The foster couple who quit rather than be forced to promote gay rights

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http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0495.htm
Yesterday morning, Pauline and Vincent Matherick drove their nervous and emotional 11-year-old foster son 18 miles to his new home. It was a painful parting. After two happy years at the Mathericks' five-bedroom house in Somerset, the boy - who we shall call David - did not want to leave his foster parents and go back into council care. Nor did the Mathericks want him to go. As they packed up his toys, clothes and leaving presents, they were distraught at the prospect of putting him in a residential unit. "David cried when we told him he couldn't stay with us any more, and said: 'I don't want to go,'" says 61-year-old Pauline Matherick. "But he is trying to be very mature about it for a little fellow. We've told him we are getting too old to be foster carers and have to retire, which he understands." What the Mathericks haven't told David, however, is that they were effectively forced to retire. If they hadn't, they say, the council would have de-registered them and taken him away anyway, all because the Mathericks refused to sign a new agreement which they claim would have required them to promote homosexuality. Earlier this year, Somerset County Council's social services asked the Mathericks to sign a new contract to implement Labour's new Sexual Orientation Regulations - part of the 2006 Equality Act, which makes discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal. "When we first became foster parents in 2001 we signed a contract agreeing not to discriminate against people on the basis of religion, race or sexuality," says Pauline, who with her 65-year-old husband Vincent has fostered 28 vulnerable children in just six years. "We were happy to sign. "We've never discriminated against anyone and never would, but this new agreement seemed to go beyond that. "Our social worker came to see us at our home, because you have to be passed every year by a panel, and we were totally unprepared for what she had to say. She was talking about attending sexual orientation seminars and threw hypothetical questions at us, asking how we'd feel if one of our foster children had a gay parent and how we'd explain same-sex relationships to them. "We were asked what we would do if a parent and his or her same-sex partner wanted to visit the child at our home. "There was even talk of taking teenagers to gay association meetings if they expressed an interest in samesex relationships, and explaining about gay dating. "We were told that failure to accept same-sex relationships could be seen as homophobia. "I have to admit I lost my cool, and we had quite a heated debate with our social worker. "We made it quite clear that we could not promote homosexuality, but would be quite prepared to refer the matter back to social services if a child ever brought the issue up. "We said we were happy for any biological parent to visit the child, regardless of their sexuality, but not necessarily a gay partner who had no direct connection to the child.

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