The Little Rock, AR based organization
largely responsible for placing a constitutional ban against gay
marriage in Arkansas in 2004, is back in 2008 with an anti-gay
adoption ban.
On Monday, the Family Council Action
Committee (FCAC) met a deadline to submit 61,974 signatures to the
Secretary of State to place a proposed law banning unmarried couples
from adopting children on the November ballot. While the initiative
bans both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, the organization's
website lists banning gay and lesbian couples from adoption as a goal
of the law.
The Arkansas Adoption Act makes it
illegal for adoptive and foster care children to be placed in homes
with individuals who cohabit with a sexual partner. Single people,
living alone, would be free from the restrictions.
The FCAC lists three primary reasons
for the law: For the safety of children, to increase the number of
prospective homes, and to “blunt a homosexual agenda.”
“[The Arkansas Adoption Act] is about
two things. It's about child welfare, first of all. Secondly, it is
to blunt a homosexual agenda that's at work in other states and that
will be at work in Arkansas unless we are proactive about doing
something about it,” FCAC Executive Director Jerry Cox told Fox16
News.
The organization's website expands on
the group's position, by saying, “Laws have been passed in eight
states that support the homosexual agenda when it comes to the
adoption or foster care of children. Arkansas has no law to prevent
homosexual adoption. Homosexuals are adopting children and this will
continue until a law is passed.”
Speaking to On Top Magazine,
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Director of
Communications Steve Ralls said: “The primary concern of the state
of Arkansas, and the voters in the state, should be the best
interests of the children, and this measure fails that test in
spades. Lesbian and gay couples from to coast are giving homes and
second chances to foster children and building strong families.
There is nothing pro-family about denying children the opportunity to
be part of a loving family.”
The FCAC went to work on the law after
the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a 1999 Child Welfare Agency
Review Board rule banning gay and lesbian couples from serving as
foster parents after a seven-year battle.