Back on November 4th, 57 percent of the state’s voters had approved the “Arkansas Adoption and Foster Care Act.” It was scheduled to go into effect tomorrow, Jan. 1st.

See this AP article, ACLU of Arkansas sues over adoption restrictions

“Act 1 violates the state’s legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else,” said Marie-Bernarde Miller, a Little Rock attorney in the lawsuit.

and

The families claim that the act’s language was misleading to voters and that it violates their constitutional rights. The lawsuit was filed against the state of Arkansas, the attorney general, the Arkansas Department of Human Services and its director, and the Child Welfare Agency Review Board and its chairman.

and

Rita Sklar, ACLU Arkansas’ executive director, said the group wanted to sue before the law takes effect Thursday. Department of Human Services officials have said they do not expect to have to remove any foster children from their homes. The state had already barred cohabiting unmarried couples from becoming foster parents and was in the process of reversing that policy when voters approved the new ban.

The law does not affect any adoptions that were finalized before it takes effect.

also note

The ACLU’s suit notes that the council had pushed for the new law as part of a campaign to blunt a so-called “gay agenda,” but the restriction affects heterosexual and gay couples equally.

Also see this KARK 4 piece, ACLU Taking Act One to Court

Just days before it’s scheduled to take effect, the ACLU files a lawsuit to strike down initiated act 1.

That act would ban unmarried couples who live together from adopting or fostering children.

The ACLU says it doesn’t matter if you’re single, married, gay, straight or co-habiting, every prospective foster or adoptive parent should be screened on a case by case basis.

I strongly encourage readers to read through this article in particular, Ark. adoption ban could start national trend, activists fear, which not only provides an overview of the history and tactics of the Arkansas campaign as well as the previous Arkansas legislative history, but it also explains how Arkansas could be just the beginning.

Note particularly,

(keeping in mind Rep. Cathy Webb is Arkansas’ first and only openly gay lawmaker who opposed Act 1, and Jerry Cox is president of the Arkansas Family Council the organization that created Act 1.)

Webb said the state’s network of gay organizations went to national organizations, but couldn’t get any funding.

“Everything went to California, with Florida second behind,” she said. “We had enough money to run ads, but not enough to fund a grassroots organization.”

Cox had the same problem, but took a different approach.

“Their campaign was strictly through the churches,” Webb said. “The emails they sent out from the churches talked only about this as a gay thing.”

and

In a Nov. 26 article in Time magazine, Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Boston-based Family Equality Council, said what happened in Arkansas could be the beginning of a blueprint for future state ballot measures to ban gay adoption.

According to Chrisler, her group expects legislative bans on gay adoption to come up soon in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee as part of a movement similar to the numerous state-by-state measures that banned gay marriage in 2004.