Posted on 06/30/2006 10:45:59 AM PDT by DBeers
LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday said he hoped legislators would consider reimposing a ban on gay foster parents that was struck down by the state Supreme Court.
"I'm very disappointed that the court seems more interested in what's good for gay couples than what's good for children needing foster care," Huckabee said through his spokeswoman Alice Stewart.
Arkansas voters in 2004 approved an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution, and Huckabee said Friday, "I would expect the Legislature to deal with this since the state constitution _ by way of 74 percent of its voters _ already has."
The state Supreme Court Thursday upheld a lower court decision that threw out a ban on homosexuals serving as foster parents. Four people sued after the policy was put in effect in 1999 and the state Child Welfare Board dropped the policy after losing a court fight in 2004.
Arkansas Health and Human Services spokeswoman Julie Munsell said the four who successfully challenged the policy have not applied to be foster parents.
Huckabee did not say when he hoped legislators would consider reimposing the ban. The Legislature will meet in regular session in 2007; the governor will be out of office by then.
Previously, a conservative Christian group said it would push for the ban when the Legislature meets next year. Family Council director Jerry Cox said members will also consider campaigning for a constitutional amendment to impose such a ban in 2008.
Thursday's court ruling left open the possibility that legislators could enact a ban by law or possibly give a state board authority to do so.
But Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arkansas, says the court ruling itself could make legislation difficult to pass. She cited language in the ruling that said there was no connection between homosexuality and a child's welfare.
In the unanimous ruling, the court said testimony in the state's appeal demonstrated that "the driving force behind adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board's views of morality and its bias against homosexuals."
The justices said the ban was "an attempt to legislate for the General Assembly with respect to public morality." Being raised by homosexuals also doesn't cause academic problems or gender identity problems, as the state had argued, the Supreme Court said.
"There is no correlation between the health, welfare and safety of foster children and the blanket exclusion of any individual who is a homosexual or who resides in a household with a homosexual," Associate Justice Donald Corbin wrote in the opinion.
Cox's group had unsuccessfully lobbied the Legislature to prohibit cohabitating, unmarried couples from becoming foster parents, in an effort to ban gay foster parents. The ban was approved in the House but stalled in a Senate committee last year.
"What the court effectively said is the Legislature needs to deal with this," Cox said. "That's where we plan to take this."
State Sen. Jack Critcher, D-Batesville, who will serve as the Senate's president in the 2007 session, said he expected lawmakers would try to push for the ban through legislation. Critcher said he supported the ban.
"I think had the majority of the legislators not agreed with the action by the board earlier, they certainly would have made it known," Critcher said.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson said he was disappointed by the ruling. Hutchinson said he wanted to review the ruling to see if any legislative action could be taken.
"I think we've got to put the children first and I think we have to give deference to the state agency that's trying to provide the best and most excellent environment for some of our most vulnerable children," Hutchinson said.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Beebe did not say whether he agreed with the court's ruling.
"A child is best raised in a loving home by loving parents. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman," Beebe said. "However, the court has ruled on this and the agency will have to abide by that ruling."
A Florida ban on adoptions by gays and lesbians was upheld in a federal court and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the ACLU. Utah and Mississippi also restrict gay adoptions.
Mississippi prohibits gay couples from adopting, but not gay or lesbian individuals. Utah's ban is a state law that bars any cohabiting couples who are unmarried _ gay or heterosexual _ from adopting or serving as foster parents.
The state Department of Health and Human Services had appealed Fox's ruling that the state Child Welfare Agency Review Board could not bar homosexuals from becoming foster parents. The board instituted the ban in March 1999, saying children should be in traditional two-parent homes because they are more likely to thrive in that environment.
The ACLU sued on behalf of four Arkansans, saying homosexuals who otherwise qualified as foster parents had been discriminated against. They contended the ban violated their rights to privacy and to equal protection under the state and U.S. constitutions.
In a concurring opinion, Associate Justice Robert L. Brown said, "There is no question but that gay and lesbian couples have had their equal-protection and privacy rights truncated without any legitimate and rational basis in the form of foster-child protection for doing so."
Good for him. I hope he gets it done for the needy children of his state.
Gov. Mike Huckabee on Friday said he hoped legislators would consider reimposing a ban on gay foster parents that was struck down by the state Supreme Court.
"I'm very disappointed that the court seems more interested in what's good for gay couples than what's good for children needing foster care," Huckabee said through his spokeswoman Alice Stewart.
Its interesting to see how the media (MSM) plays this issue.
They make it "Why should gays be discriminated against when it comes to adoption?" as opposed to "Should people with a mental illness that drives them to compulsively seek abnormal sexual behavior be allowed to adopt?" which is the real question.
However nice some homosexuals might be, they have a problem that should not be shared with children.
Good. This kind of stuff basically gives homo-pedophiles a license to own children. It needs to stop NOW!
That would be nice; however, laws are blanket rules. I would suggest that the delusional blanket rule the left puts forward should never have even been considered in the first place.
Two single men or two single women who decide to live together and decide to engage in homosexual sexual activity do not suddenly merit accolades as some type of stable family unit worthy of taking in children that are protected wards of the state...
http://www.narth.com/docs/RationaleBasisFinal0405.pdf
Review Of Research On Homosexual Parenting, Adoption, And Foster Parenting
by George A. Rekers, Ph.D., Professor of Neuropsychiatry & Behavioral Science,
University of South Carolina School of Medicine,
Columbia, South Carolina
I respectfully disagree. Having worked with foster kids and foster parents as well the dept of health and welfare, I can tell you that the children's needs outweigh any type of social engineering.
Can we at least be honest here in that gay couples are looking for statutory recognition of their lifestyle as a more important need over any foster children?
My other point would be that many foster kids have problems that do not need to be exacerbated by living in an 'abnormal' home.
Which is why it shouldn't be a law. Things that should be judged on a case-by-case basis are not things that should be subject to a one-size-fits-all law.
Can we at least be honest here in that gay couples are looking for statutory recognition of their lifestyle as a more important need over any foster children?
Some are; some aren't. I had a lesbian friend , who was guardian ad litem for a while; I never knew of her sexual preference to play any part in that role. Certainly, when she talked to me about it, she talked about helping kids, not political recognition of her sexual orientation.
My other point would be that many foster kids have problems that do not need to be exacerbated by living in an 'abnormal' home.
And if the alternative is a government-run group home? Is that "normal"?
Then you disagree with the judge who cited lack of a law as reason to allow homosexuals this "right". With this ruling there is NO judgment now -the judge created a homosexual sex sacred cow -a homosexual one-size-fits-all free pass -a homosexual free for all at the expense of children...
Face it -the department responsible for placing children was making judgments and they judged those suffering the homosexual disorder to be unfit. This ruling is all about a judge imposing leftist judgments upon the people -the judges excuse for creating the homosexual free for all was the lack of a law which will now have to be created by the legislature to kick the courts absurd imposition to the curb...
Moral relative or situional reasoning does not apply... e.g. An apple is red, a lemon is yellow --arguing that a lime is green does not make the apple any less red or the lemon any less yellow...
A child placed with one suffering the homosexual disorder is not good for the child REGARDLESS what else is not good for a child...
Even if homosexuality is a disorder, the question is whether adequate care can be provided, despite the disorder. Depression is a psychological disorder. A foster parent who sufferers from depression might not hit 10 out of 10 in being an ideal foster parent. But I doubt depression, in and of itself, is a disqualification. I certainly don't think it should be.
Homosexual activists are among the most self-centered people around.
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