This is my last post for this year.
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ACLU sues over adoption restrictions
Same-sex partners say law is harmful to kids



More than a dozen families sued yesterday to challenge a new Arkansas law banning unmarried couples living together from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking to overturn Act 1, which was approved by voters in last month's general election.

"Act 1 violates the state's legal duty to place the best interest of children above all else," said Attorney Marie-Bernarde Miller.

The group sued on behalf of 29 adults and children from more than a dozen families, including a grandmother who lives with her same-sex partner of nine years and is the only relative able and willing to adopt her grandchild, who is now in Arkansas state care.

The plaintiffs also include Stephanie Huffman and Wendy Rickman, a lesbian couple raising two sons together and who want to adopt a foster child from the state.

"It's just wrong. It's an injustice," Huffman said. "I'm being denied an opportunity to provide a home for a special-needs child."

The families claim that the act's language was misleading to voters and that it violates their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit was filed against the state of Arkansas, the attorney general, the Arkansas Department of Human Services and its director, and the Child Welfare Agency Review Board and its chairman.

The conservative Arkansas Family Council, which campaigned for the ban, said it was aimed at gay couples but that the law will affect heterosexuals and gays equally.

Jerry Cox, the council's president, said he had expected a lawsuit to be filed if the measure passed.

"We are confident this lawsuit will fail and Act 1 will remain on the books," Cox said.

Rita Sklar, ACLU Arkansas's executive director, said the group wanted to sue before the law takes effect tomorrow. Department of Human Services officials have said they do not expect to have to remove any foster children from their homes. The state had already barred cohabiting unmarried couples from becoming foster parents and was in the process of reversing that policy when voters approved the new ban.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said during the fall campaign that he opposed the act. Chief Deputy Attorney General Justin Allen said yesterdsay that McDaniel's office will still defend the act in court.

Before the election, McDaniel said he was confident the act could withstand any court challenge aimed at knocking it off the ballot.

"It's the office of the attorney general's constitutional duty to defend the agencies of the state and constitutionality of state laws regardless of the personal or political belief of the officeholder himself," Allen said.