Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyA commentary
September 7th, 2007
Got that?
Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey of Wakefield, England were one of the first gay couples to be approved to serve as foster parents in the U.K., taking in 18 children in only 15 months. And right away, there were problems:
With no previous convictions, they came across as respectable men who simply wanted to help boys with a variety of problems.
In reality, they were paedophiles, who repeatedly abused the children in their care.
Even when the mother of two of the children reported her suspicions to the council, officials accepted the men’s explanations and did nothing.
Instead of banning children from staying with Faunch and Wathey, they sent youngsters with more serious problems to them. Between them, the couple abused four boys aged between eight and 14.
In a scathing report published yesterday, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council was condemned for treating the men as “trophy carers”.
…
“It was clear that a number of staff were afraid of being thought homophobic.
“The fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive.”
Good Lord, where to begin? There are scumbags in every walk of life; gays aren’t immune to that phenomenon. I’ve said many times that there is no connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse. But that certainly doesn’t mean that there aren’t pedophiles who are also gay. It happens, proportionally about as often as straights abuse kids.
That’s why investigating credible allegations of inappropriate behavior with underage children is not homophobic; it’s exercising proper responsibility. The idea that conducting an investigation might be “homophobic” is ludicrous, whether we’re talking about foster parents or Senators.
Sure, we’ve seen where anti-gay hysteria has led to wrongful convictions, and yes, those investigations and prosecutions were driven by homophobia. But it’s pretty easy to avoid that: conduct a proper investigation which doesn’t make assumptions based on the alleged perpetrator’s sexuality. That’s really not difficult to do.
Investigators should not let personal assumptions convict someone without sufficient evidence, nor should fear of being branded “homophobic” deter an investigation and risk leaving vulnerable children exposed. It’s no more homophobic to investigate credible claims of sexual abuse by gays than it is heterophobic to investigate straights. But refusing to investigate out of fear of being labeled homophobic is both patronizing and cowardly, and it implies that they are afraid that if they look too closely they may provide evidence that there is something to the stereotype.
But guess what? Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it can’t be true in particular instances. There really are Whites who can’t jump and Appalachians who can’t read. And in this case, trying to avoid a stereotype ended up being criminally negligent. Just ask the kids who were put into Faunch’s and Wathey’s care after the first complaints surfaced.
Let’s be clear: It is not gay bashing or homophobic to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse — or any other serious claims of wrongdoing for that matter. So let’s put an end to that excuse, shall we?
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Jonathan
September 7th, 2007
You hit the nail on the head with this one!
Jarred
September 7th, 2007
I’m with Jonathan. I think you’ve said it all.
David Roberts
September 7th, 2007
“taking in 18 children in only 15 months”
I’m not an authority but isn’t that rather extreme?
Samantha Davis
September 7th, 2007
Yeah, it is a little extreme taking in 18 kids in 15 months.
Also, there is a huge difference between protecting children, which is not homophobic, and harassing gay people adopting children, which is homophobic. If you get a report or suspect that someone or some couple is molesting their charges then they ought to be investigated. If, on the other hand, you keep launching investigations against someone even though you never find anything suspicious you might have a case of harassment. Again, there is a big difference between the two and the social workers didn’t even come close.
At least they could have had a gay or lesbian social worker do the investigation if they thought that their being gay would bias the investigation or seem homophobic. I’m sure that the agency had to have some gay or lesbian social workers!
Timothy Kincaid
September 7th, 2007
lesbian social workers? What? Do they exist?
;)
Lusitanian
September 7th, 2007
Just a small correction…
Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey of Wakefield, England were the first gay couple to be approved to serve as foster parents in the U.K.
According to the article you linked to, they were one of the first gay couples officially recognized as foster parents, not the the very first couple.
Samantha Davis
September 7th, 2007
Well, I figure that being a lesbian entails that a person is at least a little social and we have to work to survive right? So there you so, lesbian social workers!
Lynn David
September 7th, 2007
Lusitanian wrote:
Care to bet on whether or not Paul Cameron comes out with an article stating that 100% of gay foster parents have molested their charges in Britian?
Boo
September 8th, 2007
“lesbian social workers? What? Do they exist?”
Hi there.
I have to wonder in this case if part of the problem may have come from the anti-gay orgs crying wolf so much about gay people all being child molesters. If one hears that often enough and recognizes it as just more anti-gay bs, that might set up a slight automatic bias against taking real complaints as seriously as one otherwise would have.
Absolutely none of which absolves the social workers in this case from failing to do their jobs and allowing more kids to be hurt.
Emily K
September 8th, 2007
What a tragedy for all people involved, and all walks of life involved: social workers, gays, children, and foster parents.
Not only will people like Regina Griggs (recent recipient of the LaBabs Award) point to this as proof that Homosexuals have “special rights” or “super rights” and protection – it has possibly pushed back adoption rights for gays and lesbians for another 10 years. This might be my over-reaction, and nothing would make me happier than to know it is. But this will be THE KEY CASE people like Paul Cameron, James Dobson, and “Dubya” will point to in order to deny equal rights to us. They will say: “see how the floodgates opened? THE FIRST gay couple to get foster parent rights ended up being ABUSERS just like we SAID they would!!!”
I’ve said this before: Being in a minority means you’ll automatically be judged by the worst of us. It will take a thousand positive gay foster parent occurances to counteract this one negative one.
Jim Burroway
September 8th, 2007
Lusitanian, thanks for the correction.
Lusitanian
September 8th, 2007
I’ve seen this happen before.
When six gay teenage boys alleged they had engaged in sexual activities with three staff members of the Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services in 1996, Judith Reisman – the “erotoxons” lady – stated, with no basis, that 100% of the gay youth serviced by GLASS have been harassed, in contrast to “only” 15% of high school students across the US who report they have been sexually harassed by teachers or other school staff members. However, 6 is not even 4% of the more than 175 adolescents serviced by GLASS at that time. The teens’ allegations couldn’t even be verified, and some therapists who treated them earlier and other youth who lived with them in the agency’s facilities stated they were most probably lying, and the accused men couldn’t even be prosecuted because of lack of evidence. However, there was Judith Reisman, saying that for sure 100% of the adolescents were molested.
I think the reason people like Judith Reisman and, to a lesser extent, Paul Cameron feel so confident making such wildly false allegations is that they don’t write for the general public, they write to people who a priori believe what they’re going to say.
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