Arkansas case: Children’s needs vs. adults’ wants
An Arkansas law that allows only a married man and woman to adopt or foster children was up for debate recently before the state Supreme Court.
The measure, designated as Act 1, was approved by 57 percent of voters in November 2008. It reads: “A minor may not be adopted or placed in a foster home if the individual seeking to adopt or to serve as a foster parent is cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of a marriage which is valid under the constitution and laws of this state. The prohibition of this section applies equally to cohabiting opposite-sex and same-sex individuals.”
The ACLU, however, challenged the law, claiming it discriminates against homosexuals — and a judge struck it down, ruling that the measure violated constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection. At the recent oral arguments before the Arkansas Supreme Court, Byron Babione — senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) — explained the law is about protecting kids.
“The statute just tried to put children in the safest homes,” says the attorney, “and the other side argues that this violates the right of adults to engage in private sexual acts. It does no such thing — because the state is not trying to go into your home and punish you for what you’re doing. It’s just saying we’re not going to put our children into your home if you are in relationships that are characterized by instability.”
Babione is hopeful the justices will reverse the lower-court decision. “The bottom line here is that the needs of children outweigh the wants of adults,” he remarks. “The Arkansas Supreme Court should uphold the sound judgment of the people of Arkansas about how to protect children [who are] in the state’s care.”
In a press release, ADF notes that scientific research consistently establishes that a home with a married mother and father is the best possible living environment for children. “The need of children for the most stable home possible should not be sacrificed on the altar of the ACLU’s agenda and their attempt to undermine the democratic process,” adds the ADF attorney.
Babione expects to hear a decision from the court in a few weeks in Cole v. Arkansas Department of Human Services.
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So say a child’s parents are either divorced or passed away or otherwise not able to parent that child. An unmarried aunt or uncle or grandparent or some other relative shouldn’t be able to take that child in? It would be better to go into the foster care system?
That doesn’t seem like it has the child’s best interests at heart — it merely reeks of wanting to limit the possibilities for that child’s happiness based on misguided anti-gay bias.
[ADF notes that scientific research consistently establishes that a home with a married mother and father is the best possible living environment for children.]
So once again this research is being manipulated to make points it doesn’t actually support. Research done comparing biological families with step families and single parent families does not prove anything about foster care, adoptive families or same sex families.
“The bottom line here is that the needs of children outweigh the wants of adults,”
Exactly. Adults that don’t want to see same-sex couples raise children, even children who want to be raised by a particular same-sex couple, take a back seat to the needs of children. Very good point.
@ Emma
I think the intent of the law is non-relatives. There usually isn’t an issue with relatives taking in an orphan, etc.
@ Mont D Law
Yes it does matter. The research compared known models and demonstrated which is consistently best, which is something same-sex couples cannot provide.
@ Sean
And since when do we let small children decide what is best for them? I can’t conceive of a child choosing to be adopted or fostered by a same-sex couple unless they’ve been previously brainwashed. Kids want a mother and a father. ALL children need a father and a mother.
“In a press release, ADF notes that scientific research consistently establishes that a home with a married mother and father is the best possible living environment for children.”
That’s only in comparison to non-married mothers and fathers. And it’s a very strong argument to legalize same-sex marriage, so the children of same-sex couples can have married parents.
Sean’s argument assumes the good effects of marriage come primarily from having a piece of paper from the government. The ADF’s argument assumes the good effects come primarily from a natural human ecology of mothers and fathers.
If marriage has nothing to do with children (as Sean frequently asserts), then it is a short jump to believing that all children are wards of the state, and the state should assign all children (and why stop at adopted children?) to the richest, best educated, and best-lawyered environment, regardless of parentage and the beliefs of the parents. If, for example, Catholics or Evangelicals are not fit in the eyes of the state to be adoptive or foster parents because of their views on SSM, why should the state allow them to be parents at all?
If, however, children are part of a pre-political human ecology of parentage and extended families, then the extended family should take care of the child within that extended family (with its fathers and mothers) or direct its placement to a family resembling the birth family if care by the extended family is deemed incompatible (by the family) with the best interests of the child, with exceptions for state intervention in exceptional and extreme cases only.
[Yes it does matter. The research compared known models and demonstrated which is consistently best, which is something same-sex couples cannot provide.]
What research, by whom?
“Kids want a mother and a father. ALL children need a father and a mother.”
An orphaned child might reasonably want a relative to be his parent. That could include a gay uncle and his partner, or an aunt and uncle.
Kids want security, not specific genders, no matter how often you say otherwise.
“Sean’s argument assumes the good effects of marriage come primarily from having a piece of paper from the government. The ADF’s argument assumes the good effects come primarily from a natural human ecology of mothers and fathers.”
No, Sean assumes the good effects of marriage come primarily from a couple being legally bound together, though thick and thin, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for better or worse, in order to create a family unit, which may or may not include kids.
“If marriage has nothing to do with children (as Sean frequently asserts)”
This is a fact. No couple must create or raise children in order to get or stay married. No parenting couple must get married. Again, it’s hard to say that marriage has something to do with children when so many marriages includes couples with no children. If marriage IS about children, and we extend marriage rights to “no children” couples, why don’t we do the same thing for same-sex couples?
“it is a short jump to believing that all children are wards of the state”
It is?
There is no research of this that I’m aware of. The NIS-4 study that Maggie Gallagher uses does not contain data samples from same-sex parents. Nor does it judge or promote one parent model over another.
Well, there may not have been an issue before with unmarried relatives taking in an orphan, but there is now. The quote above CLEARLY states that NO unmarried couple can adopt or foster a child. There’s no mention of an exemption for a relative.
The whole law reeks of anti-gay prejudice, though I suppose there’s a certain ironic fairness in that it also discriminates against unmarried straight couples.
The difference being, of course, that a straight woman whose sister (for example) is tragically killed in a car accident can at least marry her boyfriend in order to adopt her now-orphaned niece. A gay woman wouldn’t have that option. And the niece would be shunted into the foster care system rather than finding a loving home with an aunt she already knows and trusts.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me — it even allows single people to adopt. It sounds like the rule is that IF you are living with someone in a sexual relationship, then the two of you should be married, before a child can be placed in that home.
Eminently reasonable.
@Sean
“legally bound together, though thick and thin, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for better or worse”
So no divorce then?
Let me repeat my other question, to see how short the jump is. If Catholics or Evangelicals are not fit in the eyes of the state to be adoptive or foster parents because of their views on SSM, why should the state allow them to be parents at all? Are familial ties natural or is does their strength come from the state?
“An orphaned child might reasonably want a relative to be his parent. That could include a gay uncle and his partner, or an aunt and uncle. ”
Possibly so. The decision of whether the child should live with the couple or another related couple should be made by the adults in the extended family or better and ideally by the original parents in their will, which is a common provision of a will. I suspect that states have default provisions for cases where the parents die without a will. Perhaps having a will designating guardianship should be made mandatory.
How is it perfectly reasonable for the state to declare that one parent is good but two parents are bad?
It sounds like a gay single person can adopt, but a gay couple living together, who provide twice the nurturing and security, can’t? That makes no sense.
Emma, why your gay emphasis?
There are more than enough married homes (led by husband/wife duos) who are interested in adoption. Best to reduce or remove obstacles to their acting on their interest.
* * *
There is no evidence that the same-sex sexual behavior of gay-identified relationships makes those same-sex scenarios superior to other one-sexed scenarios — including single parents.
If you want to emphasize something other than gay identity, and something other than same-sex sexual attraction and behvior, then do so. Otherwise, the radicals here ought to stop making false claims about the available social scientific evidence.
From the blogpost:
Quote
“The need of children for the most stable home possible should not be sacrificed on the altar of the ACLU’s agenda and their attempt to undermine the democratic process,” adds the ADF attorney.
unQuote.
Monty D. Law, you don’t know what you are talking about.
You said: “Research done comparing biological families with step families and single parent families does not prove anything about […] same sex families.”
Single parenting lacks either a mother or a father, just like the gaycentric all-male or all-female scenarios. This structural factor is highly significant — even controlling for income and so forth.
Step-family parenting is a lot like the type of relationship you have in mind: the vast majority of same-sex households with children resident are comprised of children who have both moms and dads; it is just that either mom or dad has relocated to a same-sex household and the other parent — dad or mom — is not in that residence.
As for adoptive families, well, perhaps 6% of the children in same-sex households were adopted. And that stat is padded by so-called second-parent adoption — so look again to the step-parent scenario. Maybe 2% were attained via “donor” IVF/ARTs. And both adoption and third party procreation come with the pre-requisites of 1) parental relinquishment and 2) government intervention to decree a non-parent a substitute.
So, the type of relationship you have in mind is structurally similair to both single parenting and step-parenting.
And more, that type of relationship is structured to disunite motherhood and fatherhood — with a radical bias against the marriage idea. It is designed to be distant from the optimal model.
Single parenting scenarios open to marriage (union of husband and wife) at least hold the potential for homes that will closely emulate the standard by which all other family structures are compared and found short.
Step-parenting, based on marital status, already provides a structure that closely emulates the standard of the intact marriage of father and mother raising their offspring.
They type of relationship you have in mind, with its sexualized component, does not make it superior to single parenting nor to married step-parenting. Given the instability of such sexualized one-sexed scenarios in general, there is cause to consider it inferior, structurally, for the very feature you have in mind. The homosexual subpopulation of society is not a desirable pool of prospective adoptors of unrelated children in the fostercare system.
Human fostercare is a good option for many children. Not all, but many. Most children in fostercare will be reunited with relatives — often with their parents. Others will leave the system via guardians or when they reach the age of majority (and are supported further upon ‘graduation’ from the fostercare system). There have been wonderful orphanages whose alumni attest that such an option is not to be disparaged as against the best interests of children.
So, why your gay emphasis, Monty?
@Sean
“If marriage IS about children, and we extend marriage rights to “no children” couples, why don’t we do the same thing for same-sex couples?”
It depends on whether it would be ethical and good public policy for that kind of couple to make offspring together. There are only a few types of couples that should be prohibited from creating offspring: incestuous, adulterous, underage, and same-sex.
Chairm, no gay emphasis. I just don’t think that marriage should be a pre-requisite for a couple to adopt a child, especially when not all couples are legally allowed to get married. Why the discrimination against all unmarried couples?
Emma, your gay emphasis is obvious when you said, umprompted, “The whole law reeks of anti-gay prejudice”.
When you say, couple, did you mean to invoke a sexualized couple? Or did you mean something else when you referred to gay?
There are more than enough married homes (featuring the husband-wife duo, the father-mother duo) interested in adoption that this is the pool of prospective adoptors that society ought to focus on.
“When you say, couple, did you mean to invoke a sexualized couple? Or did you mean something else when you referred to gay?
There are more than enough married homes (featuring the husband-wife duo, the father-mother duo) interested in adoption that this is the pool of prospective adoptors that society ought to focus on.”
I think commitment is the common denominator for couples who wish to marry, not sexual relations or procreation. Since gay couples are fully as capable of commitment as straight couples, limiting marriage to straight couples is philosophically, morally and legally unsupportable.
Actually there are not enough straight married couples willing to adopt children in this country. That’s why there are kids in foster homes or orphanages. If a gay couple wants to adopt, society should be thrilled, and nearly all states support same-sex adoption.
Wishing to marry is not a trump card for those ineligible to marry.
And commitment, itself is insufficient; the key is that to which commitment is given — in the case of marriage, it is to the the marriage idea which entails a public sexual type of relationship with the core meaning of integrating man and woman and providing for responsible procreation.
No one-sexed arrangement is capable of that commitment. Gay identified or otherwise.
Attitude surveys indicate that there are far more married couples (in unions of husband and wife, of course) who are interested in adoption than there are children available for adoption in the fostercare systems across the country.
Most children in fostercare will be reunited with their relatives — usually their parents; and only about 25% of children in fostercare are available for adoption.
There remains no ethical, moral, nor legally supportable justification for claiming that the same-sex sexual activity of this or that one-sexed scenario can justify resorting the priorities such that marital status (and hence the unity of motherood and fatherhood) must be neutralized for the sake of gay identity politics.
SSMers with their gay emphasis cannot even discuss adoption without their relying on their arbitrary favoritism of the gay identity group. This indicates the corruptive influence of gay identity politics not only when it comes to attacking the core meaning of marriage but also when it comes to societal concern for children in need.
The homosexual subpopulation is an unreliable pool of prospective adoptors. Best to prioritize prospective adoptors based on marital status and interest in providing a mom-dad home for children in need of stability in which the sexes are integrated and provision for responsible procreation is manifested in the unity of motherhood and fatherhood.
“Wishing to marry is not a trump card for those ineligible to marry.”
No it isn’t, and the real question is, why are some people allowed to marry, but not others? The government needs to have a rational reason to prohibit gay people from getting married. So far, no rational reasons are forthcoming.