Strong opposition to the candidacy of Barack Obama in Arkansas may have helped conservatives pass a measure blocking the adoption of children by unmarried couples.
The measure, which voters overwhelmingly approved Tuesday and which prevents unmarried cohabitating couples from adopting or fostering children, won strong support from conservatives, exit polls found. The ban affects all unmarried couples but was written with the intent of preventing gay couples from raising children in Arkansas….
Many experts did not expect the measure to pass with Democrats nationwide flooding the polls to support Mr. Obama for president….
But conservatives mounted a grass-roots campaign, mainly through church groups, that framed the state’s case-by-case approach to adoption requests as an affront to traditional family values….
Arkansas, which already has a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, now will limit adoptions and foster care of children to people who are legally married.
The ballot measure passed Tuesday by a wide margin - 57-43 percent.
The measure grew out of a state Supreme Court ruling last year that overturned a Child Welfare Agency Review Board policy that banned gay people from serving as foster parents….
A new 30-second video features parents explaining that they oppose Prop. 8 because they want their children to live in a world that is free from discrimination and intolerance.
Earlier this month some Mormon PFLAG mothers of gay children gathered for a luncheon date. The luncheon stretched out to almost four hours as these mothers talked about what the Mormon Church’s active support for California’s Proposition 8 was doing to their families and to their loyalty for the church.
While these mothers have tried to give their church leaders the benefit of a doubt with respect to their church’s policies, the church’s recent public support of the California Proposition that would take away the civil rights of their gay children seems to have been a tipping point.
They want to do something to show their support for their gay children and for the larger gay community. At the mothers’ urging, Salt Lake City PFLAG, Equality Utah, the Pride Center, the Inclusion Center, Affirmation, and the Human Rights Campaign have joined together and scheduled a candlelight gathering for all supporters of our homosexual friends and neighbors this Sunday evening, November 2nd, at the Salt Lake City Library plaza at 6:00 p.m.
The gathering is open to the general public, gay, straight, Mormon and non-Mormon alike and is intended to be a positive pro-community show of support and inclusion of our gay brothers and sisters. There will be a short program featuring Mormon mothers Millie Watts, Katherine Steffensen, and Linda Barney. Candles will be provided for everyone following the program and we will join together in a short procession around the city block of the library.
…The parents of two children featured in a Yes on Prop 8 video have written two letters to Yes on Prop 8, asking Proposition 8 to voluntarily drop their kids’ images from that new television ad. They’re also asking the San Francisco Chronicle, which initially published the images to prevent them from being used politically….
Laura, whose son Ben is also in the ad, told reporters Sunday, "You can’t use children’s images in political statements like this. No one asked us to use our children. No one talked to us about this. And I feel like my children are being manipulated."…
The Proposition 8 campaign says the ad will stay.
Assemblyman Mark Leno called the use of children in this political battle just wrong.
"It is indeed reprehensible that the proponents of Prop 8 would abuse children to make their point," he said Sunday….
When asked whether they favored or opposed Arkansas Proposed Initiative Act 1, which would prevent anyone who cohabitates outside a valid marriage from adopting or fostering a child, 55 percent opposed the initiative. Some proponents have advocated for Act 1 to prevent adoption and foster parenting by gays and lesbians, and the 2007 Arkansas Poll had revealed that 53 percent of Arkansans supported prohibiting adoption and fostering by gays and lesbians. Even so, when it comes to voting for Act 1, Arkansans appear to be rejecting a blanket prohibition.
Arkansas plans to reverse course and allow unmarried or same-sex couples to take on foster children on a case-by-case basis, even as voters prepare to decide the issue in November, the state Department of Human Services said Thursday.
The agency said it would end its plan to formalize the prohibition, which has been in place since an executive directive was signed in 2005. The department said it will instead propose allowing state workers to place foster children case by case….
Officials with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and other child advocacy groups plan to testify Thursday at the Arkansas Department of Human Services against a state policy that bars gay and unmarried straight couples who live together from being foster parents. They argue that the restriction reduces the potential number of good homes available to needy children.
According to the Associated Press, a Missoula judge has ruled in favor of a woman who sought parental rights to a boy and girl adopted by her former same-sex partner, a decision described as a first for the state.
It is a statistic surprising even to those it describes: Same-sex couples in the Bronx are more likely to have children than those in any other New York City borough, according to a study released last month, and perhaps more than any county in the country….
There may be as many reasons for same-sex couples to settle in the Bronx as there are same-sex couples there — almost 3,000, according to a demographic snapshot by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Forty-nine percent of those couples have children. Many said they chose the Bronx for similar reasons as their straight neighbors: affordability, space, racial affinity, familiarity….
A study released Thursday by the non-partisan the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute says that states need to tap into the gay and lesbian community to reduce the number of children up for adoption.
Adoption by non-heterosexuals has been the subject of considerable interest in a rapidly changing legal and policy environment. During the early 2000s, a number of states enacted or attempted to enact legislation to prohibit gays and lesbians from fostering or adopting children. Recently, legislative efforts have taken a different form, in which legislation attempts to accomplish the same goal through broad language that prohibits unmarried, cohabitating couples from fostering or adopting. At the same time, efforts are underway to amend the existing bans on adoption by gay and lesbian individuals and other unmarried, cohabitating couples. In yet other states, laws have been passed to authorize joint or second-parent adoption for gay and lesbian parents (granting parental rights to the partner in a same-sex couple), and such legislation is pending in additional states.
This report builds on the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s 2006 Policy & Practice Perspective, Expanding Resources for Waiting Children: Is Adoption by Gays and Lesbians Part of the Answer? and, like that initial paper, focuses on meeting the needs of waiting children. It provides an overview of current law and policy, and offers recommendations for expanding the pool of qualified adoptive families for these children by removing legal and practice barriers to gay and lesbian adoption.
According to the report:
Tens of thousands of children in foster care, who cannot return to their original families, are waiting for permanent homes.
Gays and lesbians are important family resources for waiting children
Research shows that children fare as well with gay and lesbian parents as those raised by heterosexuals.
Mainstream professional organizations across the social service, legal, and medical spectrum support adoption by gays and lesbians.
Excluding gay and lesbian adoptive parents carries significant economic costs.
Most children adopted from foster care are adopted by their foster parents, and banning lesbian and gay adults from fostering will reduce the number of adoptive homes for children.
State laws excluding gay and lesbian prospective adopters can negatively affect the pool of adoptive families for waiting children.
Children are disadvantaged when state laws do not permit joint and second-parent adoption.
The legal status of both parents should be recognized across state lines.The Institute study said that the pool of prospective adoptive parents must be increased and recommends that state laws and agency practices must be revised to become more welcoming of gay and lesbian applicants.
“Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” by Sarah S. Brannen (Penguin Group, $15.99), is the tale of a girl and her favorite uncle.
Uncle Bobby takes Chloe for walks, for rowboat rides on the river and teaches her about the stars. Life is good until the day Mama throws a family picnic and Uncle Bobby announces that he and his friend, Jamie, are getting married. Everyone is excited except Chloe.
She tells her mother, “Bobby is my special uncle. I don’t want him to get married.”
Her wise mother suggests she talk directly to her uncle.
Wisdom must run in the family. First Bobby explains to Chloe that he and Jamie are getting married because they want to live together and have children just like her….
In a complicated ruling issued on September 12, the Court of Appeals of Kentucky, an intermediate appellate court, ruled that Judge Eleanore Garber of the Jefferson Family Court erred when she granted joint custody and a second parent adoption at the behest of a lesbian couple in 2004, but that the birth mother’s attempt to have the adoption ruling nullified was barred by the statute of limitations.
However, the appeals court found that there is no statute of limitations barring reconsideration of the joint custody ruling, so it returned the case of the Family Court for reconsideration….
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