OH dear, here we go again. It seems that not a day passes without a fresh “evidence” that Christians in Britain are being “persecuted”.
According to this report, the latest zealot to leap onto the persecution bandwagon is a Christian doctor who claims she was ousted from a council adoption panel after refusing to endorse gay couples.
Dr Sheila Matthews: yet another addition to the growing army of 'persecuted' Christians
Dr Sheila Matthews is taking her case to an employment tribunal, claiming religious discrimination.
In a case that could go all the way to the European courts, Matthews said there was “no reason” the council could not find a compromise to accommodate her bigoted views.
She has now resigned from her £72,000-a-year post as a community paediatrician, claiming her career has been irreparably damaged.
Matthews blames political correctness for creating a “hostile climate” for Christians, adding:
It is getting really scary. The anger I feel is not only for me but for lots of other people of faith who feel they have to choose between their beliefs and their job.
Her case, which starts tomorrow in Leicester, follows that of Eunice and Owen Johns, a couple from Derby who were banned from fostering because of their traditional Christian views about homosexuality.
Dr Matthews says her objections to gay adoption are based on scientific findings as well as biblical teachings.
The 50-year-old mother-of-one was appointed as medical adviser to one of Northamptonshire County Council’s two adoption panels six years ago.
She medically examined couples who applied to adopt to make sure they were healthy enough to provide a child with long-term care. She then reported to the ten-strong panel made up of councillors, social workers and lay people, of which she was a full member.
The panel then interviewed applicants before members voted on whether the prospective adoptive parents should be recommended.
But the final decision in all adoption cases was made by the council’s head of children and young people’s services, who was not bound by the panel’s advice.
Matthews’s problems arose in January 2009 when a gay couple applied to adopt, the first such case since the introduction in 2006 of equality laws that required adoption agencies to consider homosexual candidates in the same way as heterosexual ones.
Matthews, a Christian since she was a teenager, said she had concluded after years of research that gay households were not as good for vulnerable children as a father and mother.
Rather than voting against the gay applicants, however, she told the head of Northamptonshire’s adoption team that she would abstain.
In April last year, however, she was summoned to a meeting with the head of children’s services. A month later, she was removed as a full member of the panel.
In August, the NHS Primary Care Trust, which had allowed her to continue as the medical adviser without voting rights, replaced her in this role. In March this year she resigned.
Matthews said the council had acted unreasonably as only a tiny number of cases involved gay couples, and it would have been easy to allow her to abstain or find a substitute for her on the panel on those occasions.
Her case is being backed by the Christian Legal Centre and she is being represented by human rights lawyer Paul Diamond.
Quick to get in on the act, the ghastly Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, said:
It cannot be right that a doctor of such standing is forced from her role on an adoption panel just because of her professional and Christian views.
A Northamptonshire County Council spokesman said:
It is inappropriate to comment on this matter at this stage.
Hat tip: Angela K
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
November 14th, 2010 at 11:13 am
A doctor “of such standing” they say. So what is so special about her? We should support the head of the Adoption Services for having the courage to make a rational and humane decison. It can’t have been easy. And now the cry “I’m being persecuted because I’m a Christian” starts and time and money will be spent on this nonsense.
She is being called to account because of a toxic bias which, I suggest, disables her from doing the job for which she was well rewarded.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
This sad old lady is not fit to clean my toilet, but she expects to be employed as a “doctor”? I’m hoping that deep down, she realised her utter inadequacy for any kind of social role that involved decision-making (beyond deciding whether to use Harpic or Ajax) was the true reason for her sensible resignation from fucking up other people’s lives.
November 14th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
You can see that this lady is not quite all there, I suppose she tells her patients to pray to a god who she would have to say however their god must have put them there in the first place. How did she manage to get so much salary per year when nurses are paid so poorly.
I suppose it is the same as going on X Factor they want to be famous, this is what she wants however stupid her claim.
November 14th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Quit her £72,000 pa job… what a freak!!! To be honest, the profession is probably better off without her. Christianity would be for that matter!!
November 14th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
“Dr Matthews says her objections to gay adoption are based on scientific findings . . . ”
I would love to see these scientific findings. Why have they never made their way to the public? Or is she referring to the same unrelated studies mentioned in the Johns case–that children fare better with a mother and father than they do with a single parent. You have to be pretty stupid, or completely dishonest to misinterpret those studies as having anything to do with gay parents.
November 14th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
She bases her bigotry on “years of research” as well as “scientific findings” and “biblical teachings.” Now there is a toxic mix if ever there was one. And then she makes a prejudicial statement against gays which is an unfounded and disgraceful smear. The fact is that for many doctors a berth in Social Services is a cushy option. They don’t have the call outs, they don’t have to make the tough calls to decide whether a child is abused or dying and they don’t have to arrange treatment or prescribe drugs. Best of all the get loads of respect from those who know no better and they can knock off at 5pm and have weekends to themselves.
The front line GP in an Inner City for example is another game entirely. Here is an incident which amused me and sums this up. A local authority doctor – pompous pratt as it happens – who had been in a senior position, largely admin, was walking through the entrance to County Hall. A man fainted. The local authority doctor steps forward and leans over to see if he can help. The man’s friend, who knows the score, says to the doctor, “Don’t you think we should call a proper doctor?”
November 14th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I’m a little torn on this one. Very little, really, but I don’t think her original position is quite as bad as it is made out to be. Of course her bigotry is awful and her claim to have based her distrust of homosexual parents on ‘scientific findings’ is suspect and I genuinely believe it to be an outright lie as I’ve never seen anything like it (quite the opposite with lesbian couples), but she did have the presence of mind to abstain and offer to continually abstain or be replaced on the rare occasion that homosexuality came up.
Unfortunately this leaves the council with a fully paid member of the panel who is not fully functioning (pardon the pun) and adds to their expenses and probably gives them more work, so I can see why they would let her go. Seems more economics than persecution to me, but before she went to the papers and the lawyers to cry foul, I don’t think she was being too unreasonable. At least she wasn’t actively trying to deny them the chance to raise children, she just could not be party to it because an old book told her it’s wrong… like cursing your parents, trimming your beard, planting wheat and barley in the same furrow, eating pork, wearing polyester and masturbation.
November 14th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
A doctor who makes decisions and recommendations based on something from the Bible is not qualified. A doctor’s stock in trade is evidence, not fiction.
Any “scientific studies” she refers to are undoubtedly the same dishonest stuff championed previously by George “lift my luggage” Rekers; perhaps she would like his guidance in her case?
November 14th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
There is good science and there is bad science. I expect these scientific findings are more of the latter and since she won’t reveal them I only have prior evidence to go on which is that usually when people don’t reveal scientific sources they’re bad science.
November 14th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
More hilarity from Williams, Diamond and the CLC and this one is a corker. Christians caught dodging TV licence renewal believe that they should be exempt because BBC isn’t biased enough towards their religion.
http://www.christianlegalcentr.....hp?id=1203
November 14th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
@Stuart W
This one is special. Not only the Christian bias but he is also a member of the last refuge of the Conservative Head Bangers otherwise known as UKIP. Of course, his UKIP antagonism does not stop him supping richly at the Euro parliament. However, as another UKIP MEP explained he does this only to bring down the Euro Parliament.
I would expect this man to have mad ideas about the BBC not giving enough prominence to religion. For the likes of him ramming Christianity down our throats all day would not be enough. He would then be unhappy with the kind of Christianity.
November 14th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Is it just me, or do all these boring god-bothering fuckwits look exactly the same – ie like the kind of people who have no real friends, no partners, and definitely no social or sex life, and basically can’t wait for their meaningless, pointless, irrelevant lives on this earth to finish so they can have a better shot at being popular and more attractive in the afterlife?
Get real, Sheila. This is it. Your one and only life. So get a hairdresser who knows what they’re doing!
November 14th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I can’t imagine that I would last too long at my job if I randomly refused to do it and claimed that my religious beliefs were stopping me. The stupid woman deserves to be sacked and it would appear that just about every court in the developed world knows that, which is why these people always lose their case whenever they go to court.
Didn’t Jesus of Nazareth, no one important just the founder of their misguided religion, tell them to get off on being persecuted and put up with it?
November 14th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
That coat looks like mixed fibres. Will the CLC be arranging a stoning?
I’d like to think their dependence on the Bible for legal advice is at least consistent rather than opportunistic.
November 14th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Strange, isn’t it, the number of these people who base their bigotry on ‘scientific research’, yet somehow all of them have their preconceived ideas confirmed by that research.
I wonder how many other, less obvious or news-worthy, prejudices based on her religion are making her vote ‘no’. Heavy-metal music fans, anyone seen wearing a hoody, mixed-race couples(?), and so on could all be forgiven for wondering if traditional christian values and stereotypes had played a part in a no-decision. I don’t want to downplay the anti-homosexual bigotry here, but I’ve a feeling that it should be counted as the tip of an equally bigoted but less headline-grabbing iceberg.
November 14th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Marcus: Is it just me, or do all these boring god-bothering fuckwits look exactly the same – ie like the kind of people who have no real friends, no partners, and definitely no social or sex life?
Most of that is, sadly, the case. But she looks to me like a character that Peter Kay might have played in That Peter Kay Thing!
November 15th, 2010 at 1:11 am
Lovely, the more these idiots parade themselves in front of the law asking for ridiculous damages to cover their hurt feelings,the more people who loose their jobs look at them and religion takes another well deserved knock. All good as far as I can see.
Did anybody see channel 4 tonight, in the short film featuring an old soldier, claiming christ was looking after him on the battle field. First time I’ve ever lost my temper with an old soldier. If his god had been looking after him he wouldn’t have been there in the first place. Silly old sod!
November 15th, 2010 at 2:22 am
If Dr.Matthew has scientific evidence to show that placing a child with a same sex couple is likey to result in abuse, she has a professional and ethical responsibility to submit that evidence. Just because someone doesn’t agree with your point of view isn’t an indication of persecution, Language used by quite qualified christian people seems to be very inappropriate at times. The Church manages to do far more harm to itself than any secular group seeking equality and exposes its own hypocrisy.
November 15th, 2010 at 2:54 am
The most recent research to come down the pike:
Study: Zero percent of lesbian mothers abuse their children
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....y_id=76922
November 15th, 2010 at 6:53 am
If she had refused to treat someones medical condition because of the patients sexuality, she would have been sacked. Why should this be any different?
November 15th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Question is, if an atheist were to refuse to consider/endorse her for adoption on the grounds that her superstition endangers the child and could lead to an inability to distinguish between reality and fiction, would she be willing to accept this?
Or would she also be screaming ‘discrimination’?
November 15th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I think secularism needs more people like Dr Matthews. By shouting ‘persecution’, they open up their silly ideas to public ridicule.
November 16th, 2010 at 2:25 am
Well she was reinstated, though without any voting rights, due to a ‘public outcry’. Probably a manufactured one from certain newspapers, but it’s good to see the council deciding once more that might makes right and if you scream loud enough you will get your way, especially if your way is to step on the rights of a genuinely persecuted minority.
“There is research which supports my position that a same sex partnership is not the best family setting to bring up children,” says this doctor, though nowhere in the Telegraph article is this alleged research cited. She will be reduced to medical examinations of prospective parents only, and so won’t have a direct influence on the panel’s voting, but I cannot help but be concerned after her clear demonstration of personal bigotry that she may be less than impartial when examining any homosexual couples who come through her door.
November 16th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
http://img.listal.com/image/1190837/500full.jpg
November 16th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Case dismissed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e.....e-11769358
Note the delicious pic!