Saturday, July 01, 2006

Arkansas politics taking gay-unfriendly right turn

With the Arkansas Supreme Court striking down the ban on gays from being foster parents, local politicians are in a tizzy to see who can best wear the mantle of bigotry.

Mike Beebe, who is the Democratic nominee for governor, is opposed to allowing gays be foster parents, said Zac Wright, a spokesman for Beebe’s campaign. “I don’t think, given today’s society and the controversy, it would be in the best interest of the child to be” placed in a home with a gay foster parent, Beebe said, according to a message sent and explained by Wright. Yeah, thanks for your contribution to the controvery!

Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson of Little Rock, a former congressman who served as undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said he wants a law prohibiting gays from being foster parents. He said he didn’t know exactly what that law should say, only that he believes foster parenting should be restricted to married couples. “That should be what we should be striving for, and I don’t think two people, even heterosexuals, living together without the benefit of marriage, are ideal foster parents,” Hutchinson said Friday.

Republican lieutenant governor candidate Jim Holt, a state senator from Springdale, said he was “pretty upset” by the ruling and plans to push for legislation to bar gays from being foster parents. Holt said it’s “rather odd to me” that threefourths of Arkansans voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in 2004, “but now we are going to put a child in that environment, who has no say whatsoever.” “Once again, the Supreme Court has run over the will of the people,” he said.

Attorney general candidate Gunner DeLay, an attorney from Fort Smith, said Thursday that he was “extremely disappointed” by the decision and disagreed with the court’s findings that no connection exists between the sexual orientation of foster parents and the wellbeing of a child. “The fact is that a child has the best chance for proper development with the presence of a mother and father in the home,” said DeLay, a Republican. “There is no substitute for what God and nature intended.

Pity the progressive voters in Arkansas who apparently have very little to hope for in the upcoming elections. Huckabee is going out; what's coming in will be no different.
You can see him blathering the same friggin’ nonsense at Pam’s House Blend.

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