Catholics denied foster parent status due to religious beliefs

Brookswood said:
Catholics denied foster parent status due to religious beliefs - This looks like another case for the Supreme Court.
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Hope not, the Supreme Court has better things to do.

I am not a Catholic, never have been, and there are things I don't agree with or like about the Catholic Church. None the less I think this is nonsense. Catholics are mainstream members of our society, do we want our government deciding which religions are ok for foster parents or anything else? I hope not.

Not unless the religion involved human sacrifice or something... No practicing Aztec!

However I do have to say being Scientologists would bother me...
 

ElCastor said:
As a Californian all I can say is Yikes! I don‘t doubt you, but this is news to me, and after a brief search can‘t find any evidence. I would like to know the basis of your report so I can let some politicians, or institutions, know what I think of their misguided appalling policies.
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I don't have any hard evidence yet, but it's happening with Paxton's family right now.

Paxton is my former foster son. His paternal uncle wants to adopt him, but the caseworker hung up on him during a phone interview as soon as she realized his spouse is a man. So that's a different discrimination than the one in Massachusetts, but it's kind of similar.

I sent the uncle a link to the Burke vs MA case.
 
As much as I wanted to do it fostering children or pets, the rules are against us, the ones who wants to help... pfffft... I gave up before even trying.

You read or view the news and you hear stories where some couples adopt or foster by the bucket load. At the end of the day, they treat those kids like slaves.

I've read the other replies above so won't repeat myself but I'm in agreement, foster kids in the USofA are the responsibility of the social services. In regards to the extras above the basics provided by the foster families.

Major decisions are the responsibility of the government. Foster parents, if I remember from the time in Texas, roof over head, good food at least 3 square meals a day, being made to go to school and get help with homework, emotional support, and a comfy bed to sleep in. Clothing for all seasons.

If the child gets sick after calling 911 in USA, they've got to contact social services to tell that the child has been taken to hospital. So that someone will take over the situation.

Hoping that makes sense from what I recall, never ever heard anything about religious obligations but that might have changed since the 90s. So humph...
 
Murrmurr said:
I don't have any hard evidence yet, but it's happening with Paxton's family right now.

Paxton is my former foster son. His paternal uncle wants to adopt him, but the caseworker hung up on him during a phone interview as soon as she realized his spouse is a man. So that's a different discrimination than the one in Massachusetts, but it's kind of similar.

I sent the uncle a link to the Burke vs MA case.
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The suit even mentions the Masterpiece Cake shop case as one authority in support.
 
ohioboy said:
The suit even mentions the Masterpiece Cake shop case as one authority in support.
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In support of the Burke's case? I don't think their attorney made a wise decision there. If I were the opposing attorney I'd question the relevance. If I understand correctly, the only issue is whether the Burkes are capable of being unbiased, open-minded, accepting foster parents, or incapable due to their religious beliefs.
 
Murrmurr said:
In support of the Burke's case? I don't think their attorney made a wise decision there. If I were the opposing attorney I'd question the relevance. If I understand correctly, the only issue is whether the Burkes are capable of being unbiased, open-minded, accepting foster parents, or incapable due to their religious beliefs.
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Mostly a Complaint based on the 1st Amendment.
 
ohioboy said:
Mostly a Complaint based on the 1st Amendment.
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Yeah, I understand that, but if I was their attorney I'd point to other supporting cases in my argument, if for no other reason than that the bakery one was so controversial, often misrepresented in the media and sparked more emotional reactions than logical ones.
 
Murrmurr said:
Yeah, I understand that, but if I was their attorney I'd point to other supporting cases in my argument, if for no other reason than that the bakery one was so controversial, often misrepresented in the media and sparked more emotional reactions than logical ones.
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5 Count Complaint:

1. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: System of individual Assemblies. (Never heard of the last phrase).

2. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Categorial Discrimination. (same notation).

3. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Not neutral: religious hostility. (same notation).

4. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Not neutral: Religious Gerrymander. (really same notation)! 😀

5. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Compelled Speech.
 
Jules said:
Prior to the decision by the state, was this couple extremely vocal about their disapproval of transgenders?
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I don’t know.

My main concern is how our Bill of Rights is vulnerable to being picked away piece by piece just because upholding them does not fit a group's current view on a controversy. When the tables are turned on them, what will be left to protect them after they've torn down the protections we all should have?

Don't sell your birthright for a bowl of pottage just because you missed the last meal of the day.
 
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Like most boring gender controversies, not a subject I've bothered to follow this last decade. Although the Massachusetts state policy lists several issues against Catholics in their state adopting like many are against immigration, it is only the LGBQT.. issues that are relevant though those involved due to political correctness won't publicly state such.

Recall not many years ago a gay couple with lawyers waiting to pounce on their sidelines, went to a Catholic charities organization providing adoption services and of course the charity asked them to use one of the state organizations because for the religious organization to do so would be against their Bible based religious well known gender marriage beliefs. Boston bishops instead asked their local charities to simply stop that service such which they did. Opponents realized they might continue to play that deflating moving shell game each time they might be locally challenged, simply eating up their legal funding and resources. Of course, that was all just a game.

So this current drama is just a continuation of that legal war. One needs to understand how seething with rage such opposing legal entities sometimes dislike each other. One just needs to look at our current political division boiling with daily news headlines of each side trying to get at each other in court and Congressional hearings while the majority of our USA just grimaces and yawns...go away.

Same thing with some legal environmental groups versus land development interests. Such advocates after being stymied in courts, manage to become part of government machinery, then create purposely punishing policy that targets their opponents, only to have the results headed to higher level courts. So little of this kind of action is about common sense or fairness or what is best for society but rather which side can manage to get their bloody hands around their opponents necks and choke the breathing life out of them.
 
The Massachusetts DCF's list of regulations for adopting or fostering a child, last updated in January, specifically state that foster parents must 'promote the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of a child placed in his or her care, including supporting and respecting a child's sexual orientation or gender identity.'

This is what the Catholic couple said:

In their lawsuit the couple state that they 'believe that children should not undergo procedures that attempt to change their God-given sex, and they uphold Catholic beliefs about marriage and sexuality.'

In my opinion, putting a child in their care would be disastrous to the mental health of that child.

I agree with the DCF ... I rest my case...
 
The odd thing, the frightening thing, is that they have chosen this one thing to be specific about. The parents aren't required to promise not to favor one child over another, or promise never to make them feel foolish, or make them feel bad for failing a class, or shame them for being overweight, or promise to spare them from pornography during their early years, or promise not to force them to write with their right hand if they seem to favor the left, or not to ridicule them if they lisp. Not even promises not to whip them with a belt or refuse them food for long periods of time. Just this one popular hot topic of the moment.

There are so many ways to be cruel to a child, surely it's more important to pick people who seem to be kind and stable overall than to focus on one issue which only affects a very small percentage of children and can wait to be addressed after age 18.
 
Some more from the article...

DCF administrators said the couple’s answers in interviews about sexuality and gender barred them from becoming licensed foster parents. One licensing official wrote, the Burkes are “lovely people” but “their faith is not supportive and neither are they.”

An adoption assessment found that while the Burkes have many strengths, including their own traumatic experiences and mental health history that would help them connect to children in a meaningful way, their views on gender identity caused “apprehension” about them becoming foster parents.

“The couple expressed that they are not open to gender-affirming care and believe that partnership outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin. They are heavily involved in their Catholic Church and cite their religious views as their primary reason for seeing LGBTQIA++ individuals in this way,” the report says.

THAT is not healthy.
 
Della said:
The odd thing, the frightening thing, is that they have chosen this one thing to be specific about. The parents aren't required to promise not to favor one child over another, or promise never to make them feel foolish, or make them feel bad for failing a class, or shame them for being overweight, or promise to spare them from pornography during their early years, or promise not to force them to write with their right hand if they seem to favor the left, or not to ridicule them if they lisp. Not even promises not to whip them with a belt or refuse them food for long periods of time. Just this one popular hot topic of the moment.

There are so many ways to be cruel to a child, surely it's more important to pick people who seem to be kind and stable overall than to focus on one issue which only affects a very small percentage of children and can wait to be addressed after age 18.
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Surely the above topics were covered and they cleared the bar on those issues.
 
Paco Dennis said:
“The couple expressed that they are not open to gender-affirming care and believe that partnership outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin. They are heavily involved in their Catholic Church and cite their religious views as their primary reason for seeing LGBTQIA++ individuals in this way,” the report says.

THAT is not healthy
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Personally I am agnostic, but I accept the fact that Religion was the foundation on which humanity, and it’s sense of morality, evolved. It deserves our respect and understanding — not a slap in the face by a largely unpopular modern belief system.
 
Paco Dennis said:
“The couple expressed that they are not open to gender-affirming care and believe that partnership outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin. They are heavily involved in their Catholic Church and cite their religious views as their primary reason for seeing LGBTQIA++ individuals in this way,” the report says.

THAT is not healthy.
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Agree, this is not a good environment for a foster child. (Most of) the world has moved forward in the last 25 years. Theocracies excluded.

We can't control what people teach the children they bear, but departments of children and family services would be irresponsible (and potentially liable) for knowingly approving a narrow minded environment for children who already feel like outsiders.

These kids inhabit a world much different from the one we grew up in. An undercurrent of LGBTQ+ community vilification will be neither helpful nor edifying to our children, just as various racist and other intolerant environments were detrimental to us and our children.

No matter how we feel about it, acceptance of sexual and gender fluidity are likely here to stay. (They always existed, of course, but were closeted.)

The times, they are a changin'
 
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Paco Dennis said:
Some more from the article...

DCF administrators said the couple’s answers in interviews about sexuality and gender barred them from becoming licensed foster parents. One licensing official wrote, the Burkes are “lovely people” but “their faith is not supportive and neither are they.”

An adoption assessment found that while the Burkes have many strengths, including their own traumatic experiences and mental health history that would help them connect to children in a meaningful way, their views on gender identity caused “apprehension” about them becoming foster parents.

“The couple expressed that they are not open to gender-affirming care and believe that partnership outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin. They are heavily involved in their Catholic Church and cite their religious views as their primary reason for seeing LGBTQIA++ individuals in this way,” the report says.

THAT is not healthy.
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In Calif., the Burkes would be approved to foster children from a Catholic family, over a certain age, probably 10 or 12, who have not indicated gender identity issues.

Like, my license specifies "1 child under age 2" because I only had a 1-bedroom apartment. I had a total of 3 foster children, all of them infants. Paxton lived there for almost 3 years, but I had to "enclose" his part of the bedroom when he was 2 or they would have had to place him with another foster.

I hung a curtain. Done.
 
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ohioboy said:
5 Count Complaint:

1. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: System of individual Assemblies. (Never heard of the last phrase).

2. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Categorial Discrimination. (same notation).

3. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Not neutral: religious hostility. (same notation).

4. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Not neutral: Religious Gerrymander. (really same notation)! 😀

5. Violation of the Free Exercise Clause: Compelled Speech.
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I assume they have a family law attorney. In my personal experience, family law is tricky and the judges definitely favor agencies of the gov't, such as child protection agencies and social services in general. I don't know if they just assume these agencies uphold all applicable laws and policies, or if it's about keeping their jobs, but bias in family "justice" is rampant.
 

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