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Group launches campaign to ban adoption, foster parenting by unwed couples Friday, Jan 25, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - The Family Council Action Committee launched a campaign Thursday to place a measure banning unmarried, cohabiting couples from adopting children or becoming foster parents on the ballot for November's general election. "What we are doing is, we are protecting the welfare of children," Jerry Cox, president of the conservative Family Council, said at a news conference at the state Capitol. Meanwhile, opponents of the measure said they have organized a committee to defeat the proposal. Supporters must gather nearly 62,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot. State Attorney General Dustin McDaniel approved the wording of the proposed ballot initiative's popular name and ballot title in October. Cox said Thursday the group hopes to collect 100,000 signatures, with the help of the same network of church members and activists who helped put the Family Council's proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman on the ballot in 2004. That amendment passed with 75 percent of the vote. If approved by voters, the ban on unmarried couples adopting or foster-parenting children effectively would reinstate a state ban on foster-parenting by gays that the state Supreme Court struck down last year. The Family Council tried this year to get the Legislature to pass a bill to ban adoption or foster parenting by gays or unmarried couples, but the bill died in the House Judiciary Committee after passing the Senate. The best place for a child to be raised is in a home with a married mother and father, Cox said. He said the ballot proposal is not all about gays, but he also said the Family Council is seeking to blunt the "homosexual agenda." Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Thursday that several organizations, including the ACLU, the Arkansas chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, among others, have formed a committee called Arkansas Families First to oppose the Family Council's proposal. "We have come together from this variety of backgrounds because we are concerned about the welfare of children," Sklar said. "We think the decision about who should serve as a foster or adoptive parent should be made by professionals who have the training to identify good parents and who are guided only by what's good for the child as opposed to ideology." Sklar said there is already a shortage of homes for children, so the state should not reduce that number by excluding an entire group of people. Cox said volunteers would distribute a booklet about foster care and adoption in Arkansas to encourage more people to become foster or adoptive parents. "I believe that the people of Arkansas are always ready to step up and meet the need, if they know what the need is," he said. The Family Council has raised $16,505 for its campaign, according to a report filed with the state Ethics Commission. Sklar said Arkansas Families First has raised between $20,000 and $30,000 for its campaign to oppose the measure. Gov. Mike Beebe has said he opposes banning unmarried couples from adopting. The state already has a policy of not placing foster children with unmarried couples, though the policy is not part of state law. |
