LITTLE ROCK Mike Beebe isn't likely to hit the campaign trail or the airwaves to defeat a measure aimed at barring gays and lesbians from adopting children or serving as foster parents. That doesn't mean he's staying on the sidelines.
The governor and his administration may give the campaign against the measure a boost as the state reviews whether it should continue prohibiting unmarried couples living together from serving as foster parents. Opponents of a ballot measure that would put similar restrictions into state law may not see Arkansas' practice end soon if at all but they're hoping the debate helps them at the polls next month.
Beebe who was sworn in as governor last year didn't sign the executive directive in 2005 allowing the Department of Human Services to bar cohabitating couples from becoming foster parents.
But the governor last year said he supported the restriction because it was in the best interest of the children. He cited the policy as a reason he thought an initiated act that would extend the restriction to foster care and adoptions went too far.
"My stance has been that I think the limitation as it applies to foster care is, in today's society, in the best interest of a child. I think it's a totally different rule for adoptions," Beebe said last October.
A year later, it's a different tune as Beebe backs off the restriction and weighs dropping the practice altogether. DHS only recently began seeking public comment on the policy.
"Now the question then becomes: Is the best interest of the child in foster care best handled by a blanket policy prohibiting it or by a case-by-case situation?" Beebe said last week.
Beebe isn't promising that change is on the way for a DHS policy that's been in effect for three years, but he is offering a bit of assistance to the opponents of the proposed initiated act being backed by a conservative group.
Although a hearing on the foster-care policy wasn't aimed at the Arkansas Family Council's proposed initiated act, it gave opponents of the proposed ban a chance to highlight their chief argument against the measure that it restricts the number of good homes available to children in the state.
It also let them come out in force, with 18 advocates, social workers, former foster children and others sharing the same message the state needs more foster homes, not fewer. It's a message that works in favor of defeating a more restrictive ban, advocates say.
"I think the biggest advantage that we have with what happened at the hearing was the ability to get a lot of information out there that really hasn't been out there yet," said Brett Kincaid, campaign director for Arkansas Families First, which is campaigning against the initiated act. "We had for the first time a real open discussion from a lot of points of view that aren't normally heard."
The Arkansas Family Council has said its measure that will be on next month's ballot is aimed at prohibiting gays and lesbians from taking in foster and adoptive children, though it would affect homosexual and heterosexual couples alike.
Since the state's Supreme Court called a ban on gay foster parents unconstitutional in 2006, Beebe has struggled to find the right message on how to react. First he said he supported reinstating the ban if it could be in a constitutional way but didn't say how it could be done.
When a ban similar to the proposed initiated act came before the Legislature last year, Beebe said the bill had constitutional problems and would not offer equal protection to all people. The legislation died before a House committee after Beebe weighed in on the issue.
When it came back as an initiated act, Beebe said he'd oppose it because it went too far with the adoption restriction but offered his support for the foster-care prohibition.
Beebe isn't taking a high-profile role in opposing the act, but by changing his mind on the foster care restriction he may give the next-best thing. A highly popular governor raising concerns about limiting the number of foster homes may be enough to sway voters.
The hearing, however, has raised complaints from the Family Council, which accused advocates of trying to derail the policy-making process.
"It's a deliberate attempt on their part to gain free media attention in their effort to oppose Act 1," said Jerry Cox, the council's president. "It's no accident that they decided to bring all this up at the same time the issue is scheduled to be on the ballot."
Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, however, notes that it asked for the hearing because the state only recently issued a legal notice seeking public comment on the policy. Beebe's office has said he urged DHS to hold the hearing after the request was made.
Ironically, the Family Council has its own chance at an Oct. 13 hearing that will give it some free media attention on another issue. That's when the council will ask the Supreme Court to take a proposed lottery off the ballot in a lawsuit that mirrors the conservative group's chief selling points against the measure.
Cox says that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter the lottery's chief backer will also get some free media out of the case, but acknowledges the lottery lawsuit is helping his opposition campaign just like opponents of the foster care and adoption measure are helped by their own hearing.
"It's certainly a byproduct of it. It's a healthy byproduct of the lawsuit," Cox said.
DeMillo covers Arkansas government and politics for The Associated Press.
