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Loading ...Arkansas battles suit to strike down restrictive adoption law
01.05.2009 12:11pm EST
(Little Rock, Arkansas) More than a dozen families are challenging a new Arkansas law banning unmarried couples living together from becoming foster or adoptive parents.
The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking to overturn Act 1, which was approved by voters in November.“Act 1 violates the state’s legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else,” said Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit.
The group sued on behalf of 29 adults and children from more than a dozen families, including a grandmother who lives with her same-sex partner of nine years and is the only relative able and willing to adopt her grandchild, who is now in Arkansas state care.
The plaintiffs also include Stephanie Huffman and Wendy Rickman, a lesbian couple raising two sons together and who want to adopt a foster child from the state.
“It’s just wrong. It’s an injustice,” said Huffman, who lives in Conway. “I’m being denied an opportunity to provide a home for a special-needs child.”
The families claim that the act’s language was misleading to voters and that it violates their constitutional rights. The lawsuit was filed against the state of Arkansas, the attorney general, the Arkansas Department of Human Services and its director, and the Child Welfare Agency Review Board and its chairman.
The Arkansas Family Council, a conservative group that campaigned for the ban, said it was aimed at gay couples but that the law will affect heterosexuals and gays equally.
Jerry Cox, the council’s president, said he had expected a lawsuit to be filed if the measure passed.
“We are confident this lawsuit will fail and Act 1 will remain on the books,” Cox said.
Rita Sklar, ACLU Arkansas’ executive director, said the group filed the suit before the law took effect January 1.
Department of Human Services officials have said they do not expect to remove any foster children from their homes. The state had already barred cohabiting unmarried couples from becoming foster parents and was in the process of reversing that policy when voters approved the new ban.
The law does not affect any adoptions that were finalized before 2009.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said during the fall campaign that he opposed the act. Chief Deputy Attorney General Justin Allen said that McDaniel’s office will defend the act in court. Before the election, McDaniel said he was confident the act could withstand any court challenge aimed at knocking it off the ballot.
“It’s the office of the attorney general’s constitutional duty to defend the agencies of the state and constitutionality of state laws regardless of the personal or political belief of the officeholder himself,” Allen said.
The ACLU had represented four plaintiffs in a lawsuit that led the state Supreme Court to overturn the state’s ban on gay foster parents in 2006. The Family Council had campaigned for the initiated act in response to that ruling.
The lawsuit challenging Act 1 was assigned to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox, who had initially overturned the gay foster parent ban.
The ACLU’s suit notes that the council had pushed for the new law as part of a campaign to blunt a so-called “gay agenda,” but the restriction affects heterosexual and gay couples equally.
Adoption is one option for fatherhood for gay couples. But affordable another option is surrogacy. Seminar by Eminent surrogacy expert from India is being conducted in Dallas. more information at http://www.medicaltourismco.com
I certainly hope those who support this law will immediately step up and adopt those children, especially special needs children, who are forced into state care and without loving families to provide them with a decent home life. If these people are such Christians and so concerned about child welfare, they should be the first to enthusiastically adopt these children. The line is now forming, folks!
”The Arkansas Family Council, a conservative group that campaigned for the ban, said it was aimed at gay couples but that the law will affect heterosexuals and gays equally.”
They’re not even ashamed of it!
Deny you the right to get married, and thereby deny you the right to foster or adopt parentless children. Odd this Arkansas Family Council is interfering with the creation of what would become legally a family. I’m inclined to think [they] have know idea what a family is?
Should this become Law, than: The Constitution ( State or National ) will be changed to include - Marriage is between a Man and a Woman. Parents will be defined as only recognized between a Man and a Woman.
There comes a time when we create more problems than we solve. The Hetero need more laws to control their sexual habits, than we can start working on the homo, who is unfortunately not able to procreate - but wonts a family. This is not a self serving act on the Homo’s part, but a selfish act by the Hetero’s - by denying everything they can, to everyone else.
We can only hope that [Our Courts] can see through this masquerade, and refuse to hear this case on the grounds that something such as this is inhuman, and does not promote good will amongst men (and woman) of good will.
There are more children in foster care than there are traditional male/female married couples to adopt or foster them. There are many good single people, committed male/female couples that choose not to marry, and committed gay couples who want to foster and perhaps adopt, even children with special needs (the hardest to place). Why must these children languish in foster care or group homes, when they could be fostered or adopted by loving adults who want them? Social workers are overworked trying to recruit good people to foster and adopt. What harm does it do to place these children with good people, who do not fit the definition of a family of this misguided group. If the kids are not gay, they will not become gay by being adopted/fostered by gay people. It does not rub off, nor does skin color. This is discrimination plain and simple. Everyone should have the right to become a parent (pursuit of happiness?) if they want to take on the job (but should be aware of what they are getting into as all of these children come with problems or they would not be in foster care). Not everyone can birth their own biological children but want to have one, it is a normal desire to become a parent, regardless of sexual orientation. There are few options for the infertile. Having people to love you regardless of their orientation is more important. Being loved, wanted and treated well is more important than someone’s so called Christian agenda. Christ himself was a single male and He loved children, all children no matter the color of their skin, or their parents’ language or religion. As a single male Christ may have longed for a family of His own but knew He would not have the time to do it right, considering His mission and short time on earth. Do what is best for the child, find them a loving family, their are all kinds of families, a family is what you make it not how someone else defines it. If the child is accepting of the “family” that wants to adopt/foster them, then make it happen, the best for all concerned. Children are born into circumstances they had no choice in, perhaps with a disability that was unexpected or to a parent who was ill equipped to be a parent or was unplanned, it is not the fault of the child. None of these children were aborted, so their life was spared, for what? To be dumped, cast aside, abused or neglected? Give them a chance at a normal life compared to their previous situation. Becoming a foster parent is a good way to find out if you are cut out to be a parent. Some children need short-term or emergency care until they can be placed in a more permanent home. Some girls are abused by a male, so social services never places them in a home with a male (or a single female who dates males), a lesbian couple are not interested in males, so they are a perfect fit for these abused girls.
The bottom line: this is not about gay or straight, married or single people, it’s about children in need! It is an utter disgrace that anyone in our society would vote to choose a state facility over a household to raise the upcoming generations of our youth.
I am so appalled at the fact that the majority of any state has the right to vote on basic rights and deny the needed of a shot at a decent life.
What do u expect it’s ARKANSAS!! A state with a bunch of hicks! I’m sorry but that’s the way I feel.