Howard v. Child Welfare Agency Review Board: Know the Experts
Expert Witnesses Expected to Testify Against the Arkansas Law that Disqualifies Gay People or Families with Gay Members from Foster Parenting
Michael Lamb, Ph. D.
One of the foremost experts on child development, Dr. Michael Lamb received his Ph. D. in developmental psychology from Yale University in 1976. Since 1987, he has served as the head of the Section on Social and Emotional Development at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He has written numerous books and hundreds of journal articles on infant and child development and parent-child relationships. His testimony is based on decades of research in the field of child development by a variety of respected psychologists, including research conducted over the past two decades that specifically looks at gay parents and their children.
At the trial, Dr. Lamb is expected to testify to the following:
- Sexual orientation is not an indicator of parental fitness.
- Lesbians and gay men can be good parents who provide warm, consistent and safe environments to meet their children's need.
- Being raised by gay or lesbian parents has no adverse impact on children's adjustment or well-being.
Judith Faust, M.S.W.
Judith Faust served as the director of Arkansas' Division of Children and Family Services from 1991 to 1993. She received a Masters in Social Work from Tulane University in 1971. She is currently a professor of social work at University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
At the trial, Faust is expected to testify to the following:
- Excluding entire categories of people from foster parenting or adopting is disfavored by the child welfare field across the country.
- Individual evaluations of adoptive foster applicants is the well-established practice in the child welfare field. That is because each child has unique needs and each prospective adoptive or foster parent has different qualities to offer.
- Excluding entire categories of people prevents child welfare professionals from giving some children the best possible placements for their needs.
- Categorical exclusions are also considered inappropriate because they prohibit willing, qualified people from becoming foster parents. This unnecessarily shrinks the already inadequate pool of potential foster parents. As a result, more children are left without foster family placement or any family placement at all, living instead in institutional settings.
Frederick S. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Berlin received his Ph.D. from Dalhousie University in Canada in 1974. He is Director of the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma and is an associate professor for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Berlin has written extensively on sexual disorders including pedophilia for numerous distinguished journals, such as The American Journal of Psychiatry, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry.
At the trial, Dr. Berlin will dispel myths and stereotypes about gay people with regard to child sex abuse, which the state has asserted to justify the ban. His testimony will include the following:
- Gay people are no more likely than heterosexuals to sexually abuse children.
- Screening out gay people from foster parenting does not protect children from sex abusers any more than screening out heterosexuals.
Rebecca Edge Martin, M.D.
Dr. Martin is an Associate Professor for the Division of Infectious Diseases for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and is the Medical Director of the Diagnostic Unit of the Central Arkansas Veterans' Healthcare System. She received her M.D. from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1980. She has written many articles and books on infectious diseases.
Dr. Martin is being called to testify to respond to the state's assertions that children raised by gay people are at risk of catching HIV. She will testify that:
- Merely living together in a household with or being taken care of by someone who is HIV-positive does not expose a child to HIV infection.
- She will explain the demographics of HIV in the country.
- Because there is medication available to treat HIV, having the disease is less likely to keep someone, gay or straight, from being able to undertake the responsibilities of a parent.