Thursday, June 22, 2006

Ark. Dept. of Health & Human (Dis)Services

My ex-hometown newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, had an interesting lead editorial today. It's subscription only, so no linking, but here's most of it:

Gay or straight
Just find the best parents

Consider the latest legal brouhaha surrounding the idea of homosexual couples being foster parents. The way the state’s Department of Health and Human Services now operates, pending the latest from the courts, not only are homosexual couples forbidden from adopting, but a man from Waldron is not allowed to be a foster parent because his homosexual son sometimes lives with him.

(I know: let's pass a law to keep children out of restaurants. Heaven forbid, their food might be served by an evil homosexual.)

Never mind whether or not the man from Waldron is a good parent. The law says he either has to stop being a parent to his biological son or stop being a parent to any other child who needs one. These days, the issue of homosexuals as foster parents is being back-and forthed in the state’s Supreme Court. For which we can be thankful because (a) this might finally be the end of it, and (b) Justice Donald Corbin gets a chance to ask questions. And it’s always an adventure to figure out some of the verbal tangents he takes. Justice Corbin is fast becoming our favorite quotee in the daily paper. He has, to borrow a line from Steve Martin, a certain words with way. This time, he asked the lawyer for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services: “Aren’t you assuming that homosexuals engage in sexual activity more than heterosexuals?”

Goodness, what’s that got to do with anything? Jimminy crickets, Your Honor. Don’t even go there. Luckily for the state’s attorney, Mr. Justice Corbin quickly came up with a better question. Actually, it’s the question: “What are you trying to protect against?” Turns out the state isn’t so sure. It seems to be operating on the thesis that homosexual couples wouldn’t be good foster parents because, um, well, you know . . . they’re (stage whisper) . . . homosexual.

Here’s our Solomonic solution: See that orphans go to the best foster parents available. Period. In an ideal world, yes, the best foster parents would be a mom and a dad in a stable home where the kids are given three squares a day, have limits on TV time, walk to a great school with the state’s best teachers, play in the clean and safe neighborhood park, do their homework every night and are made to wash behind their ears, which of course they do enthusiastically. But just on the chance that Arkansas—or any place else—doesn’t have an endless supply of these Cliff and Claire Huxtables and Ward and June Cleavers, we should broaden the pool of qualified candidates who are willing and able to be foster parents. And, yes, those candidates might include homosexual couples who can offer kids a loving, stable home.

Because our goal here is to take care of the kids, right? It’s not to make a political statement. It’s not to give in to fear and stereotypes. It’s not to adopt rules that exclude qualified folks on the basis of their being good, loyal parents to their natural children. Like that man from Waldron and his homosexual son. The state’s guiding principle should not be the rights of any adults involved, homosexual or heterosexual or asexual, but what’s best for the kids. Shouldn’t the state act morally, and isn’t putting the next generation first the essence of public morality?

In search of that not always simple goal, it wouldn’t hurt to apply some common sense—as The Hon. Robert Brown did when he questioned the state’s attorney, Kathy Hall. Justice Brown wondered if, before this law took effect in 1999, any problems had come to light with homosexual foster parents. Especially since—that commonsense thing again—there surely have been homosexual foster parents before 1999 A.D. Ms. Hall, bless her honest heart, couldn’t come up with problem one.

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