Review: Minor Protection Act

The premise of this book is that the country has reached a point where parents are no longer trusted to teach their children if they have a "religious" background. Therefore, children are removed from these religious homes and placed in adoptive families that are almost exclusively homosexual. The reaction of Christian parents to this event makes up the bulk of the book.

On the positive side, the book is very absorbing reading. It's well written, and though at times the narrative may seem a bit choppy, it never interferes with the reading experience. There are also some intriguing ideas. For example, the antiquated Nielsen rating system has been replaced by something called "Vote Now" numbers, where people react in real time to what they see on tv. These results become the driving force for policy decisions as well as programming decisions, I'm sure!

There are some areas where the plot is a bit weak. SPOILER ALERT It is revealed that the president has a vendetta against conservative Christians and therefore all the children taken from homes are from conservative evangelical Christian families. I feel it might have been more effective and even realistic if the Minor Protection Act had been enacted against a wide range of religions. Even fleshing out how these different religious groups would have reacted to this event would have been interesting and compelling. Additionally, the book makes the assumption that all Christians are politically conservative and falls into the old trap of making homosexuality and abortion the prime sins. So this book might offend if you happen to be a Christian Democrat! One final weakness was that all the new adoptive families were homosexual couples. There are actually already many children waiting for adoption and there are a variety of ways in which homosexual couples can have children if they want, so this required a stretch of the imagination.

I am not, for the record, politically liberal. I can be, however, sensitive to the political portrayal of Christians. :)