Act One a Year Later

One year ago today, Arkansas voters passed Act One, the Arkansas Adoption and Foster Care Act.  Thanks to this good law, no adoptive or foster children are being placed in homes where there is a live-in boyfriend or girlfriend—gay or straight.  Over 2,700 volunteers gathered over 95,000 signatures to place Act One on the ballot.  The measure passed by 57% of the vote with 568,248 people voting for it.   Arkansas Families First, a coalition of groups that received a majority of its funding from the ACLU, opposed Act One.  They spent over $300,000 trying to defeat it, but failed to do so.  Polling conducted by the University of Arkansas predicted the defeat of Act One, so opponents of the measure seemed stunned when it passed.  Governor Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, Speaker of the House Robbie Wills, and Lt. Governor Bill Halter all publicly opposed Act One.

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