It's “hand-to-hand” combat in the
fight for gay and lesbian couples to retain adoption and foster
parenting rights in Arkansas, said Debbie Willhite, a spokeswoman for
Arkansas Families First, the primary group fighting against Act 1 in
the state.
Speaking on XM Radio's The Agenda
with Joe Solmonese, Willhite told her host that recent polling
places the anti-gay ballot initiative in “a statistical dead heat.”
The Family Council Action Committee
(FCAC) is the primary backer responsible for getting the anti-gay
measure on the November ballot. The Little Rock, AR-based
organization is also largely responsible for passage of a
constitutional ban against gay marriage in Arkansas in 2004.
Act 1 outlaws unmarried couples from
adopting or fostering children – single people, living alone, would
be free from the restrictions. And while the initiative bans both
gay and straight couples, the FCAC's website lists banning gay and
lesbian couples from adoption as a goal of the law.
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.”
“[Act 1] 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 anti-gay rhetoric, 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.”
Backing the FCAC in their effort to
forbid gay couples from adoption is James Dobson's Colorado-based
ministry Focus on the Family Action.
Dobson continues to reign as America's
biggest advocate against gay and lesbian unions. He will appear in
San Diego this Saturday at a twelve-hour long prayer and fast event
at Qualcomm Stadium, where organizers will pray for passage of
California's gay marriage ban on Tuesday.
“We're optimistic [about defeating
the gay adoption ban], but we're going to keep working very, very
hard,” Willhite said. “We're out there at the polls everyday,
passing out literature, talking to people about what it really means
if this passes.”
What it really means is a possible
nationwide effort to ban gay couples from adoption, she said. “I
believe, if it passes here, it could become the next right-wing wedge
issue across the nation.”
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 anti-gay
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 prolonged seven-year battle.