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Bill to ban gay adoptions, foster parenting advances Tuesday, Mar 13, 2007 By Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Gays and unmarried couples living together would be banned from adopting children and serving as foster parents in Arkansas under legislation that a Senate committee endorsed Monday. The Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee advanced Senate Bill 959 despite criticism that the measure would discriminate and reduce the pool of qualified foster parents. The bill's supporters said the policy has wide public support. "We expect the Legislature will follow the will of the people. We hope they will," said Jerry Cox, director of the conservative Family Council of Arkansas. In 2004, 75 percent of Arkansas voters approved a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The public's views on gay adoption and foster parenting should be obvious from the vote, Cox said in an interview. However, the American Civil Liberties Union cited a 2005 University of Arkansas poll that showed 65 percent of respondents said they approved of allowing a lesbian or gay man to adopt a child. Testifying before the committee Monday, former foster child Barbara Miles of Little Rock said the bill puts political considerations ahead of the needs of children and further reduces the chances for a home, paternal love and stability for those children. "I had 10 different foster parents in three different states before I was adopted at age 10," Miles said in an interview after the meeting. "What got me through that was that I was able to find and establish relationships with a few people who showed me unconditional love and care. "To deny a child a family because politics eliminates an entire category of people is inappropriate." None of her foster parents was homosexual, Miles said. The bill by Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home, goes to the Senate, where it could be considered as early as today. In December 2004, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox struck down a state regulation that banned gays from the state foster care program. Fox ruled that the state Child Welfare Review Board overstepped authority granted by the Legislature in considering morality among criteria for prospective foster parents. The decision came in a 1999 ACLU lawsuit. The state Supreme Court upheld Fox's ruling in June 2006. No state law bans private adoptions regardless of sexual orientation. Before Fox's ruling, prospective parents had to meet the same requirements as prospective foster parents - no gays allowed - to adopt through the state program. Since Fox's ruling, the state no longer inquires about a prospective parent's sexual orientation. On Monday, Womack noted the high court's focus on the review board's lack of authority in imposing the gay foster parent ban and said his bill, if it becomes law, would withstand a court challenge. "The court was clear that the state's responsibility is to protect the best interest of a child," Womack told the committee. "That's what I'm trying to do here." Rita Sklar, executive director of ACLU Arkansas, noted a portion of the 2006 ruling in which the court stated the "driving force behind adoption of the regulation was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children, but rather based on the board's view of morality and its bias against homosexuals." Gov. Mike Beebe, who said during his successful gubernatorial campaign last year he would support reinstating the gay foster parent ban, said Monday he was still reviewing Womack's bill. "Some of this is going into a different area. What we talked about during the campaign was foster care and the fragile nature of those children," Beebe told The Associated Press. |
