Blue Ridge Style & Beyond
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So a Catholic couple is suing the state. Becket Law is representing them. Here is a portion of the press release.
WASHINGTON – A religious couple in Massachusetts took the Commonwealth to court today for banning them from welcoming vulnerable children into their home through the Commonwealth’s foster care program. In Burke v. Walsh, Mike and Kitty Burke wanted to foster and someday adopt children in need of a family. Even though Massachusetts has a foster care crisis, state officials refused to let the Burkes foster any children in the state. The reason was their religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender. With the help of Becket, the Burkes are asking the court to ensure that qualified families no longer suffer for their religious beliefs and that vulnerable children are given a loving home.
According to state officials: “Their faith is not supportive.”
During their application process, the Burkes underwent hours of training, extensive interviews, and an examination of their home. Mike and Kitty completed the training successfully and received high marks from the instructors. However, during their home interviews, the Burkes were troubled that many questions centered on their Catholic views about sexual orientation and gender dysphoria. In response, the Burkes emphasized that they would love and accept any child, no matter the child’s future sexual orientation or struggles with gender identity.
However, because Mike and Kitty said they would continue to hold to their religious beliefs about gender and human sexuality, they were denied the ability to foster. The couple’s home study said, “Their faith is not supportive.” DCF officials said that while they had strengths, their answers about sexuality and gender barred them from being licensed.
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This is a follow up to my last post. Evolutionary Biologist and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Colin Wright, weighs in on the recent retraction of Michael Bailey’s peer reviewed article about ROGD.
Bailey’s paper, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” was a significant contribution to the ongoing debate about transgender identification among youth. The paper’s retraction was the result of a months-long campaign by activists who disagreed with its findings.
Those findings suggested that social factors might be contributing to the surge in cases of gender dysphoria among adolescents and young adults who had previously shown no gender-related issues. This hypothesis contradicts the prevailing “gender-affirming” model of care, which posits that children can know their “gender identity” from a very early age and will rarely, if ever, change their minds about it.
The retraction of the paper was not due to any flaws in the research itself, but rather to a technicality regarding the consent process for the study’s participants. The authors were accused of not obtaining written informed consent from the participants to have their responses published in a peer-reviewed article. However, Bailey argued that the participants were well aware that their anonymized results would be published online.
This retraction has far-reaching implications. It not only removes a significant contribution to the scientific debate on transgender identification among youth, but also signals the ideological capture of a scientific publishing giant that controls hundreds of journals that shape our knowledge base.
Wright raises important questions about the integrity of scientific publishing, the influence of ideology on scientific discourse, and the potential consequences of suppressing research that contradicts prevailing narratives.
Wright’s Full Article in City Journal.
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