By HELEN WEATHERS

Last updated at 01:10 27 October 2007

Yesterday morning, Pauline and Vincent Matherick drove their nervous and emotional 11-year-old foster son 18 miles to his new home.

It was a painful parting.

After two happy years at the Mathericks' five-bedroom house in Somerset, the boy - who we shall call David - did not want to leave his foster parents and go back into council care.

Nor did the Mathericks want him to go.

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As they packed up his toys, clothes and leaving presents, they were distraught at the prospect of putting him in a residential unit.

"David cried when we told him he couldn't stay with us any more, and said: 'I don't want to go,'" says 61-year-old Pauline Matherick.

"But he is trying to be very mature about it for a little fellow. We've told him we are getting too old to be foster carers and have to retire, which he understands."

What the Mathericks haven't told David, however, is that they were effectively forced to retire.

If they hadn't, they say, the council would have de-registered them and taken him away anyway, all because the Mathericks refused to sign a new agreement which they claim would have required them to promote homosexuality.

Earlier this year, Somerset County Council's social services asked the Mathericks to sign a new contract to implement Labour's new Sexual Orientation Regulations - part of the 2006 Equality Act, which makes discrimination on the grounds of sexuality illegal.

"When we first became foster parents in 2001 we signed a contract agreeing not to discriminate against people on the basis of religion, race or sexuality," says Pauline, who with her 65-year-old husband Vincent has fostered 28 vulnerable children in just six years.

"We were happy to sign.

"We've never discriminated against anyone and never would, but this new agreement seemed to go beyond that.

"Our social worker came to see us at our home, because you have to be passed every year by a panel, and we were totally unprepared for what she had to say. She was talking about attending sexual orientation seminars and threw hypothetical questions at us, asking how we'd feel if one of our foster children had a gay parent and how we'd explain same-sex relationships to them.

"We were asked what we would do if a parent and his or her same-sex partner wanted to visit the child at our home.

"There was even talk of taking teenagers to gay association meetings if they expressed an interest in samesex relationships, and explaining about gay dating.

"We were told that failure to accept same-sex relationships could be seen as homophobia.

"I have to admit I lost my cool, and we had quite a heated debate with our social worker.

"We made it quite clear that we could not promote homosexuality, but would be quite prepared to refer the matter back to social services if a child ever brought the issue up.

"We said we were happy for any biological parent to visit the child, regardless of their sexuality, but not necessarily a gay partner who had no direct connection to the child.

"Afterwards, the social worker told us the panel would never approve us to continue as foster parents if we held such views. We were stunned.

"So, rather than be de-registered, we reluctantly decided to retire. We didn't want to, but how could we agree to something that goes against everything we believe in as Christians?"

Mr Matherick adds: "It's terrible that we have been forced into this action.

There are too few foster carers around anyway without these rules."

And so the Mathericks found themselves having to break the news to their foster son that they were retiring and could no longer care for him.

They offered to let the boy stay with them until a new foster home could be found, but say social services refused.

And so yesterday, he left the foster parents he adores, to start another new chapter in his already turbulent life.

"Our foster son has had a few months to come to terms with it and is coping very well. David knows that it is not a rejection," says Pauline, who has three adult children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild of her own.

"We've played up the fact we are getting older, and when my husband plays cricket with him he'll say: 'Ooh my back. I'm getting too old for this.'"

"We don't want David to feel upset or resentful towards social services and quite frankly he's too young for a discussion about the more complex issues.

"All we have ever wanted to do is give every foster child who stays with us tender loving care and some happy, fun, childhood memories.

"So this week we had a big family party so that everyone could say goodbye and we took David to his favourite restaurant. We've tried to make it as happy as we can.

'"e's a big boy now, but also a little boy at heart. He still likes his cars, toys and computer games.

"My mind just boggles at how ludicrous the whole situation is, and I feel incredibly sad for him.

"Of all the children we have fostered, not one of them has ever even raised with us the question of their sexuality.

"Not a single child has ever said they thought they might be gay.

"None of their parents, as far as we know, has been gay.

"To promote same-sex relationships when talking to such young children is, to my mind, morally wrong."

The Mathericks never wanted to air their views publicly.

When they made the decision to retire, Pauline says, they wanted to "go quietly".

However, increasingly they feel that they are the ones being discriminated against - because of their faith - and are taking legal advice from the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship with a view to fighting their case in the courts.

Minutes of the meeting they attended with their social worker and a manager, which they claim states they would be expected to promote homosexuality, are in the hands of their barristers.

Why, they ask, should gay rights be placed above religious belief: is it legal, they ask, for these new rules to exclude them as foster carers should they refuse to betray those beliefs?

Indeed, they constantly wonder at a politically correct world which questions their suitability to foster children because of social services' terror of "homophobia".

For this disturbing case must be viewed in the wider context of how fostering is being managed around the country.

Take, for example, the damning independent inquiry which last month revealed that "political correctness" at Wakefield Metropolitan District Council in Yorkshire allowed a pair of homosexual foster carers to abuse children in their care.

Managers and social workers were reluctant to investigate Craig Faunch, 33, and Ian Wathey, 42 - jailed last year for a string of offences against four boys at their home in Pontefract - for fear of being accused of prejudice.

The Mathericks believe that they too are victims of political correctness and fear of causing offence to just one small section of society.

They are not the first Christians to take a stand over what they regard as discrimination.

Magistrate Andrew McClintock resigned from the family courts in a row over gay adoption.

He claimed he was forced to quit because he was not allowed to opt out of cases where he might have to send a child to live with gay parents.

He lost his tribunal hearing, but is awaiting the results of an appeal.

The Mathericks, who have been married for 43 years, are both ministers at the non-conformist South Chard Christian Church.

Their views on homosexuality, they say, are shaped by the Bible and God's teachings.

They say without apology that they cannot reconcile those teachings with what they are being asked to do today, and won't pretend they can just to please social services.

Given that most of the children they have fostered are of primary school age, their beliefs concerning homosexuality have been completely irrelevant to date.

The Christian tenets concerning love, forgiveness, acceptance, joy and kindness have - as far as they are concerned - been far more important to these damaged young individuals.

Together, the Mathericks have travelled the world working with the poor and children in orphanages, and in Britain ran a travel agency organising tours to the Holy Land.

Their three children, two sons and a daughter, now aged 41, 40 and 39, wereall brought up in the Christian faith.

The Mathericks maintain they have never forced their beliefs on their children, but rather allowed them to make their own judgments.

"My younger son isn't a practising Christian," says Pauline, "but that doesn't upset me. Everyone has to find their own way in life.

"We have never tried to indoctrinate anyone. We have always taken the younger foster children to church because they enjoy making new friends at Sunday School, but we have always given the older children the choice not to attend."

It was their love of children which made the Mathericks want to become foster carers, and when they first applied they were welcomed with open arms.

There is a chronic shortage of foster carers in Britain and it is estimated today that 8,000 are needed to plug the gap in services.

"I thought it would be a doddle being a foster parent. I thought: 'I've brought up three children and have worked in Sunday School and orphanages,'" says Pauline, who with her husband underwent social services training and was approved by a panel of childcare professionals.

"But it is incredibly hard.

"It's very different loving and caring for a child who's been hurt or emotionally damaged. Think of the worst things that could happen to a child; we had foster children who had suffered it all."

The first placement at the Mathericks' 700-year-old thatched Devon long house was a teenage mother and her baby.

It was such a success - they are still in contact - that more children followed.

Some placements, however, were not as successful as others.

"We had another teenage mother and her baby, but it was very difficult," says Pauline.

"She just couldn't cope with the baby at all, and it was not a happy experience for us because the baby was eventually taken away for adoption. We had children of all ages.

"Some stayed for just a short time, others for a year or so, and with each one we tried to give them some happiness and joy.

"We'd take them to the beach every weekend, even in winter, or for walks. Real childhood experiences which many of them had never had before.

"There were a couple of times when we asked for a child to be taken away.

One teenage boy was verbally and physically very abusive towards us, and another used to creep up behind my husband and punch him in the back for no reason at all.

"Vincent has suffered two heart attacks in the past and we realised we were better suited to caring for younger children who needed love and care rather than older, more challenging teenagers who needed a more disciplined approach.

"It was heartbreaking knowing the histories of some of these children, but many flourished, and I will never forget one little girl saying to me: 'I wish you were my mum.' That made me cry."

The only sexual issues Pauline ever discussed with her foster children was when they confided in her about being abused before being taken into care. "These poor children had no self-esteem. They felt completely worthless," says Pauline.

"It was so sad. They couldn't see the point of their lives and we'd talk about their feelings and emotions.

"Sometimes all we could do was just provide them with some security for a while, some tender loving care and a few outings to make them smile."

There will be no more foster children now and the Mathericks admit there will be a huge gap in their lives.

"Although David has gone into a residential unit, we have been told we can stay in touch with him, which we are thrilled about," says Vincent.

"We have now taken on the role of grandparents. We will see him every other Sunday because he has asked if he can still go to Sunday School.

"He's already placed his order for lunch. But we would much rather he was still with us. It's all well and good following rules and regulations to the letter, but what about the children?

"We've had many calls from Christians all over the world and foster carers in this country, expressing their concern, and our one piece of advice to them is to read the small print before you agree to sign anything.

"It's one thing to agree not to discriminate, but quite another to agree to promote something which is in opposition to your religious beliefs."

Pauline adds: "We have never discriminated against gay people, or anyone else.

"We have stayed with people of different races, religions and beliefs and respected their right to hold their own views even when we didn't agree with them."

Last night Linda Barnett, head of Somerset County Council's children's social care, told the Mail there had been an unfortunate "misunderstanding" between the Mathericks and their social worker during discussions about the new regulations.

"We do not and would never ask foster carers to promote homosexuality," she said.

"What we ask for is no different from any other authority, in that we ask carers not to discriminate against a child on the basis of race, gender, background, religion, accent or sexuality, among other things.

"The Mathericks were very good foster carers and so I have invited them to meet me next week to see if we can reach some kind of agreement, so they can continue to work with us.

"We did not de-register the Mathericks; they made the decision to retire based on what I believe to be a misunderstanding."

As for the refusal to let David stay with them until a new home could be found, she added: "Every decision we make is with the best interests of the child at the forefront."

Pauline and Vincent Matherick have been heartened by this olive branch - which it must be said only arrived after Somerset County Council received a legal letter from the Mathericks' lawyers.

"We are hoping that we will be able to continue fostering in some way," says Pauline.

"All we have ever wanted to do is help these children."

What a tragedy for this couple and the children who may now never find comfort in their home.

And what an indictment of a system in which ideology seems to have been allowed to trample all over common sense.