Bill to ban foster care by gays dead-ends in House committee
Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2007
A proposed ban on homosexuals adopting or fostering children collapsed in the Arkansas Legislature on Tuesday, failing twice to win the approval of a House committee.
A staunch opponent described the committee’s treatment of the bill, which first failed for lack of a motion and then later in the day received only a handful of votes, as a “whupping.” Supporters said they were surprised and disappointed, though they’d been prepared for the bill to fail.
Senate Bill 959 was an attempt by Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home, to have the Legislature replace a state board’s ban on gay foster parent- ing that the Arkansas Supreme Court declared unconstitutional last year.
The court didn’t say the ban itself violated the Constitution, but ruled that the board had overstepped its powers in regulating “public morality,” which Womack said opened the door for the Legislature to step in.
Womack’s bill went further than that policy, however, by also banning adoption by homosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals who live together in a sexual relationship. SB 959 passed the Senate on March 13, but supporters say it’s now dead for the session.
The Family Council, the organization that wrote the legislation and pushed for its passage, already is talking about gathering signatures to accomplish the same goal with an initiated act in 2008.
Womack said he’d support that but wished lawmakers would have addressed it instead.
“Anytime we have an opportunity to fix something in the Legislature, and we punt on that opportunity, we lose control of the process,” he said.
But most of those who testified in the House Judiciary Committee said there’s nothing to fix.
Circuit Judge Joyce Williams Warren, who presides over family court in Pulaski and Perry counties, told the committee the bill would serve no useful purpose when there’s a dearth of foster parents.
“I’m not concerned about a person’s marital status or sexual orientation, even when it comes to parenting,” she said. “I am concerned about a person’s character, integrity, willingness... committing wholeheartedly to parent that child.”
Nearly 4, 000 children are in state care, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. Of those, 2, 088 live in foster homes. The remainder are in a variety of places — group homes, therapeutic homes, emergency shelters and medical facilities — or are in the care of relatives. Some are on trial visits with potential families; others are runaways.
About 1, 700 children have siblings who are also in foster care. Currently, 350 children are up for adoption.
Annie Abrams of Little Rock, who described herself as a human-rights activist, said she is heterosexual but wants to take up for homosexuals as parents.
“Being heterosexual doesn’t give you a Good Housekeeping seal that you’ll be a good parent,” she told the committee.
But Walt McKay of Mountain Home, a marriage and family therapist, said too much of the issue is focused on homosexuals and not what family system is best for at-risk children.
“Married heterosexual couples are able to provide the best chance, though not a guarantee, of healthy, successful children,” he said.
He said some homosexual couples have no doubt raised happy and healthy children, “but I’m letting you know that’s not the norm.”
Rep. Kathy Webb, D-Little Rock, a member of the committee who is the only openly gay member of the Legislature, asked McKay if he was aware of more than a dozen national organizations whose research has shown the opposite.
Rep. Steve Harrelson, D-Texarkana, asked McKay if a 60-yearold celibate homosexual would provide a healthy environment for a child.
“You’re talking about specific examples. I guess... I’d have to take that on a case-by-case basis,” McKay said.
“That’s exactly what I’m asking the [Health and Human Services Department ] to do,” Harrelson said.
Martha Adcock, staff attorney for the Family Council, said the state has all kinds of restrictions on foster parents, even regarding the size of their families. Existing policy bans cohabiting couples from serving as foster parents.
If it’s not OK to exclude classes of people, “why not throw out all the restrictions ?” she said.
Mary Ann Hansen, a Little Rock schoolteacher who said she considers herself “gay or bisexual,” said she’s raised two of her own children and raised relatives’ children and others who have been in trouble.
“I have a fear in my gut, in my heart, that maybe next they’ll come after teachers who are ‘out,’ and say that I should not be around children because I call myself gay or bisexual,” she said. “When will it end ?”
Shay Stout, a 15-year-old who’s being raised by his mother and her lesbian partner in Shannon Hills, said he hasn’t been harassed by other kids at his Catholic high school.
“People look at me as just a regular person from another family,” he said.
After about 90 minutes of discussion, the bill failed to pass for lack of any member of the committee making a motion in favor of it. Rep. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, said later that he meant to make a motion but was confused at the time because an amendment he’d proposed had just failed.
Later in the day, the committee met again to take up a number of outstanding bills. Harrelson made a motion to hear the bill again, and Woods moved that the bill be recommended by the committee to the House. This time, the motion failed.
Woods said he knew of four members, including himself, who voted for it, though there was no roll-call vote. The others, who confirmed they voted for it, were Reps. Aaron Burkes, R-Rogers; Lamont Cornwell, D-Benton; and John Paul Wells, D-Paris.
The motion needed 11 favorable votes to pass.
Harrelson said his request for the committee to take it up again was intended “to get it over with.” He opposed it and knew it would fail, he said.
The Family Council asked supporters in the House whether they’d be interested in trying to pull the bill out of committee without a recommendation. To do so would take 67 votes, but there’s been no move toward such House action so far.
Rep. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, the Republican leader in the House, said he suggested they give it up.
“Just on an institutional basis, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said.
During the committee’s discussion, Rep. David “Bubba” Powers, D-Hope, said it’d be pretty easy for a dishonest person to get around the proposed prohibition.
An abusive person, “obviously not of high moral character,” could just lie, he said.
“It seems a very small hurdle to jump, for these people that... you’re proposing are the ones we want to protect our children from,” Powers said.
Womack said that in such a case, the person would be lying to a court.
“You do so at your own peril,” he said. “It’s not like you’re entering the sweepstakes and you’re checking something different. It’s a little more serious than that.”
Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, celebrated after the meeting and she doubted the bill would come up again unless Womack wants “another whupping.”
She said the Legislature has become a lot more educated about the bill and its ramifications.
“They realize it’s not good policy and it’s not good law, and I don’t think it’s ever going to get through,” she said.
Sklar said that having Webb elected to the Legislature has made a difference.
“I think for a lot of people, it was the first time they actually ever met an openly gay person, and realized that she’s just another human being,” Sklar said.
Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council, said in an e-mail to supporters statewide that House Speaker Benny Petrus “effectively killed the bill” with his decision to send the bill to the Judiciary Committee.
He said Gov. Mike Beebe made it known that he had problems with the bill and Webb “persuaded enough members of the committee to either vote against the bill or to simply not attend the meeting.”
But when the committee first heard the bill Tuesday morning and Woods failed to make his motion, almost every committee members was in attendance. Information for this article was contributed by Cathy Frye of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
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