'Family' Focus Of Groups Eyeing Adoption, Foster Parenting Initiative
Last updated Saturday, June 7, 2008 6:38 PM CDT in News
By Rob Moritz
The Morning News
LITTLE ROCK - It's all about family, say supporters and opponents alike of a proposed initiated act that would ban unmarried couples from adopting or serving as foster parents in Arkansas.
Three ballot question committees - each formed to either support or fight the proposed Arkansas Adoption and Foster Care Act should it make the Nov. 4 general election ballot - have filed the necessary paperwork with the Arkansas Ethics Commission.
And each of the committees has the word "family" or "families" in its name. "It does require a little bit of investigation on the part of the average citizen who might want to involve himself or herself to make sure that the group with 'family' in their name is indeed the group that they are comfortable associating with," said Jerry Cox, spokesman for the Family Council Action Committee, the group promoting the proposal.
Debbie Willhite, director of Arkansas Families First, a Little Rock-based coalition that opposes the ballot measure, agreed.
"There are all types of families," Willhite said. "I think that what all Arkansans would like to see is every child ... having a loving home, and no one group's definition of family is necessarily what is best or worst for all children."
Meanwhile, the Marion-based Families First Action Committee, led by Christian conservative Bill Wheeler, filed its ballot committee forms earlier this year and is helping gather signatures for the proposed ballot initiative.
The Family Council Action Committee, which was instrumental in passage of Arkansas' constitutional ban on gay marriage in 2004, needs to collect nearly 62,000 signatures by July 7 to get the adoption and foster care measure on the general election ballot.
The proposal, which has had its ballot title and name already approved by the attorney general, would ban unmarried people who live with domestic partners from becoming foster parents or adopting children.
Cox's group has raised $44,614 and spent $23,732, according to the most recent financial report filed with the state Ethics Commission.
Cox said last week he was optimistic the organization would gather the requisite number of signatures by the deadline, but he acknowledged there have been hurdles.
People are not as informed about the measure as they were about the gay marriage amendment in 2004, he said. Supporters gathered more than 100,000 signatures to get it on the ballot. This year, about 37,000 signatures have been collected so far for the adoption initiative, he said.
"One of the biggest obstacles is that many think this will ban all single people from adopting or being foster parents," Cox said. "Many people also think this will greatly reduce the number of foster homes and it will not."
Also, Cox said, supporters had hoped to gather the bulk of the signatures during the May 20 state primaries but low voter turnout cut into the effort.
Secretary of State Charlie Daniels said a record-low 18 percent of Arkansas' 1.6 million eligible voters cast ballots in the party primaries.
Arkansas Families First opposes the measure and has raised nearly $40,000 to fight the proposal should it reach the ballot, according to the group's latest financial report.
"We're going to raise and spend whatever it takes to defeat it," Willhite said. "It is a bad law, it is bad public policy, it hurts children."
The organization's supporters include Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and several state Democratic lawmakers.
The coalition also includes Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, the Interfaith Council, the Arkansas Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatricians and the Arkansas Psychological Association.
In March, the group paid Washington, D.C.-based Lake Research Partners nearly $23,000 to poll voters in Arkansas on the adoption and foster care issue.
"The poll indicated to us that probably we can defeat this initiative," Willhite said, declining to discuss any specifics of the poll.
Cox said the Family Council Action Committee is relying on churches and other organizations to gather the signatures and questioned the values of some of the people and groups supporting Arkansas Families First.
"Some of those funding (Arkansas Families First) are some of the same people that fund the ACLU and other homosexual activist organizations," he said, noting the two largest donations, $10,000 each, came from the Fred Darragh Foundation of Little Rock, named for an original member of the ACLU in the state, and Family Equality Council, a national advocacy group for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
"Their view of what is family and our view are very different," Cox said. Willhite said Cox and his group are trying to divert the issue away from helping children.
"Those are hot-button issues to mask the fact that they are being very myopic," she said. "They are trying to tell people how to live their lives and they're trying to tell the very people who will - on a case-by-case basis, not a blanket rule - determine what is best for a child.
"This law is not going to hurt the ACLU, gay people or co-habitating adults, it's going to hurt the children."
Reader Comments (4 comment(s))
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsibility of their authors. The Morning News does not review comments before their publication, nor do we guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by our comment policy. If you see a comment that violates our policy, please notify the web editor.
bigmama wrote on Jun 8, 2008 8:27 AM:
Advocate1 wrote on Jun 8, 2008 1:41 PM:
reader wrote on Jun 8, 2008 2:03 PM:
Not already registered?
cathyjulee wrote on Jun 7, 2008 11:55 PM: