Now here is an ever ending battle in foster care and adoptions. Do we want our troubled kids who have been removed from their homes put into foster care with parents who are gay? What are your thoughts?
BY JOHN LYNCH
Posted on Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A lawsuit challenging a voterapproved law restricting adoptions and foster care should be allowed to proceed because, among other things, Arkansas’ Initiated Act 1 of 2008 violates the rights of parents to manage the care of their own children, the American Civil Liberties Union claims in its latest court filing.
The law, which bans unmarried cohabiting couples from fostering or adopting children, also harms the state’s “neediest” children by denying them access to loving and qualified parents and guardians, the group claims in its 55-page response to a motion from the state to dismiss the lawsuit. The ACLU, representing 24 adults and children, is challenging the constitutionality of the law in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
“By categorically depriving gay couples and unmarried heterosexual couples of the opportunity to show that they are fit adoptive or foster parents, Act 1 unconstitutionally threatens and violates constitutional rights such as: the right of families to live together; the right of children to be free from stateimposed harm; and the right of parents to have the state respect their judgment as to who would be the best adoptive parents for their children in the event of their death or incapacity,” the pleading states. “The disparate treatment of gay and unmarried couples required by Act 1 impermissibly interferes with such fundamental constitutional rights and violates the guarantee of equal protection under the law.”
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza will consider dis- missing the lawsuit at a March 17 hearing. On Friday, the judge is scheduled to decide on whether the Family Council Action Committee and its president, Jerry Cox, Act 1’s most vocal supporters, can come to the defense of the law in court. Currently, the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office in defending Act 1, which took affect on Jan. 1 with 57 percent of voters approving the measure in November.
In the filing, the ACLU also claims state attorneys are distorting its stand against the law, arguing the state is using “phantom assertions” that plaintiffs are trying to establish a right by children to be adopted or fostered.
The actual argument, according to the filing, is that Act 1 violates the rights of children in state custody by putting them at risk of harm by arbitrarily denying them “fit and appropriate” adoptive and foster parents.
“Plaintiffs have alleged and will present proof at trial that Act 1 harms children in state care by denying some of them the home that is most appropriate for their needs and by limiting the opportunities for all of these children to have any foster or adoptive parent at all, condemning more of them to growing up without ever becoming part of a family,” the filing states. “Plaintiffs further have alleged, and the evidence will show, that preexisting Arkansas policy already protects the best interests of children – which defendants must deem paramount – by screening all prospective adoptive and foster parents to determine their suitability to care for a child. Thus, Act 1’s only accomplishment is to deprive children of placement with adults who would be deemed suitable and appropriate adoptive or foster parents.”
The state has repeatedly found that single people can be good parents, the ACLU pleading states, pointing to rulings from Pulaski County Circuit Court and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirming homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. In those cases, judges received testimony from child-care experts who say there’s no harm in allowing children to be raised by homosexual parents.
A month before voters approved Act 1 last year, the ACLU filing notes, the state Department of Human Services dropped its own policy preventing single people from adopting after a hearing where child-care experts opposed the policy.
Parents should have the right to have a say how their children are raised, the ACLU argues, but Act 1 can prevent their wishes from being heard, let alone considered.
“The parent-plaintiffs recognize that they do not have the absolute right to dictate the adoptive placement of their children through their testamentary wishes,” the filing states. “But they do have a protected right to provide a recommendation that will be given weight by the state in considering the best interests of their children. Accordingly, what parent-plaintiffs object to is the fact that Act 1 will require defendants to automatically reject their judgment, as fit parents, as to who would be the best adoptive placement for their children if tragedy were to strike.”
Court filings show that five of the plaintiffs have left the case. Wendy Wilson and Matthew Dylan Foster, with their three daughters, have withdrawn with no reason stated. The ACLU identified them in court papers as a Russellville couple engaged to be married, with daughters ages 5 and younger. If something happens to the couple, they want Wilson’s homosexual mother and her partner to adopt the girls, but Act 1 would prevent the adoption.
