|
|
| |
| Sat, Oct. 11, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Gay adoption ban falls short of signatures, has 30-day extension Thursday, Jul 24, 2008 By Jason Wiest Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Supporters of a proposal that would ban unmarried couples living together from adopting or fostering children in Arkansas did not gather enough signatures to secure a place on the November ballot, the secretary of state's office said Wednesday. The Family Council Action Committee fell about 4,000 valid signatures short but will have another 30 days to make up the difference, which Family Council Executive Director Jerry Cox said should not be difficult. "In fact, we've already been gathering signatures, which is permitted under the law, while they've been reviewing them," Cox said. Supporters need 61,794 signatures to get the measure on the ballot. Secretary of State Charlie Daniels' office certified that 57,888 of the signatures the group submitted in were valid and came from registered voters. Cox said about 4.5 percent of the signatures the group turned in were disqualified because of errors by notaries. Of the remaining signatures, 91.3 percent were valid, he said. Over the next month, the group's strategy is to redeem the signatures disqualified because of the notaries and gather an additional 10,000 signatures, Cox said. The group will turn again to large churches to gather many of the remaining signatures, he said. One reason the group has had difficulty gathering the signatures is because the measure is more complicated to explain than the anti-gay marriage amendment it successfully petitioned to put on the ballot four years ago, Cox said. The Family Council group submitted about 200,000 signatures for that proposal and voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. Cox has said the group's adoption initiative this year aims to "blunt a homosexual agenda." Cox's group undertook the campaign for an adoption and fostering parenting initiative after the state Supreme Court in 2006 struck down a state policy that banned gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents. The state currently bars unmarried couples living together from serving as foster parents by policy, not by law. |
