News

May 3, 2009

Arkansas voters who signed petitions and then voted to limit adoption strictly to married couples are getting unwelcomed publicity.

Some homosexual activists did not like the petition and its success at the ballot box. Jerry Cox is head of the Arkansas Family Council.

"Now this gay group out of Massachusetts has acquired the names of all the people who signed the petition to place the measure on the ballot here in Arkansas," he notes. "They got those from the secretary of state, and they've entered those into a database, and they've put them up on the Internet."

Cox considers it a form of harassment against people for standing up for what they believe, and refers to it as a chilling effect on what they could do in future petition drives. He plans to check with the Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to see if any laws have been broken.

"Then what we'll do is go to the Arkansas legislature and ask them to pass legislation to protect the right of people who sign petitions -- and not just our petitions, but any petitions that are being circulated to put measures on the ballot," he says.

He realizes that petitions need a degree of public examination to prevent fraud, but Cox argues there needs to be a limit.