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Arkansas High Court Favours Gay Foster Parents

By Gudrun Schultz

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, June 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Arkansas’ high court ruled against the state Thursday in a dispute over homosexual foster parents, saying the state couldn’t refuse to allow homosexuals to foster children.

In 1999 the state child’s welfare board banned homosexuals from foster parenting, saying that children would be more likely to thrive in a traditional two-parent home.

Four residents sued for discrimination and privacy violations against homosexuals.

The court agreed with a lower court ruling against the state’s child welfare board, saying a 1999 ban on homosexual foster parenting was “an attempt to legislate for the General Assembly with respect to public morality,” the Associated Press reported.

“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,” wrote Associate Justice Donald Corbin in the opinion.

The court also said testimony by a Child Welfare Agency Review Board member showed 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.”

The ruling denied the state’s argument that homosexual parenting leads to academic problems or gender identity problems, saying a homosexual environment would offer no detriment to a child’s well being.

A review of studies on homosexual parenting by REAL Women of Canada, published in 2004, suggested that in fact a homosexual environment can be highly detrimental to child development.  The review identified increased rates of domestic violence and child sexual abuse in homosexual households, along with a greater risk of children developing social or psychological problems, among other issues.

The review cited a study published in Adolescence that showed 29 per cent of adult children of homosexual parents had suffered sexual molestation by a homosexual parent during childhood, compared to 0.6 percent of adult children of heterosexual parents.

The review identified domestic violence in homosexual households as a significant point of concern. A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that 90 per cent of lesbians surveyed had encountered one or more acts of verbal aggression from their partners in the previous year, with 31 per cent reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse. As well, the review states, homosexuals self-report that domestic violence affects half of all homosexual couples.

Children raised in homosexual environments are more likely to exhibit gender confusion, anxiety over family relationships and depression than children raised in heterosexual environments, the review concluded.

See related LifeSiteNews coverage:

Same-Sex Parenting is Harmful to Children Says REAL Women of Canada
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/apr/040428c.html

REPORT SHOWS LINK BETWEEN HOMOSEXUALITY AND CHILD ABUSE
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/may/02053107.html

Arkansas Ban Forbidding Foster Children in Homosexual Households Contested
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/mar/04032408.html

Texas Bans Homosexual Foster Parents
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05042204.html

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