Michael and Catherine Burke allege that the state’s Department of Children and Families discriminated against them for their Catholic viewpoints.
Sounds like the kinda family that if their teenager says they’re gay, will abuse and abandon them.
So yeah, they can go suck an egg.
Thank goodness the system works. Michael is an absolute scumbag.
This got me to open the article again and search for what this may reference. I didn’t see anything in particular about him being worse than her. Did I miss it? I admit that I mostly scanned and didn’t read comprehensively because I don’t care about these people and their bullshit views. Fuck anyone who says “Let’s take the T out.”
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A social worker’s report attached to the complaint said the couple was asked how they would feel if a child in their care identified as LGBTQ or struggled with their gender identity. Kitty Burke responded by saying “let’s take the T out of it” and called gender-affirming care “chemical castration,” according to the report. She also said, “I’m going to love you the same,” but that the child “would need to live a chaste life.” Both Kitty and Michael Burke expressed hesitation around using a transgender or nonbinary person’s preferred pronouns, the social worker’s report noted.
Michael Burke told the social worker he’d been to gay weddings and would “likely attend” his child’s wedding if they were LGBTQ, according to the report, and the couple said they wouldn’t kick a child out of their home for being LGBTQ or subject them to conversion therapy.
Following the interview, the social worker issued an “approval with conditions, specifically around religion and LGBTQIA++ related issues.” Their application was later denied by the department’s Licensing Review Team, the complaint states.
“If you give me an LGBTQ kid, I’m going to be a horrible parent. Wait, why did you deny my parenting application? This is discrimination!”
I don’t know if I need to provide bonifides for being queer positive and not asking in bad faith, but why are there two pluses in that? It just makes me think of C++ and seems… jokey.
Many just say queer. Or LGBT. Companies and news organizations can’t really settle on one thing to call us. Imo, LGBT+ gets the point across without being excessive.
Yeah, that’s why I generally prefer “queer”. Plus, it’s not an acronym, and reclaiming words is always good!
This is why LGBTQ rights is so important. Imagine being a foster kids because of the US failed social safety net, only to be re homed in a religious bigoted house?! That’s what the GOP wants for kids.
“This is why protecting traditional families is so important. Imagine being a foster kids because of the US failed social safety net, only to be re homed in a LGBT groomer house?! That’s what the GOP wants for kids.”
I literally just changed two things and it went 180 degrees on the other extremist side of the spectrum. Do with that info as you wish
Do with that info as you wish
You mean put it into proper context, look at the stats, and acknowledge you’re full of shit? Sure thing! But you won’t let facts get in the way of your feelings amirite?
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Uhhhh what? One, “traditional families” aren’t anti LGBTQ by default. Second, LGBTQ parents aren’t groomers. (can LGBTQ individuals be terrible humans just like everyone else? Yes!) Third, asking a foster family if they hate LGBTQ people is critical for the safety of foster children because mathematically 10% will be LGBTQ. And since there’s no “Gaydar” to tell you can’t risk putting any child with them!
You didn’t prove anything except how ignorant you are. Do with that info as you wish
Pendantic though it may be… 30 percent is more accurate for children in foster care to be LGBTQIA+. Many lose their homes of origin and support BECAUSE they are LGBTQIA+ so the instance is way higher.
Kind of a no brainer to have homo/transphobic foster parents struck from the rolls. It’s enough to be traumatized once by having your authentic self rejected by a supposed safe haven. Twice is unconscionable.
These boneheads seem to mix up up supportive with grooming. I had a conversation at a bar the other day with some dipshit that said if you support your child coming out as gay or trans, you’re effectively grooming them to be a sexual deviant. They fail to realize that grooming is an active nudge or conditioning in the direction of a desired behavior, whereas being supportive is unconditional love regardless of identity. My buddy’s kid is identifying as a girl atm, and while he and I both think it’s a phase (he’s 15 and just an awkward kid in general), we are supportive of his/her choice.
On the other hand, there are parents out there that actively nudge their kids into being some brand of queer from a young age (not just in providing an open minded atmosphere, but almost to discerning them gay from a stupid young age) that, to me, begins to cross a line. In my mind, let be kids be kids that become teenagers and then adults, and just support them in their choices while guiding them to be the best person they can be.
Have fun having your comments being removed bigot
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And with such a simple change, you turned it into a disgusting and bigoted lie, when the person you responded to was completely accurate.
You changed two things and into something imaginary. There is no such thing as an “LGBT groomer house.” You can’t force a child to be gay or trans no matter how much you want to.
You might as well say “only to be rehomed in a dragon’s den.” It would make about the same amount of sense.
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Yeah, you can make anything sound bad when you just lie and make shit up.
Could say the same of you calling everyone that points out the dangers of dehumanising “bigots”
You can say anything, that doesn’t make it correct. And it’s funny how people call themselves out, because I only call people exhibiting bigotry bigots.
If you’re being called a bigot, maybe examine your beliefs and actions. After all, if it smells like shit everywhere you go, it’s probably you.
@Unaware7013 @MicroWave @NatakuNox @Diprount_Tomato@lemmy.world
My block button is getting quite the workout these last 10 days or so.
Was there a mass migration I didn’t hear about?
Good luck thinking looking the other way will make people who you disagree with disappear
If thinking having two halves of a country willing to kill each other to be insane makes people call you a bigot, maybe I’m not the one that stinks after all
No one thinks you’re a bigot for that belief, climb down off your cross or just be honest about your actions.
Yet I’m being called one for it
That’s exactly what happened to me as a kid. As a bonus, these religious nutjobs sexually abused their actual kid, and because I was just a foster kid, I wasn’t believed. Thank god my mom was able to get me out of that hell hole, but the trauma it caused me was so deep I didn’t even recognize how deep it was for almost 20 years.
And now red states made it legal to kidnapping LGBTQ children from loving homes to traditional homes
Wait, they’re allowing kids to be removed from foster/adoptive homes and transferred to a religious home? On what grounds and who’s authority?
They are talking LGBTQ kids from their families because gender affirming care is illegal.
I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry you went through that.
Nah don’t be sorry, just be angry at a system that allows such things, and at a religion that shields such people. I came out okay in the end, because I have a family that loves me and helps support me through my traumas, but I don’t know what happened to their kid, or if they were ever stopped. That’s the part that bothers me. Knowing that those sickos could still be out there presenting themselves as righteous Christians while doing such things.
Kids can’t “identify” as “lgtv” or whatever other shit, they get indoctrinated into that
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Could also just change whenever you wanted, if that were the case. But no, I deliberately endured nearly a decade of pain because I ‘chose’ to be bi, in their words, lol.
Not to discount your opposition to their point, which should be opposed, but you do know that sexuality is pretty fluid for a vast number of people along the Kinsey scale, right? For a lot of people, they ARE heterosexual because they are indoctrinated that way from an early age. Not everyone capable of being sexually fluid identifies that way.
I’m sure you know this and you’re just a troll. But just as a reference to other readers, I’d like to remind everybody that biology supports LGBT kids, not bigots.
@kadu @candio@lemmy.world
The only good thing to come out of comments like that is my block button gets used quickly.
You mean like how religion indoctrinates people and hides actual pedophiles while pointing the finger elsewhere?
And the long history of abuse of children by nuns and priests in children’s homes and religious schools/ facilities?
Being LGBT isn’t something you just wake up and choose to ‘identify’ as. You don’t wake up and decide, hey I’m gonna be gay! It’s just part of who you are.
Religion is a choice and something that can and does indoctrinate people. Maybe look in the right direction and you’ll see who the actual bad guys are.
Biologically speaking, gay people are born that way.
No one is born religious.
So tell me again about indoctrination.
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Becket previously represented Sharonell Fulton and Toni Simms-Busch in Fulton v. Philadelphia, a 2021 Supreme Court case that unanimously ruled in favor of a Catholic adoption agency’s right to refuse to place children with LGBTQ couples.
This highlights the hypocrisy that is endemic in the Catholic church these days. The couple feels they were discriminated against in the approval process due to their anti-Trans views, yet they are using a lawyer who was happy to take the opposite view when a Catholic adoption agency wanted to discriminate against LGBTQ couples.
Unfortunately, a key difference is that it’s the State doing it in this case, and a private agency before. That may end up being the difference here. It still doesn’t change the fact that the Catholic Church seems much more Interested in politics and litigating than actually helping people.
It’s not hypocrisy, it’s their self-interest. They have a political agenda and are spending their lives doing what they can to enforce it, and that means helping their faction gain a foothold into every aspect of public life, especially raising children which they have said emphatically non-stop is all about forcing younger people who don’t have the ability to reject them logically to adopt their beliefs. They only care about making more Christians and shutting out enemies of what they think constitutes Christianity, especially the LGBTQ+ community.
They’re being entirely consistent in that light.
Yes, it would only be considered hypocritical if they are making the assertion that everyone should be allowed to foster children regardless of their beliefs and whether or not they intend to impose them on the children. But that’s not what they are saying.
Or America is really just fucked up
The article calls this a “complaint” rather than a “lawsuit” so I guess this is moot.
The couple seems to think people have the right to foster by default, and the regulation sets out conditions for when this right can be revoked.
I’m not sure of the actual law, but it seems to me that the right to foster should be granted on a case by case basis. Regulation should set the necessary requirements, but the department should have the final say on the sufficient requirements. And the department should be allowed to revoke an application for any reason or even no (stated) reason.
Like, you shouldn’t just have the right to foster by default.
So:
- They expressed bigoted views
- The SW passed them through anyway, “with conditions” which likely include “just don’t give this couple any gay kids”
- They were ultimately denied for reasons not stated
- We actually have no other information about what they said apart from they don’t like gay or trans kids
I think point 2 kinda invalidates the lawsuit, and point 4 is going to become extremely relevant when we find out they were fine with hitting kids who misbehaved or something.
Yeah, child abuse isn’t an ideal trait to have if you intend to be the legal guardian of children.
good? why should children be indoctrinated into bigotry
The nerve of people to cry they were discriminated against for their views as if their views weren’t the original discriminator… It’s just mind boggling.
Fuck that couple in particular.
I don’t get why they think this is discriminatory when Massachusetts is mostly Catholic to begin with. Because they have a superiority complex, they are “true Catholics” I suppose? I mean even the papacy, USCCB and other large Catholic regulators have shifted their views on LGBTQ people. While a lot of dioceses still aren’t yet uniamious on marriage equality or performing same-sex marriages within church premises and with church tradition/clergy, I think most now say the queer community at least deserves love, respect, and tolerance. Being trans or nonbinary is tricky, yes, but if you foster a child who considers a transition it’s important to give them spaces to really evaluate the choice. Take them to therapy, support groups, and maybe some medical consultations to evaluate their options. With children especially but people in general shouldn’t transition completely on a lark. Make sure they are confident in their choice. Still, these people couldn’t even have a nuanced approach like that. What a shame.
It’s a plant. These people are probably intentionally doing this to get a case before the US Supreme Court who will (they hope) overturn it. I’ll bet they knew this would happen.
Massachusetts is not “mostly Catholic”. Of all the states, it is next to last in religiousness.
I suppose I mean it is mostly Catholic as in the church has a large present in Massachusetts (where I live as well). Lots of people here grew up in the church, were baptised in Catholic tradition, did Catholic sacraments like confession, communion, or confirmation as children. Catholic charities play a large part of a lot of the social services here too. This survey is unusual because it doesn’t seem to check off the qualities of religiosity. What are they praying about, what kind of God do they believe in, and how do they behave when they attend services? I’m quite skeptical since the supposedly most religious states are Southern red states, which are often religious in hallow, discriminatory ways. In the northeast culture, people are uncomfortable being seen as highly religious because we also want to seem rational, but that doesn’t make us completely non-practicing. My point is, the judges, lawyers, and/or witnesses this couple will encounter likely also have a familiarity with Catholicism and can just as well find a doctrinal rebuttal to their bigotry in addition to legal ones.
Part of being a foster parent is agreeing to respect the child’s situation, religious views, sexual orientation, etc. If I tell the state that I’m not going to take a kid to church if they’re religious, I’m not getting approved. If I tell the state I’m going to teach potentially gay children that being gay is wrong, I’m not getting approved.
