Adoption Ban Unconstitutional

Arkansas Supreme Court Affirms Initiated Act 1
Violates Rights

By Richard Davis
TFW Staff Writer

The Arkansas Supreme Court today kicked to the curb an act that was blatantly aimed at preventing homosexual couples from adopting or providing foster care to children.

The big dogs of the Arkansas judicial system affirmed a lower court ruling that Initiated Act 1 of 2008 violated fundamental privacy rights in the state constitution. The absurd “An Act Providing That an Individual Who is Cohabiting Outside of a Valid Marriage May Not Adopt or Be a Foster Parent of a Child Less Than Eighteen Years Old” created a broad blanket ban on not just homosexual partners but unmarried heterosexual couples who wanted to adopt or provide foster care.

The court rightly confirmed the act amounted to government intrusion into the private sexual rights of adults. In other words, what happened in Arkansas beds didn’t stay in Arkansas beds — it’s everybody’s business!

In addition, the Arkie supreme ones noted the act did not advance the welfare interests of children — something both some of the state’s and conservative group Family Council Action Committee’s own witnesses agreed with in their attempt to defend Act 1. From the court ruling:

“… we first note that Act 1 says ‘[t]he people of Arkansas find and declare that it is in the best interest of children in need of adoption or foster care to be reared in homes in which adoptive or foster parents are not cohabiting outside of marriage.’ … Despite this statement in Act 1, several of the State’s and FCAC’s own witnesses testified that they did not believe Act 1 promoted the welfare interests of the child by its categorical ban.”

Read the full opinion of the judges, download the PDF file here: http://opinions.aoc.arkansas.gov/WebLink8/0/doc/60137/Electronic.aspx