British judge strips foster care from parents who disapprove of homosexuality

Being only halfway done with law school, UCLA certainly hasn’t taught me every legal concept yet. But I don’t imagine I’ll every being learning the logic behind an English judge’s decision to prevent a Christian couple from adopting because they disapprove of homosexuality. Via the Washington Post:

Judges at London’s Royal Courts of Justice ruled that laws protecting gays from discrimination take precedence over the couple’s religious beliefs.

Eunice and Owen Johns, aged 62 and 65-years old, had previously fostered children in the 1990s, but what one social worker described as their “strong views” on homosexuality raised red flags with authorities in the English city of Derby when they were interviewed in 2007.

As a reminder, I voted against California’s Proposition 8. But even assuming that the judge was correct that anti-discrimination laws trump religious freedom, I don’t understand how awarding a child to a family that believes homosexuality is sinful would result in an actionable injury to gays and lesbians.

The judge only complicates this by saying Britain is ” a secular state, not a theocracy.” How is that relevant here at all?