U.K. Leader: Tolerance Is Christian

U.K. prime minister David Cameron has defended a court ruling that a Pentecostal couple's antigay views made them ineligible to be foster parents.

"I think Christians should be tolerant and welcoming and broad-minded," Cameron said Tuesday during a visit to Derby, the hometown of the couple, Eunice and Owen Johns, London's Daily Telegraph reports.

The U.K. high court last week backed the Derby city council's decision to deny foster-parenting rights to the couple. They have fostered numerous children over the years, but have been ineligible to be foster parents since 2007 because of laws prohibiting antigay discrimination.

Asked by reporters about the case, Cameron said, "This matter was decided by a court in the appropriate way and I think we should rest with the judgment that was made."

Government officials later said Cameron was not taking sides in the case, but his statements received criticism just the same. "He said he was a Christian, but after what he's said today, I don't know," Eunice Johns told the Telegraph. "Our right to express our views as Christians has been eroded as the rights of homosexuals are deemed more important."

Added former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe: "It is high time the Government was 'tolerant and welcoming and broad-minded' towards Christians."