Tuesday morning at 10:30am, The Arkansas House Judiciary Committee will meet around the above table to consider State Senator Shawn Womack's bill to ban gay adoptions and foster parenting in Arkansas.
Only Florida has a law banning gay adoptions. Florida's law passed in the 1970s, during the Anita Bryant-era of gay-bashing ignorance. Florida's law does allow gay fostering, according to USA Today. In Mississippi, gay couples cannot adopt but gay singles can. Utah bans unmarried couples from adopting.
The US Supreme Court has never ruled on this issue, and it seems by crafting such a bill using an extreme combination of the laws in Florida and Utah, the efforts of the Arkansas Family Council (a step-child of Dr. Dobson's national anti-gay group, Focus on the Family) is to challenge the Court to take on the issue.
A 2005 poll of Arkansans by the University of Arkansas showed 65% of Arkansans approved of allowing a lesbian or gay man to adopt a child if the court found that person fit in all other ways to become an adoptive parent.
Only Florida has a law banning gay adoptions. Florida's law passed in the 1970s, during the Anita Bryant-era of gay-bashing ignorance. Florida's law does allow gay fostering, according to USA Today. In Mississippi, gay couples cannot adopt but gay singles can. Utah bans unmarried couples from adopting.
The US Supreme Court has never ruled on this issue, and it seems by crafting such a bill using an extreme combination of the laws in Florida and Utah, the efforts of the Arkansas Family Council (a step-child of Dr. Dobson's national anti-gay group, Focus on the Family) is to challenge the Court to take on the issue.
A 2005 poll of Arkansans by the University of Arkansas showed 65% of Arkansans approved of allowing a lesbian or gay man to adopt a child if the court found that person fit in all other ways to become an adoptive parent.
America's best scientific evidence shows gay or lesbian parenting works for kids needing foster or adoptive parents. We have 800 kids in Arkansas on a "waiting list."
The Arkansas Family Council's bill to reduce the pool of available foster parents based on groundless bias against gays will face its toughest hurdle yet Tuesday with House Judiciary Committee. I am deeply honored that my state representative Kathy Webb, Arkansas' first openly gay legislator, sits on this committee and will speak against the bill.
The Arkansas Family Council's bill to reduce the pool of available foster parents based on groundless bias against gays will face its toughest hurdle yet Tuesday with House Judiciary Committee. I am deeply honored that my state representative Kathy Webb, Arkansas' first openly gay legislator, sits on this committee and will speak against the bill.
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