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Proposed ballot item would bar unwed couples from adopting, foster parenting Friday, Aug 24, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - After unsuccessfully lobbying the state Legislature to pass a law banning gays from becoming adoptive or foster parents, a conservative group wants to take its proposal directly to the people. Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council, said Thursday the group has submitted the popular name and ballot title of a proposed initiated act to the Attorney General Dustin McDaniel for review, the first step in placing the measure on the November 2008 general election ballot. The proposal would prohibit a child from being adopted or placed in a foster home "if the individual seeking to adopt or to serve as a foster parent is cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of a marriage which is valid under the constitution and laws of this state." If the attorney general certifies the name and ballot title, the Family Council would have to collect 61,974 signatures of registered voters - a number equivalent to 8 percent of the total votes cast for governor in 2006 - to place the proposal on the 2008 ballot. If approved by voters, the measure would take effect Jan. 1, 2009. Cox said the Family Council considered proposing a constitutional amendment but decided that restrictions on adoption and foster parenting would fit better in the Arkansas Code than the constitution. Placing a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot also would have required collecting a greater number of signatures, equivalent to 10 percent of the votes cast for governor in 2006. Last year, the state Supreme Court ruled that a Child Welfare Review Board regulation prohibiting gays from serving as foster parents was unconstitutional because it was not authorized by the Legislature. This year, the Family Council sought to reinstate the ban by pushing for passage of a bill that would have prohibited gays and unmarried couples from being adoptive or foster parents. The bill passed the Senate but stalled in a House committee. At the time, Gov. Mike Beebe spoke out against bill, citing "constitutional problems." On Thursday, Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said the governor would not comment on the proposed initiated act while the attorney general was still reviewing it. Cox said the new proposal avoids constitutional problems by not singling out homosexuals as a group. "As we studied the issue, we realized that we could accomplish pretty much everything that needed to be done by simply addressing the issue of cohabitation rather than brining in 'heterosexual' or 'homosexual,' either one," he said. Though the group remains opposed to placing children with gay couples, it also believes children should not be placed with cohabiting heterosexuals, Cox said. "The best place for a child to grow up is in a stable home with a mother and father," he said. "That's the ideal situation. If the state of Arkansas is going to go out and deliberately create families, they ought to create good ones." Does that mean single people should not be allowed to adopt or serve as foster parents? "That's an issue that I think maybe will need to be looked at later on," Cox said. "We're not going to take a position on it and we're not going to get involved in that, just because you can't address every possible situation with one law." Rita Sklar, state director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the proposal would create excessive, unnecessary government intrusion into people's private lives. "Every imposition on liberty ... has to have a legitimate government interest," she said. "That's just a general legal principal. There is none here. Excluding an entire group of people without looking at each case individually is just unconstitutional." Cox said there are precedents for excluding entire groups. "For example, the Legislature passed a law in 2007 which says that a smoker cannot be a foster parent. Well, is that discrimination against smokers? Apparently the Legislature didn't think so," he said. Sklar said excluding smokers is a health issue, but there is no justification for excluding all unmarried couples. Couples have a variety of reasons for choosing not to marry, she said. "Older people often don't want to remarry because they've got estate plans, they've given all their money to their kids and grandkids and they don't want to be messed up with the legal bind of marriage, or because of tax reasons. ... There are all kinds of living situations happening in Arkansas," she said. If the measure gets on the ballot, the Family Council can expect stronger opposition than it faced with the bill it tried to push through the Legislature, Sklar said. "By banning that whole group of people, they have just bought themselves a whole new crowd of opponents," she said. |
