Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — A Massachusetts gay rights group Tuesday posted on the Internet the names and addresses of more than 83,000 Arkansans who signed petitions last year to put a gay adoption ban on the state ballot, action the leader of the ballot initiative condemned as “pure intimidation.”

KnowThyNeighbor.org said it intended to make petition signers accountable for their support of the measure that prohibits unmarried couples who live together from adopting children or serving as foster parents in the state.

Though the new law affects all unmarried cohabiting couples, the sponsoring organization made no secret the measure targeted gays. It received 57 percent of the vote in the November general election.

“(They) need to stand behind their signatures and be responsible for this dehumanizing attack on the gay community,” KnowThyNeighbor.org’s director, Tom Lang, said in a release. “It’s disgraceful that they have chosen to exercise their prejudice at the expense of children who are now being denied access to loving adoptive and foster parents. Such activity must be challenged and cannot be allowed to pass under the cover of darkness.”

The group accessed the information from the Arkansas secretary of state’s office. Petition lists are public information under state law, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Charlie Daniels said.

“This is pure intimidation. Everyone who looks at this Web site can see this is an effort on the part of radical gay organizations to intimidate citizens into not exercising their rights,” said Jerry Cox, director of the Little Rock-based Family Council, the organization that spearheaded the petition drive.

“This has a chilling effect on all petition drives, regardless of what they support. It may make some people less likely to sign a petition to help place any measure on the ballot,” Cox said.

He said the Family Council would explore possible legislation to shield certain information on petitions from public disclosure, similar to legislation passed during this year’s legislative session limiting information that can be made public about concealed-carry permit holders.

Act 1291 of 2009 keeps the names and zip codes of concealed carry permit holders public but exempts other information from the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act. The original legislation would have shielded all information about permit holders from the FOI law.

“If the Legislature can protect the identities of concealed carry permit holders, the Legislature should be able to protect people who sign petitions,” Cox said.

Lang said his groups expects many petition signers will be confronted about their actions as their names appear on the Web site. Cox said he was not as concerned about confrontations as with the implications for the democratic process.

“It’s almost like surrendering the secret ballot,” he said. “If the public knows who you’re voting for, it has an effect on your vote. “(Publishing petition information) may not be a brother to it, but its a cousin to it. It affects how you exercise your vote.”