According to the Sydney Star Observer, Joe Ludwig of the Labor Party told senators it was inappropriate for the Senate to hear such a resolution.

The Government’ view is that complex matters of international relations should not be considered in the Senate by means of formal motions. It is counterproductive for motions of this kind to single out one country,” he said, before restating the Government’ opposition to laws criminalising GLBT people.

As recently as last month … the Australian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva noted the importance of eliminating discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Star Observer notes that the death-penalty legislation “is supported by the Ugandan Muslim Supreme Council, as well as the Orthodox, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist and Anglican churches in Uganda.”

Now would be an appropriate time for the Episcopal Church USA to appeal to the Anglican Communion for an emphatic condemnation of antigay violence, execution, and censorship in Uganda.

The Whole Gay Truth reports:

…A former Lutheran pastor who underwent therapy and hypnosis in an attempt to become heterosexual is to speak at a psychotherapy conference in London in May.

Pink News is reporting that Maris Sants is to appear at the joint Pink Therapy and UK Council for Psychotherapy conference, “Working with Gender and Sexual Minorities”.

The Pink News article says the conference, scheduled for May 15th and 16th, will look at how homophobia in health care and mental health services continues to impact on lesbian, gay and transgender people and other sexual minorities.