Left Foot Forward expose anti-Christian myth
It is rare for this blog to praise Left Foot Forward, a thinking-person’s alternative to Labour Party commentary, given a regular Spirit-Level-like disposition to draw erroneous conclusions from dodgy data analysis.
But in this article, their guest writer Symon Hill reveals the facts behind yesterday’s misreported Christians versus anti-discrimination law case.
“In reality, the judges had refused to rule even on the suitability of the Johnses to be foster carers; their comment on the suitability of Christians to be foster parents was almost exactly opposite to the view the CLC attributed to them.”
The ‘anti-Christian’ meme has become an important campaigning mission for social Conservatives. The CLC in this case for example is the Christian Legal Centre whose statement:
“In a landmark judgment, which will have a serious impact on the future of fostering and adoption in the UK, the High Court has suggested that Christians with traditional views on sexual ethics are unsuitable as foster carers.”
prompted much of the ‘Christians banned from adopting’ coverage. Tradition in this case means literalist ‘thou shalt not’ Bible-believing kind, rather than say the more pluralist liberal, Greco-Roman, or Judeo-Christian humanist traditions that influences our culture.
This and other evidence for the meme then is fairly thin; the last example being the Christian couple required not to discriminate against homosexuals in their B&B.
If that, and this case are the summit of anti-Christian prejudice in the United Kingdom, whilst homosexuals still risk being beaten to death by thugs, some sense of perspective is required.
The classical liberal view on the preferred treatment of religion by the law, and nuances of this case, is well articulated in this article, and it is worth repeating their summary:
“[T]he state should adopt an entirely neutral stance towards religion, which involves permitting any form of belief or religion, but only to the extent that each is compatible with the law of the land. Thus there should be no religious exemptions to employment contracts (unless freely agreed between the contracting parties) or school uniforms (unless the school itself decides to permit it as part of its own policy on uniforms) or taxation. If a religion is undertaking charitable activities then those activities themselves should qualify for tax exemption, not the religious aspect. Nor should religious (or, equally, anti-religious) sensitivities be permitted to override freedom of speech, as in the Rushdie affair or any number of less extreme examples.”
Or as an influential Christian thinker is reported to have put it:
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s”
March 2nd, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I did not find this a clear explanation of the libertarian view. The author seemed to want to quote the bible and built the post around the last sentence but we should be looking to J.S. Mill for an answer.
Libertarians need to be clear that they do not advocate libertarianism for children. We don’t advocate that children should be free to not go to school. We force them to do this. We do not allow children to choose freely where they want to live.
This complicates the discussion when dealing with children. We need to understand the basic principles that we are dealing with. Who takes the final responsibility for what happens to children is the key question.
In this case the state had taken responsibility for the child. This was not an issue for the child. As the state has responsibility for the child it has to decide whether to pass the responsibility over to a third party. If the state deems that person to be a danger to the child then the state has a responsibility to not hand the child over to that couple.
As for the couple they have a right over their own body, but nobody elses. They did not have a right to the child.
This means that both extremes are covered by a clear libertarian argument. The state had the ultimate right to say no. The parents had to prove their case.
The question is therefore whether the couple were a suitable couple to look after the child. This is not a point of principle, it is a matter of degrees. If the parents believed that homosexuality could be removed from the child by the power of prayer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/02/conservatives-philippa-stroud-gay-cure
then it might be a problem. It depends on their views.
The state had the responsibility for the child. If the child was gay and later criticised the council for placing them with a parent hostile to homosexuality would the child be justified ?
If you think that the child would not have a case under those circumsatances then you would oppose the ruling, but this is not a libertarian issue in my view. It is an issue of the rights and responsibilities of the state towards minors.
In the case of the Christian B & B the libertarian argument, articulated ably by Jock Coates I believe, was that B & B owners had the right to object to homosexuals, since this would allow liberals to avoid funding those with anti homosexual prejudice. This is an arguable point in an only partly libertarian society, but should show that libertarians take a nuanced view.
Ed Joyce