Arkansas Blog

What an awful story. Please remember that one of the many reasons DHHS is so messed up is because it can't adequately pay real social workers, and instead hires people with little or no background in assessment, chld welfare, counseling, etc to handle children in the state's care. Social workers have either a bachelor's or master's in social work, and pass national exams to be licensed in their state. Perhaps if our state could better fund DHHS, we could hire more professional social workers, who could in turn work to reduce the numbers of such tragedies.

first degree battery is a class B felony punishable by 5 to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $15000.

Just more evidence that heterosexuals should not be allowed to be foster parents in Arkansas, I assume.

Don't get me started.

Hang 'em. It won't bring back the child but there sure won't be a repeat offender. Crimes against children need to be dealt with sternly and no pussy footing around.

Well, I'm assuming (always a dangerous thing to do) that the charge of first-degree battery against foster parent Eleisha Ann Sykes of Eudora will be changed to some degree of murder. If so, and she's found guilty, don't kill her. Hell no! That's too easy a way out. Take her sorry ass to the public square, beat the shit out of her before the cheering masses (I'll be there!), then throw her two-bit ass into solitary confinement for the rest of her life. No TV; no magazines; no radio, no books; no family visits; no window. Just a commode with no toilet paper. Give her plenty of time, hopefully years and years and years, to think about what she did to an innocent, helpless child.

Everyone is entitled to due process of law as that is one of the privileges of being an American! In the principle, shouldn't the government respect all of a person's legal rights, instead of just some...

Sounds like a plan to me, Durango.

kateil said: "Please remember that one of the many reasons DHHS is so messed up is because it can't adequately pay real social workers, and instead hires people with little or no background in assessment, chld welfare, counseling, etc to handle children in the state's care. Social workers have either a bachelor's or master's in social work, and pass national exams to be licensed in their state. Perhaps if our state could better fund DHHS, we could hire more professional social workers, who could in turn work to reduce the numbers of such tragedies."

If what you are saying is true, that is very disappointing. I was assuming that if I were to vote against the American Family Council's amendment to limit adoptions, that I could count on the DHS social workers to effectively screen out unsuitable care givers. This revelation is certainly very troubling.

This horrific case and others like it always remind me that I have NEVER read of a case of child abuse by same-sex foster parents or same-sex adoptive parents.

Not saying they've never happened. I've just never seen one reported. I'm aware of hundreds of such cases reported on heterosexual foster-care and adoptive parents.

So of course Arkansas maintains its globally bigoted religionist hick image by outlawing same-sex foster-care and adoptions, completely ignoring the needs of children by enforcing hateful "Christian" bigotry over unscientific rational facts.

Not ALL Christians hate homosexuals, you say? Fine. Where are their voices, loud and clear, repeatedly, in our media?

From an important NYTimes Sunday Magazine piece a few years back, Russell Shorto reported on his time spent among the cultural conservatives leading the anti-gay-marriage charge:

"At its essence, then, the Christian conservative thinking about gay marriage runs this way. Homosexuality is not an innate, biological condition [so much for the expert opinions of the American Psychological Assn. and the American Academy of Pediatrics that people cannot choose their sexuality. This Christian conservative position is contrary to objective science, which is to say research untainted by religious bias. Their position is a lie.] but a disease in society. Marriage is the healthy root of society. To put the two together is thus willfully to introduce disease to that root. It is society willing self-destruction, which is itself a symptom of a wider societal disease, that of secularism."

Economist Gary Becker of the Becker-Posner Blog is generally considered to be politically conservative. He writes:

"One can understand why many gay couples want to be allowed to marry. What I find difficult to understand is why there is so much opposition; for example, I doubt if a referendum legalizing gay marriage would pass in many states. As Posner indicates, allowing gay couples to marry will have little effect on either the attraction or stability of marriages between heterosexuals. I believe this opposition reflects hostility to gays and their unions that can no longer be expressed in other more traditional forms, such as calling them names or harassing them. As a result, the marriage issue has become a rallying point that allows hostility to gays to be hidden behind other reasons."

As Joe Windish wrote yesterday in The Moderate Voice:

"All of this suggests to me that the real problem opponents have with gay marriage is not that it will extend benefits or threaten marriage. The objection is that it will end the socially acceptable discrimination against lesbian and gay people."

Bingo, Joe!

In Arkansas it's still Bigotry First - love and rational facts a distant second.

As long as that remains true, we deserve our ugly reputation.