ABSTRACT

In February 2011, Eunice and Owen Johns lost their High Court claim that they were discriminated against by Derby City Council as unsuitable foster carers because of their belief that homosexuality was morally unacceptable (England and Wales High Court, 2011). Their case was widely reported in the media. The Guardian featured an article headlined: ‘Anti-gay Christian couple lose foster care case’ stating that the Johns ‘claimed they were being discriminated against by Derby city council because of their Christian beliefs, after they told a social worker they could not tell a child a “homosexual lifestyle” was acceptable’. The article noted that this case ‘was the latest to be brought by conservative evangelicals, led by the Christian Legal Centre, over their supporters’ right to discriminate specifically against gay people and not be bound by equality regulations. All the cases have so far been lost’ (Bates, 2011). The Telegraph put a somewhat different spin on this. Under the headline, ‘Our Christianity is our lifestyle: we can’t take it on and off ’, the journalist wrote,

Eunice Johns greets me, a total stranger, with an embrace . . . A minute later, when I am looking for a tissue to blow my nose, she hands me half her packet. These are the actions of a true Christian. And that’s the problem. Eunice lives according to the instruction she finds in the Bible – and one of those instructions is that sex should be confined to marriage. For that reason, she and her equally beaming, gentle husband, Owen, have not been allowed to foster children.