LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel approved a proposed ballot initiative Oct. 4 to ban unmarried couples from fostering or adopting children, allowing an anti-gay group to begin collecting signatures to place the measure on the 2008 ballot.

The Arkansas Family Council filed the initiative, which would effectively reinstate a state ban on gay foster parents that had been overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The Arkansas Family Council earlier this year had backed legislation that would ban gays and lesbians, as well as unmarried couples living together, from adopting or fostering children. During the legislative session last spring, the Arkansas Senate passed the ban, but it failed in a House committee after Gov. Mike Beebe said the measure had constitutional problems.

Beebe has not said whether he supports the proposed initiative, and a spokesman said the governor is reviewing the measure. During the governor’s race last year, Beebe said he supported reinstating the ban on gay foster parents but would not say how such a ban should be enacted.