Arkansas, the state where my parents relocated from Texas when I was just entering junior high, passed a ridiculous ballot provision this November, sponsored by a Little Rock-based, right-wing NPO called the Family Council Action Committee (FCAC), an offshoot of the Family Council of Arkansas (which is, in turn, an offshoot of Focus on the Family).
The proposal, Initiated Act 1 (PDF link), called The Arkansas Adoption and Foster Care Act, bans adoption and foster care by families where parents are unmarried. And, while its primary target is obviously cohabiting gay and lesbian couples, it also affects straight couples who are unmarried.
Mike Huckabee, while governor of Arkansas, had issued a directive to similar effect, banning unmarried couples from adopting/fostering as a roundabout way of banning gay and lesbian couples from doing the same (as they cannot legally marry in Arkansas, a state that, since 2004, has defined marriage as between one man and one woman–another of FCAC’s political success stories).
That both these measures are driven by a potent mix of fundamentalist religion, ignorance, meanness, and outright stupidity is only too obvious. Though groups like FCAC do their best to monger fears about gay and lesbian couples as parents, the scientific consensus is that children of gay and lesbian parents are no worse off than those of heterosexual parents. FCAC and their ilk feed on unfounded fears that gay and lesbian people are more likely to molest children than heterosexual people are.
If FCAC’s banning agenda were based on evidence rather than irrational fears, perhaps they should have considered banning adoption by families where one or more of the parents smoke cigarettes. Their children are three times more likely to develop lung cancer. They’re also twice as likely to take up the habit themselves. Banning smokers from adopting and fostering at least has some documented health benefits for the children.
But, thanks to these “defenders” of the (married, heterosexual) family, many the 3,700 some odd children currently vying for placement in homes can continue to sit on their hands in the system, as FCAC, with the support of Arkansas voters, has made it harder for them to find a placement.