[news] Arkansas Court Allows Gay Adoption, For Now

I know we've been quiet lately, but it's summer and when the sun comes out in Michigan the last place you want to be is in front of a computer. But, this was interesting, so I came inside to post it.

Arkansas cannot bar gay men and lesbians from becoming foster parents because there is no link between their sexual orientation and a child's well-being, the State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

On a vote of 7 to 0, the justices agreed with a lower court judge that the state's Child Welfare Agency Review Board, which adopted the ban in 1999, had improperly tried to regulate public morality and had violated the separation of powers between the executive branch and the General Assembly, Arkansas's legislature.

Now, the outcome of a case is not nearly as important as the reasoning of the case. You can win cases for all the wrong reasons. So, here's the opinion (pdf). And here's a quick summary of the case.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services and Child Welfare Agency Review Board is an administrative body created by the state legislature for the purpose of "promulgat[ing] rules and regulations that: [] promote the health, safety, and welfare of children[.]" That means it can only do things that promote the welfare of children--it cannot do things to hurt children (like set them on fire) and it cannot do things unrelated to the welfare of children (like make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich).

The Board stipulated to a few facts that certainly didn't help their case.

The defendants are not aware of any child whose health, safety, and/or welfare has been endangered by the fact that such child’s foster parent, or other household member, was "homosexual", as defined (Stipulated Facts, #28).

The State has no statistics indicating that gays are more prone to violence than heterosexuals or that gay households are more unhealthy than heterosexual households (Stipulated Facts, #30).

Based on its foster care statistics the defendants do not know of any reason that lesbians and gay men would be unsuitable to be foster parents (Stipulated Facts #31).

The lower court went on to find a whole slew of facts that basically boil down to: kids with gay parents are statistically no more screwed up than kids with straight parents.

Next came the members of the Board, who provided great testimony, like Robin Woodruff, who said: (1) same-sex relationships are wrong; (2) homosexual behavior is a sin; (3) homosexuality violates her biblical convictions; (4) adults who have same-sex orientation should remain celibate; and (4) she would not be a proponent of her children spending time with openly gay couples.

So there was no evidence that kids with gay parents do worse than kids with straight parents, and lots of evidence that the Board didn't like gay people. Conclusion: prohibiting gay people from adopting had nothing to do with child welfare and everything to do with how icky the Board thought they were. It's like they made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and threw it at gays. They can't do that.

This wouldn't prevent the legislature from coming back and allowing them to do it, though. Only one justice, in concurrence, said that treating gay folks differently violated Equal Protection (pointing to Lawrence, which says you can't treat people differently just because you think they're icky). That means if the legislature gave the Board the mandate to bar gay folks from adopting, it'd presumably be legal again.