PHOENIX — A Senate panel voted Monday to give married couples preference whenever a child is available for adoption.
Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa, Senate Committee on Family Services chairwoman, said statistics show children do better in two-parent homes than those where there is only a single adult. Johnson said she sees single-parent families as potentially harmful to children.
"We have situation after situation in this state where single parents have live-in boyfriends come into their home, abuse those children," she said. "That's where so much of the domestic violence occurs."
Johnson conceded that also happens with biological parents, but being single adds to the adoption risk.
The bill, which has been approved by the House, drew protests from adoptive parents and people who help place children, who said the change could result in some youngsters spending more time in foster care or being placed with couples when a single parent might be better.
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Attorney Susan Frank, a single adoptive mother, said the bill, which now goes to the Senate, amounts to discrimination.
Ron Johnson, who lobbies on behalf of the state's three Catholic bishops, said that while the measure requires state and private adoption agencies to give priority to couples, it does not ban placement with single people.
