Infected with Christian moral beliefs

From our most distinguished Apostle, Quentin Cook, comes this week's gem from the "Ignorance-of-the-Facts-Never-Stopped-Conservative-Politics-Grandstanding-as-Religious-Freedom File":

"A British high court recently denied a Christian family the right to foster children because children could be infected with Christian moral beliefs. The ruling demonstrates just how radically things have shifted."

Such a horrifying wake up call to all Christians, and Mormons in particular! If you believe in Jesus, the evil secularists are now forbidding you from fostering children in Great Britain!


Of course, the reality here is slightly less dramatic: If you tell a social worker during your foster care qualifying interview that you won't support a gay foster child, don't expect the social service agency to look kindly on your application.


Enter Eunice and Owen Johns, loving, elderly Pentecostalists and longtime foster parents. After taking a fourteen year break from fostering children, the Johns in 2007 applied to be qualified foster parents again. The social worker who interviewed them recorded the following:

"Both Eunice and Owen expressed strong views on homosexuality, stating that it is 'against God's laws and morals.' They explained that these views stemmed from their religious convictions and beliefs. Eunice explained at a later interview, that she had always been brought up to believe that having a different sexual orientation was unnatural and wrong, and that these convictions had not come about as a result of being 'saved.'

"[W]hen asked if, given their views, they would be able to support a young person who, for example was confused about their sexuality, the answer was in the negative. Eunice at this time also mentioned a visit she had made to San Francisco, in relation to it being a city with many gay inhabitants. She commented that she did not like it and felt uncomfortable while she was there."


In subsequent interviews and hearings, the Johns disputed that account of their interview and asserted strenuously that they would love and care for any child, regardless of their sexual orientation. However, there remained one constant in their argument, encapsulated by Eunice:

"I will not lie and tell you I will say it is ok to be a homosexual. I will love and respect, no matter what sexuality. I cannot lie and I cannot hate, but I cannot tell a child that it is ok to be homosexual."


So here's the real issue. This case is about, Surprise!, the right of religious conservatives to condemn gay kids.

I'm sure the Johns are perfectly nice people. I'm sure they're kind and gentle in many ways. But I'm also sure that a gay child would suffer in their care.

What bigots like the Johns and Quentin Cook either don't understand or don't care about is just what it means to tell a gay child that being gay is evil. It hasn't ever occurred to Quentin what his life would be like if, in some alternate reality, he were straight in a world populated with pious fags who unfailingly, relentlessly tell him that he must be gay or risk eternal damnation.

Want to live a happy, fulfilling life, brother Cook? Either live alone, or marry a man. Your attraction to women? Evil. Your desire to settle down in a committed marriage to the girl who shares and supports your hopes and dreams? Satanic.

We love you, little Quentin, and we care for you, but we cannot lie: you're going to hell unless you can turn it around. Truly, truly truly, we want desperately to turn you into a cock-loving queen. Snuggle up here and watch some Lady Gaga.

What's so bizarre about all this is that Mormons should know better. We know, after all, as well as anyone, what's it's like to be a minority in a society hell-bent on pushing a moral agenda. Our Articles of Faith pronounce, supposedly, our support for pluralism (let them worship who, what, or how they may). It is pluralism, respect for diversity, etc. that has placed us where we are now, with Mitt Romney running for president, and

Pluralism is what protects LDS children from being placed in foster care with people who would tell them that Mormonism is evil. Pluralism protects LDS kids from being told at high school graduation that their Mormon prayers are wrong and that they may only pray like Baptists do. Pluralism protected the children of Israel in Babylon and allowed them to return to Israel to build their temple and preserve their scriptures. Pluralism would have allowed Joseph Smith to live to 84, with neighbors who may have disagreed with him, but who weren't so consumed with zeal that they'd stop at nothing to stop him from living his life in peace.

Did the social worker push it too far in her zeal to protect the interests of potential gay foster children? Perhaps, though she might have witnessed one too many gay children commit suicide after being rejected by their misguided conservative parents. Even if the social worker were too zealous here, what harm did she really do? Deny a couple of admitted bigots the opportunity to foster kids.

I see nowhere in the holy scriptures that a Christian's first duty is to condemn kids to hell for their sexual urges. Jesus, as I read the gospel, preached the good word of caring for the poor, the hungry and orphans, without regard to their sexuality. I mean, really, since when is it more important to condemn a gay kid to hell than it is to simply love and care for him? Yet that's what Christians these days seem to think.

I also see nowhere in the scriptures that a Christian should propagate an utter falsehood in the name of defending the faith. Nowhere in the ruling does the judge ever say anything about children being infected with Christian beliefs. In fact, the judge didn't even say the Johns couldn't be foster parents. If you sweep aside all the dicta, the only thing the ruling does is say, in the first place, that British social services could theoretically deny a foster parent application if the applicants refused to support a gay child. And in the second place, and more important to the litigants, the judge ruled that there wasn't enough information to rule definitively on the merits of the case before him.

But a shortage of facts certainly wasn't enough to stop a purported apostle of God from proclaiming that the secularists are on a holy war against good Christians and their duty to condemn children they barely know.