Gay Foster Home Ban Blocked
An Arkansas judge ruled Wednesday that a state ban on placing foster children in any household with a gay member was unconstitutional.
In a case brought by the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Timothy Fox said the state Child Welfare Agency Review board had overstepped its authority by trying to regulate “public morality.”
At issue was a 1999 board regulation that said gays could not become foster parents and that foster children could not be placed in any home with a gay member.
The ACLU had argued that the regulation violated the equal-protection rights of gays. But the judge’s ruling did not turn on that argument.
Fox noted that the Arkansas Legislature gave the board the power to “promote the health, safety and welfare of children,” but the ban did not accomplish that. Rather, he said, it sought to regulate “public morality.”
“There was no rational relationship between the ... blanket exclusion [of gays] and the health, safety and welfare of the foster children,” Fox wrote.
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