Foster mother struck off for letting Muslim girl convert to Christianity

ICC Note: Second story in two weeks of religious discrimination against Christians in the United Kingdom.

By Chris Brooke
02/09/09 United Kingdom (Daily Mail) - A foster mother has been struck off the register for allowing a Muslim girl in her care to convert to Christianity.

The woman, who has looked after more than 80 children in the past ten years, is considering suing the council over the decision.

Although she is a practising Anglican, she said she had put no pressure on the girl who was baptised last year at the age of 16.

She said social workers had also raised no objections to her own attendance at church.

But officials insist she failed in her duty to preserve the girl's religion and should have tried to stop the baptism.

Last April, they ruled that the girl, now 17, should stay away from church for six months.

The foster mother's removal from the register followed in November.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has launched a legal challenge to the decision with funding from the Christian Institute.

Mike Judge, a spokesman for the institute, said: 'All people should be free to change or modify their religious beliefs.

'That surely must be a core human right in any free society.

'I cannot imagine that an atheist foster carer would be struck off if a Christian child in her care stopped believing in God. This is the sort of double standard which Christians are facing in modern Britain... [Go To Full Story]