Monique Dostie cares for mentally retarded adults four at a time. The Maine Department of Human Services cares for them a state at a time. With all this caring, the clash between the Lewiston foster-home operator and the state seems petty and sad.

Ms. Dostie may lose the license for her Jaricot Foster Home, an establishment deemed exemplary in every way but two — she prohibits those who share her home from engaging in extramarital sex or from possessing pornography. DHS says those house rules are unconstitutional and in violation of department regulations.

A devoutly religious woman, Ms. Dostie says the activities she bans are sinful and degrading. She may be right, but in dealing with a society that separates church and state, she’s making the wrong argument. On secular ground, her position is even stronger. Adults with the intellectual capacity of toddlers may not be able to give informed consent regarding sex. They are extraordinarily trusting, eager to please, even gullible. According to the Association of Retarded Citizens (ARC), they are victims of crime at a rate three to four times that of the rest of the population; as many as 80 percent of retarded persons have been sexually abused. Viewed in that way, what Ms. Dostie offers is not religious inculcation but, in Maine’s vast network of nearly 550 group homes for the mentally retarded, one safe haven for those already victimized by predators.

There is a growing body of research demonstrating the ability of the mentally retarded to form loving, romantic relationships and of the beneficial effects that result. ARC, however, notes that the practice, prevalent in other times and places, of encouraging indiscriminate sexual activity and masturbation as a way to keep the mentally retarded busy is as demeaning to them as it would be to everyone else and does nothing to further the forging of strong emotional bonds.

DHS’s constitutionality argument is weak. The association between Ms. Dostie and those under her care — and their parents or guardians — is voluntary; no one is forced to live at Jaricot, there are hundreds of options. DHS’s interpretation of its own regulations is narrow. The “least restrictive environment” provision is modified by “in concert in with the clients’ and/or guardians’ preference.”

And DHS’s one-size-fits-all, by-the-book, strictly business approach runs contrary to basic concept of deinstitutionalizing the mentally retarded. Maine has nearly 550 group homes because the personal, family setting is preferable to the impersonal warehouse/hospital. DHS requires that each client have an individualized care plan. Surely among thousands of clients – make that real people with real problem and needs — there are four who would be best served by the care Ms. Dostie offers.