Proposal: No ‘I do,’ no taking in youths
Posted on Thursday, August 23, 2007
The organization that sought unsuccessfully to prevent homosexuals from adopting or fostering children has submitted a 2008 ballot proposal that its leaders hope will accomplish much the same goal.
The initiated act proposed by the Little Rock-based Family Council is under review by Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel. If enacted by voters, it would ban unmarried sexual partners who live together from adopting or becoming foster parents.
Unlike a Family Council bill that lawmakers rejected in the recent legislative session, the proposed ballot initiative doesn’t target homosexuals in particular.
“As we looked into this issue, we discovered that cohabiting heterosexual homes were not good places for children, either,” said Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council.
Opponents were lining up Wednesday, saying such statements are unfair and that they hope voters won’t agree to make a blanket generalization part of Arkansas law.
State lawmakers rejected legislation this spring, written by the Family Council, that would have banned all homosexuals and co-habiting couples from adopting or becoming foster parents. The group has been working on the wording for a proposed voter initiative ever since.
Arkansas Department of Human Services policy already bans co-habiting couples from serving as foster parents, but there’s no such rule for adoptions. The proposed initiated act would also apply to private adoptions, even of family members.
“This is incredibly over-reaching,” said Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is too much government in family matters. They can’t throw out a group of potentially good parents. Because it doesn’t help, and can even harm children.”
The ballot initiative was turned in to McDaniel’s office Tuesday, Cox said. The measure has to clear several hurdles before it could be submitted to voters next year. First, state law gives the attorney general 10 days to determine whether the “popular name” and “ballot title” accurately and fairly summarize the act itself. If the measure makes it to the ballot, voters would see the title and popular name on the ballot.
If the attorney general OKs the wording, the Family Council and its supporters would be allowed to begin collecting the 61, 974 signatures of registered Arkansas voters necessary to place the question on the ballot. They’d have until July 2008 to collect signatures, submitting them to the secretary of state for review.
They’ve already established a statewide network of volunteers from the group’s effort to pass the state’s marriage amendment in 2004.
The Family Council, which is affiliated with Colorado-based Focus on the Family, was the leading organization behind the constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. Rob Shafer, the Little Rock attorney who helped draft the wording, also helped write the marriage amendment, which voters approved by a 3-to-1 margin.
Rep. Kathy Webb, D-Little Rock, the only openly gay member of the Legislature, said she hopes if the current initiative goes before voters they’ll see the difference between defining marriage and limiting the pool of people eligible to be adoptive parents.
She said some children who need loving homes came from families in which their married biological parents abused them.
“This doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t reflect the way the world is today,” Webb said.
The measure says that a minor “may not be 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 marriage which is valid under the constitution and laws of this state.”
It states that that applies equally to same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners. Single people, even single homosexuals, could still adopt or serve as foster parents if the measure passed, Cox said.
If approved by voters, the act would take effect Jan. 1, 2009, and would have no effect on adoptions that take effect before that date.
The proposal states it would not affect the guardianship of minors. Cox said the idea of including that is to head off concerns that dying parents couldn’t leave their children to co-habiting relatives or friends if they chose to. Under the Family Council measure, parents could still appoint a guardian of their choice, he said.
Sklar said that’s not good enough because adoptive relationships have more benefits under the law than do guardianship relationships.
She and Webb said particularly offensive is the initial wording in the text of the proposal, which states that Arkansans find and declare in part that marriage is the “ideal home environment for the rearing of children.” It states that co-habitation outside of marriage “creates a home environment associated with increased risks of domestic violence, child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, instability and poverty.”
Sklar said the state should never try to define the ideal home.
“My question would be how many people say they have the ideal family ? Hold up your hand,” she said.
Cox said such statements are common in bills passed by the Legislature and that these in particular are backed up by a pile of studies researched by his staff. Asked for examples, Cox sent a list including citations from the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and the National Marriage Project.
Opponents of the bill that the Family Council pushed during the session, Senate Bill 959, pointed out that a long list of child welfare and medical organizations opposed attempts to limit adoptive and foster families to married couples. Sklar said many of those organizations are going to become part of a coalition to fight the proposed initiated act, if it makes it on the ballot.
The proposal is in part a continued response to last year’s Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional a state Child Welfare Board regulation that precluded homosexuals from serving as foster parents.
The court said the rule-making body had exceeded its authority under law because it had not been empowered by the Legislature to make such a rule.
In the ruling, the court said the trial court judge did not err in establishing many “findings of fact” in the case, including that being raised by homosexuals does not increase the risk of psychological, behavioral, academic, sex identity or adjustment problems.
Another finding said there is no factual basis for making the statement that being raised by homosexual parents has a negative effect on children’s adjustment.
Gov. Mike Beebe said during the legislative session that he found “constitutional problems” in SB 959, which was sponsored by Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home. Beebe said after the session that he was glad the bill didn’t pass.
But the governor had no comment Wednesday on the proposed initiated act. His spokesman, Matt DeCample, said Beebe, a former attorney general, hadn’t looked over the proposal yet and that he would rather not comment while McDaniel is reviewing it.
Only a handful of states have limitations similar to the one that the Family Council proposes.
Florida bans homosexuals from adopting, while Mississippi doesn’t allow “same-gender” couples to adopt. Nebraska prevents homosexuals from serving as foster parents.
The Arkansas proposal is the most like Utah’s, which bans foster care and adoption by unmarried couples.
Cox said he and other supporters considered proposing a constitutional amendment but settled on trying for an initiated act, which requires fewer signatures to qualify for the ballot. The Legislature can amend an initiated act, but only by two-thirds majority vote, but most state constitutional amendments cannot be altered except by a vote of the people.
Ellen Kahn, family project director for the Washington, D. C.-based Human Rights Campaign, said advocacy organizations like hers are worried about what’s happening in Arkansas.
“You can see how Arkansas could become a testing ground,” she said.
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