July 8, 2008

Arkansans Hating Gays A Little Less This Year (But They Still Hate Our Families Even More Than They Hate Undocumented Aliens)

Supporters of immigration ballot issue fall short;
adoption ban signatures submitted

LITTLE ROCK — Supporters of a proposed initiated act to largely ban illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits acknowledged Monday they were thousands of signatures short of qualifying the measure for the November ballot.

Monday was the deadline for submitting signatures on behalf of ballot initiatives to the secretary of state’s office, and the leader of the group Secure Arkansas said supporters were about 5,000 signatures short of the 61,974-signature threshold for making the Nov. 4 general election ballot. …

Also Monday, the Family Council Action Committee submitted 65,899 signatures in support of a proposed initiated act that would ban unmarried couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents in the state. …

Family Council director Jerry Cox said he expects about 25 percent of the signatures to be determined invalid and that the group would take advantage of the 30-day extension to gather enough signatures to make up the difference, which he expected to be as much as 15,000.

When the petition drive began last year, Cox said he hoped the effort would produce 100,000 signatures, a number the group secured four years ago for a measure to ban gay marriage in Arkansas. Voters in 2004 overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman.

The 65,000 signatures for the adoption measure fell well short of the goal.

“People simply have not been paying attention to this issue and that’s been the greatest difficulty,” Cox said at a news conference. “It’s not a lack of support as much as it is a lack of attention to the issue.” …

Maybe the real “difficulty” is that people have been paying attention, Cox — and they’re realizing that gay-bashers like the Family Council Action Committee are a bunch of lying, hypocritical bigots, who would rather see children stuck in the nightmarish world of foster homes than be placed in a secure, loving home with a real family.

Posted by: Sapphocrat

Permalink | |