An "anti gay" story I am conflicted about

[Martinus]

Turkey: Children fostered by European gay couples will be retrieved

by Corinne Pinfold for PinkNews.co.uk
18 February 2013, 12:04pm
A campaign has been launched by the Turkish Government to retrieve Turkish children fostered by Christian families in Europe – starting with children fostered by gay and lesbian couples.

According to the Hurriyet Daily, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag has instructed Turkish international representatives to start the process in the cases of three children fostered by gay couples in Belgium.

The children had been taken from their families by child welfare officers because of abuse claims, or because the families could not financially support their children.

An investigation was launched last month after the Turkish Government estimated that 5,000 such children had been given to Christian foster parents in Europe, rather than being matched to foster parents who share their faith and heritage.

The Turkish Parliamentary Human Rights Commission (TPHRC), which lead the investigation, reported that three of the children had been given to gay and lesbian couples in Belgium.

One child, Yunus, was taken from his family at 6-months-old after allegedly being dropped on the floor by his parents. He is now 9-years-old and lives with a lesbian couple in Belgium. His family had previously applied for his return, but had been rejected by courts.

Turkish authorities have begun legal proceeding to have Yunus and other Turkish children given to gay foster parents returned, citing a violation of human rights and psychological damage done to the child.

Speaking about Yunus' case Ayhan Sefer Ustun, head of the TPHRC, said: "We don't condemn that culture, but the child has been given to a foreign culture, to a lesbian family. Even if a child is taken from the [biological] family for the right reasons, he or she should be placed with a family closer to his or her culture."

He said he was concerned that the children would have their Turkish cultural background and Islamic religion "assimilated" by living with Christian European families.

"The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in a past ruling said that taking a Christian child from his family and giving him to a family of Jehovah's witnesses was not an appropriate act," he said. "This is a situation against human rights. It is an assimilation to take a child who has grown up with an Islamic culture to be given to a Christian family without a judicial decision."

"We have highly successful Turks in Europe. Turkish children could be given to such Turks," he added.

Well, first of all, the headline is pretty misleading.

And while the pink news website is now overflowing with "OMG Turks are homophobes do not let them into the EU" (which may very well be right in general), I think Turkish position on this is not without merit.

This is not about adoption, but about fostering and taking children away from representatives of one culture and giving them to representatives of another culture is not considered fine by modern human rights standards (in fact, if done on a mass and systemic scale, it could also amount to a "soft" genocide).

So what do you think?

[Valmy]

So what do you think?

Heh that is kind of funny.  We get crap in  the US for trying to match up races for foster care and adoption and it seems if we did not racially profile like that we would be committing "soft" genocide and violating human rights.  Man not being worse than Hitler is tough these days.

Anyway I do not have enough information to judge.  If efforts were made to find Turkish foster parents and when there were none they were transferred over the general population then...yeah...what was Belgium supposed to do?  If Belgium does some sort of 'colorblind' foster care they might want to consider modifying it, but I have a hard time imagining they do with their ethnic situation they surely try to match up Flemish kids with Flemish Foster Homes.

[Admiral Yi]

In most of these cases of OMG soft genocide the adoptees' own ethnic group is not willing or able to adopt.

[Valmy]

In most of these cases of OMG soft genocide the adoptees' own ethnic group is not willing or able to adopt.

Yep.

[Viking]

I thought this might have been a thread about homophobic superman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/dc-comics-orson-scott-card_n_2663591.html

[alfred russel]

Well, first of all, the headline is pretty misleading.

And while the pink news website is now overflowing with "OMG Turks are homophobes do not let them into the EU" (which may very well be right in general), I think Turkish position on this is not without merit.

This is not about adoption, but about fostering and taking children away from representatives of one culture and giving them to representatives of another culture is not considered fine by modern human rights standards (in fact, if done on a mass and systemic scale, it could also amount to a "soft" genocide).

So what do you think?

Marty, I think this is a bit of an outrage. Not that they are trying to match turkish kids with turkish parents, but it says in the article they will start by taking the kids from gay and lesbian foster parents. So homophobia is at play here.

Also, while I don't have a problem with trying to match turkish kids with turkish parents, I do have a problem with taking kids from a family they are established with to give them to turkish parents.

[Camerus]

I assume by "Christian" they mean "European?"  I have a hard time believing there are many militantly Christian, same-sex, abusive foster parents adopting Turkish kids out there...

[garbon]

Well, first of all, the headline is pretty misleading.

And while the pink news website is now overflowing with "OMG Turks are homophobes do not let them into the EU" (which may very well be right in general), I think Turkish position on this is not without merit.

This is not about adoption, but about fostering and taking children away from representatives of one culture and giving them to representatives of another culture is not considered fine by modern human rights standards (in fact, if done on a mass and systemic scale, it could also amount to a "soft" genocide).

So what do you think?

Marty, I think this is a bit of an outrage. Not that they are trying to match turkish kids with turkish parents, but it says in the article they will start by taking the kids from gay and lesbian foster parents. So homophobia is at play here.

Also, while I don't have a problem with trying to match turkish kids with turkish parents, I do have a problem with taking kids from a family they are established with to give them to turkish parents.

Agreed on all counts.

[garbon]

I assume by "Christian" they mean "European?"  I have a hard time believing there are many militantly Christian, same-sex, abusive foster parents adopting Turkish kids out there...

Likely, though from how the article states it - the harm done by the gay parents is that they are gay.

[Duque de Bragança]

OMG, devsirme Euro-style! Or worse, Euro-homo style!

[Ideologue]

Soft genocide sounds like a great idea.  You eliminate the offending culture without physical destruction of their wealth, nor their phenotype.  So when can we start with the Chinese?

[dps]

Heck, if you're looking for things to be outraged about, I thought this was pretty dodgy:

One child, Yunus, was taken from his family at 6-months-old after allegedly being dropped on the floor by his parents.

That's not abuse, just an accident, and not cause to remove a child from a home unless there is more than that to it.

[MadImmortalMan]

I thought this might have been a thread about homophobic superman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/dc-comics-orson-scott-card_n_2663591.html

Silly. Just because OSC is making doesn't mean it will have homophobic content. Yawn.

[garbon]

I thought this might have been a thread about homophobic superman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/dc-comics-orson-scott-card_n_2663591.html

Silly. Just because OSC is making doesn't mean it will have homophobic content. Yawn.

I don't think that is the complaint. In fact they actually state their complaint outright:

We need to let DC Comics know they can't support Orson Scott Card or his work to keep LGBT people as second-class citizens.

They don't want DC Comics bankrolling him. Don't see an issue with that stance.

[MadImmortalMan]

Bankrolling what? Putting food on the table for his kids? Are the profits of the DC project going directly into some hate organization or something? As long as he's not putting that shit in Superman I don't see why the guy shouldn't be allowed to earn a living.