Nixon to drop same-sex suit, blames Blunt

Nixon to drop same-sex suit, blames Blunt
Law allows gay foster parents, attorney says.

Published Thursday, June 8, 2006

KANSAS CITY (AP) - Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon says the state plans to drop its legal challenge to a Kansas City lesbian’s efforts to become a foster parent because a law signed this week by Gov. Matt Blunt makes the appeal impossible.

Nixon yesterday cited a bill Blunt signed that toughens penalties against sexual predators. The bill, signed Monday, also includes language that deletes a long-standing state law banning same-sex sexual contact, one of the key arguments Missouri raised to deny Kansas City resident Lisa Johnston a license to raise a foster child.

A spokesman for Blunt said the governor strongly disagreed with what he called Nixon’s "outrageous" plan to drop Missouri’s appeal of a February ruling against the state.

"We don’t believe placing a child with homosexual parents will provide an appropriate environment for foster children," spokesman Spence Jackson told The Kansas City Star today. "If" Nixon "moves forward with his plans to drop this case, he is doing so without the consent of his client."

Both men are running for governor in 2008, and exchanges between Nixon, a Democrat, and Blunt, a Republican, have become increasingly pointed in recent months.

Jackson said Blunt supports the appeal, which a Nixon spokesman said would now be legally invalid.

"The governor’s signature took away the last argument of the state in this case," Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said.

Given the governor’s signature, he added, "we are going to be dismissing the appeal."

The issue of same-sex foster parents has ignited Missouri courts for months. In 2003, Johnston, 40, applied to be a foster parent to a child she hoped to raise with her partner, Dawn Roginski. She had started her training when her application was rejected under what the American Civil Liberties Union said was an unwritten policy against allowing gays and lesbians to become foster parents.

Johnston sued on grounds that being a lesbian wasn’t enough for the state to deny her a license. The Department of Social Services argued that a child raised by a same-sex couple might face social disapproval and that Johnston was not of "reputable character" stemming from the state’s ban on same-sex sodomy.

ACLU attorneys said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down a Texas law against sodomy in private settings, invalidated Missouri’s law.

In February, a Jackson County Circuit Judge Sandra Midkiff agreed, ruling that Missouri could not deny a lesbian a foster parent license.

Midkiff ordered the agency to resume training for the couple and to grant Johnston, who has a bachelor’s degree in human development and family with special emphasis on child development, a license if she passed.

Social Services decided to appeal, and Johnston’s application to become a foster parent was put on hold while each side prepared briefs for the Missouri Supreme Court.