Howard v. Arkansas
| Howard v. Arkansas | |
|---|---|
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
| Decided | June 29, 2006 |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | County Circuit Court found for petitioner; ruling appealed by the Department of Human Services and the Child Welfare Agency Review Board. |
| Case opinions | |
| Donald L. Corbin, Associate Justice; Robert L. Brown, Associate Justice, concurring. | |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | en banc |
| Keywords | |
| adoption, LGBT rights | |
Howard v. Arkansas, 367 Ark. 55, 238 S.W.3d 1 (2006), is a decision in the Arkansas Supreme Court which unanimously upheld a lower court decision that overturned a state policy banning gay adults and people living in households with gay adults from being foster parents.
Background
In 1999, Arkansas's Child Welfare Agency Review Board established a policy that "no person may serve as a foster parent if any adult member of that person's household is a homosexual." [1]
The ACLU then filed a lawsuit in Little Rock on behalf William Wagner, Matthew Lee Howard, and Anne Shelley, three adults who wanted to serve as foster parents but were prevented from doing so by the regulation in question.[2] Howard was a teacher who was already raising two children with his same-sex partner of nineteen years, Shelley was a lesbian who wanted to serve as a foster parent, and Wagner was a married heterosexual who was disqualified from serving as a foster parent because his gay son sometimes lived at home.[3]
Decision
After hearing extensive evidence and expert testimony about the scientific research on lesbian and gay parents, the Court found that the Board's assertion that gay people were less fit to be foster parents had no factual basis. It ruled that "the facts demonstrate that 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 lives in a household with a homosexual."[4]
Among the Court's findings of fact were: the Board's decision may have hurt children by "excluding a pool of effective foster parents"; children raised by gay parents are not more likely to have "psychological, behavioral, or academic" problems; and that there is "no factual basis for saying that heterosexual parents might be better able to guide children through adolescence than gay parents."[1]
The decision was based on the fact that the Child Welfare Agency Review Board violated the separation of powers scheme in Arkansas when it enacted the regulation in question.[4] The Court concurred with the judgment below because "[t]he Board's enactment of Regulation 200.3.2 was an attempt to legislate for the Arkansas General Assembly with respect to public morality."[4] And, "[b]ecause the Board acted outside the scope of its authority and infringed upon a legislative function", the Supreme Court could not say that the circuit court was in error.[4]
The Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear an appeal.[5]
Aftermath
In 2007, the Arkansas House Judiciary Committee voted to reject SB 959, "a bill that would have banned gay people and most unmarried heterosexual couples who live together from adopting or serving as foster parents." [6]
The bill would have been an end-run on the Supreme Court decision in Howard, as it would have had the same effect while side-stepping the separation of powers problem. In November 2008, voters approved Arkansas Proposed Initiative Act No. 1, which banned anyone living with a partner he or she isn't married to from adopting or providing a foster home to minors. The ACLU filed suit in state court on behalf of several Arkansas families challenging Act 1 as unconstitutional. The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down Act 1 on April 7, 2011.[7]
References
- 1 2 , "Easy Cases, Bad Law", April 21, 2005.
- ↑ , "Advocacy & Issues", 2009.
- ↑ , "Howard v. Arkansas - Case Background", October 4, 2004.
- 1 2 3 4 , "Howard v. Arkansas", June 29, 2006.
- ↑ , "537 US 1051 Howard v. Arkansas", December 2, 2002.
- ↑ , "ACLU Applauds Defeat of Anti-Gay Adoption and Foster Care Bill; Calls Defeat a Tremendous Victory for Arkansas Children", March 27, 2007.
- ↑ Terkel, Amanda (April 7, 2011). "Arkansas Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban On Gay Adoptions". Huffington Post. Retrieved 24 July 2012.
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