LITTLE ROCK (AP) – Lawyers for four people who want to serve as foster parents are due in court to fight a 5-year-old rule that bars them from raising wards of the state simply because someone in their house is gay.

The Child Welfare Agency Review Board imposed the rule in March 1999 and was sued a month later. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox will hear the case without a jury.

At issue is whether someone should automatically be excluded from raising children for the state simply based on the sexual orientation of members of the household. Only Nebraska has a similar ban.

Arkansas’ child welfare board imposed the 1999 ban after one of its members argued that children were better off being raised in a home with a mother and a father. A similar argument was raised during a 2001 hearing in which legislators refused to elevate the policy to state law and extend the ban to adoption.

“The best environment for a child is biological parents,” Dr. Robert Rice, a Little Rock psychiatrist, said at the time. “The traditional family is the gold standard.”

He testified that children need male and female adults in the house to learn how to behave toward others, and argued that boys without a male figure are more likely to commit crimes.

The American Civil Liberties Union says the state ban is based on stereotypes that are not grounded in science or social research.

“The state has claimed that gay people are incapable of being good parents, that children are better off with a mother and a father, that gay people are more likely to commit child sex abuse, expose children to domestic violence and spread HIV to the foster children in their care,” it said in a statement.

Suing the state are two gay men from Little Rock, a lesbian from Fayetteville and a heterosexual Waldron man whose gay son sometimes lives at home. They say the review board’s decision violates their rights to privacy and equal protection guaranteed by the Arkansas and U.S. constitutions.

Under the ban, the welfare board imposes an “ask, but you don’t have to tell” policy. Department of Human Services caseworkers ask prospective foster parents if they are gay. If the potential parents say that they are not, the department is to take them at their word.

The ban covers only foster children; there is no similar law or rule barring full adoptions by gays and lesbians.

The ACLU said Nebraska is the only other state to ban gay foster parents and that Florida bans adoptions by any gay or lesbian, while Mississippi bans adoptions by gay couples.

The initial Arkansas welfare board plan would have also barred unmarried heterosexuals from serving as foster parents, but that prohibition was dropped during a public comment period.

The number of gay couples who want to serve as foster parents is not known. Census Bureau figures show that the number of Arkansas same-sex couples who shared a home in 2000 totaled 4,423 – or 0.42 percent of the state’s 1.04 million homes.

Gay rights issues have taken center stage nationally since the Massachusetts Supreme Court issued a ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, though the Arkansas foster family case predates it by years.

Two years ago, Arkansas’ Supreme Court ruled the state’s anti-sodomy law unconstitutional, calling it an improper invasion of privacy.