Arkansas to Foster Kids: Fewer Homes for You!
August 23, 2006: Bad news from Arkansas, where a majority of the population supports a proposed bill to bar LGBT people from providing much-needed foster care to children who desperately need homes. This is from 365Gay.com.
A majority of people in Arkansas support a proposed bill to bar gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents a new poll shows.
In June the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that it is unconstitutional to bar gays and lesbians from being foster parents. (story)
The justices rejected an appeal from the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services which had argued children would suffer under the care of gays or lesbians.
The poll by Opinion Research Associates for a group of Arkansas newspapers owned by Stephens Media shows that 62 percent of adults surveyed oppose gays as foster parents. Twenty-six percent would permit it and the remainder either had no opinion or refused to answer.
The state Child Welfare Agency Review Board in March 1999 imposed the ban on placing foster children in households with gay adults in what it called an effort to protect children from disease, violence, sexual abuse, neglect and instability.
A challenge was filed that year by the ACLU on behalf of four prospective foster parents. Among them was William Wagner who has been married for 31 years and has a 27-year-old daughter and a 23-year-old son. Although Wagner is a married heterosexual, he was disqualified from serving as a foster parent because his gay son sometimes lives at home.
In 2004, Circuit Court Judge Timothy Fox ruled the state Child Welfare Agency Review board had overstepped its authority by trying to regulate “public morality.'’ In May the state Supreme Court upheld his ruling.
The court addressed the narrow issue of whether the Agency had overstepped its bounds.
Conservative politicians on both sides of the aisle say they will support legislation to bar gays from becoming foster parents.
Outgoing Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee supports a ban. Huckabee, touted as a potential GOP presidential candidate told an Iowa audience that while the high court ruling accused the Board of overreaching it did not rule on the merit of banning gays from fostering.
“Our attorneys read into that that if it was legislation it would likely stand, that we could in fact say that only married couples could be foster parents,” Huckabee said. “We think that if we go back and codify that into law that probably takes care of it.”The Democrat vying to replace Huckabee also supports a ban. Mike Beebe saw his endorsement by the state’s Stonewall Democrats lifted because of his stand. Prior to the ruling Beebe met with Stonewall members and according to those at the meeting said he would oppose any legislation to limit gay fostering or adopting. But following the ruling Beebe announced his support for a bill to block gays and lesbians from serving as foster parents