In 1999, Arkansas’ child welfare board banned gay people from becoming foster parents, arguing kids would be better off in orphanages. Four residents sued, claiming discrimination. Today, the state Supreme Court agreed.
Arkansas cannot ban homosexuals from becoming foster parents because there is no link between their sexual orientation and a child’s well-being, the state’s high court ruled Thursday. […]
The justices agreed Thursday, saying the ban was “an attempt to legislate for the General Assembly with respect to public morality.”
“There is no correlation between the health, welfare and safety of foster children and the blanket exclusion of any individual who is a homosexual or who resides in a household with a homosexual,” Associate Justice Donald Corbin wrote in the opinion.
In addition, the court said, the testimony of a Child Welfare Agency Review Board member demonstrated that “the driving force between adoption of the regulations was not to promote the health, safety and welfare of foster children but rather based upon the board’s views of morality and its bias against homosexuals.”
State officials had also argued that kids raised by gay foster parents suffered from “academic problems” and “gender identity problems,” but the court didn’t buy the argument (probably because the state couldn’t produce any evidence to back up the bogus claim).
I know the far-right will whine incessantly about this, but it sounds like common sense won in Arkansas today.