Arkansas judge rules ban on gay foster parents unconstitutional News
Arkansas judge rules ban on gay foster parents unconstitutional

[JURIST] Arkansas Circuit Judge Timothy Fox Wednesday declared that a state ban on placing foster children in a household with a gay member was unconstitutional. The Arkansas chapter of the ACLU brought the case, challenging a 1999 regulation that stated that gays cannot become foster parents, and foster children cannot be placed in any home with a gay household member. The judge found that the regulation did not accomplish the goal of the state Child Welfare Agency Review Board, which is to promote health, safety, and welfare of the child. Instead, he concluded that the regulation sought to regulate public morality, which was outside the boundaries of the agency. Read the decision here. AP has more. The ACLU offers additional material.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.