Panel: Keep foster kids from gays, single folk

Panel: Keep foster kids from gays, single folk
ELIZABETH MCFARLAND
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Homosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals would be barred from serving as
foster parents through private agencies under a proposal approved
Tuesday by a state board.
An exemption might be available for unmarried heterosexuals, but not
for the homosexuals.
Board member Robin Woodruff of Little Rock made a motion to require
that foster parents be married and heterosexual.
"I would like for our children to have a mom role model and a dad
role model," Woodruff said.
The board adopted the motion.
Dr. Bob West of Little Rock, the only dissenter on the motion, said
after the meeting that the rule is "not practical."
"I think there are a lot of foster children out there and not enough
foster parents, and we may run into trouble if we try to limit it to
couples only," said West, a pediatric medical consultant who works for
the state Health Department.
The matter arose at a meeting of the Child Welfare Agency Review
Board, which was created in 1997 by the Legislature to prescribe minimum
licensing standards for child welfare agencies.
The board voted Tuesday to revise licensing standards for private
agencie. The rules have been silent on homosexuals and single parents.
Seven members of the nine-member board were present, but individual
yes votes were not recorded.
Regulations for public foster care agencies have yet to be written,
said Joel Landreneau, attorney for the licensing unit of the state
Department of Human Services.
The new regulation must undergo a public comment period before
becoming effective. The state has 2,700 to 2,800 children in foster care
any given day, said Joe Quinn, spokesman for the state Department of
Human Services.
The regulations say: "In a two-parent home, the husband and wife
shall be joint applicants, shall each actively participate in the
approval process and shall provide verification that they have been
married at least two years."
Woodruff said she knew of an agency that allowed foster children to
be placed with homosexuals despite the current regulations' reference to
a two-parent home.
She also said the current regulations don't prohibit heterosexuals
who are unmarried but living together from being foster parents. She
wants to change that to require that they be married.
She had made the proposal at a previous board meeting and the board
voted to have its attorney, Assistant Attorney General Karen Wallace,
devise language to that effect, Woodruff said.
But Wallace told the board she believed she had been asked to find
out whether the board could adopt a regulation requiring that foster
parents be related by blood or marriage.
Wallace said she believes the current regulations give all the
discretion and enforcement power needed to uphold that policy. She
recommended the board stick with the standards as written. She said she
has concerns about equal protection and discrimination.
Landreneau said he agrees with Woodruff that it is "optimal" for a
child to be in a two-parent foster home, but he said he opposed the
change because there is a shortage of foster homes.
Several board members said their agencies use single people, such as
widows, as foster parents. Board member James Balcom of Paragould said
agencies could still use single people by applying for an exemption
called alternative compliance.
Woodruff said if the board wanted to allow single people as foster
parents, she wanted a stipulation that they couldn't be homosexual.
Landreneau said attempting to enforce such a rule "would be sticky
business."
Woodruff said New Hampshire and Florida have laws prohibiting
adoptions by homosexuals and Arkansas could research how they enforce
them.
West said he believes there will be many requests for exemptions.
"I don't think you can exclude anyone just because they're single,"
West said. "I really think it should be up to the local agencies who is
qualified to be a foster parent. I just think it has to be done on a
case by case basis."
After the meeting, Woodruff said she had been told that the Centers
for Youth and Families had placed at least one child with a homosexual
family and had other such families waiting.
Kay Kimbrough, the center's service administrator for adolescent
services, said her agency doesn't inquire into foster parents'
sexuality.
"That is not an issue for us, as far as gender of parents. We don't
have a policy or practice that dictates whether we place kids in that
type family," Kimbrough said. "We don't make a practice to determine
whether a family is heterosexual or homosexual. It's not an issue that
we address."
Chris Pyle, family life issues liaison for Gov. Mike Huckabee, told
the board the governor supports applying the principle of foster parents
being heterosexual married couples.
Pyle said Arkansas law defines marriage as being between one man and
one woman and prohibits marriages between members of the same sex.
He said Huckabee believes "it is not in the best interest of
children for them to be placed in an environment that the Legislature
has specifically and purposely removed from legal sanction and
recognition."
Pyle said Huckabee supports regulations that would prevent a child
being removed from his home on a "mere accusation" and placed with
homosexual foster parents.
Balcom noted that Arkansas law makes homosexual behavior illegal.
Woodruff suggested that agencies don't abide by the regulation of
having a two-parent foster home be a heterosexual married couple because
the state doesn't enforce its law against homosexual sodomy.



This article was published on Wednesday, July 29, 1998
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