Here is the story

Note: Re-Homing is the act of giving adopted children to someone else without the new guardian of the kids going through the legal system to adopt them. An example would be if I adopted a kid from the area and then later gave the kid to my friend, Wesley. Since there is no legal system involved, I could still be listed legally as the guardian of the kids and receive benefits, but they would permanently live with Wesley. I wouldn't even need to see the kids ever again if I wanted to. Re-homing is legal in Arkansas.

Long story short, Rep. Harris pressured the DHS to let him adopt these three girls. The DHS actually were reluctant and tried to make sure he understood that these girls had behavioral issues due to a very traumatic life. Harris eventually convinced them he was prepared to adopt them, and kept the girls in his home for only a short while before later re-homing them to another family where the girls were raped. During this time they were re-homed, Harris still received benefits from the government for adopting the girls as if they still lived in his house.

Well....there's more. According to other people around them, the Harrises locked up the girls and took away their toys in order to apparently "treat their illnesses." Other people even explained that the Harrises believed the girls were demonically possessed and had them exorcised at least once. They kept their biological sons away from the girls, and segregated the girls from the rest of the family.

Their claim that the girls were possessed was pretty much due to the fact that: the sons didn't like them, one of the kids (either biological or adopted) killed a small family pet, they had behavioral issues, and that "demons come out of their backs in photographs."

It sounds like some ridiculous nonsense, but I know a lot of religious people who live in the area who really believe in demons, even to the point of claiming a member of their church was possessed when they had a seizure during the service. It sounds really far-fetched, but also disturbingly possible that they genuinely believed the girls were possessed.

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Now here is what is the debated issue: Why is adoption such a broken system in the state that it led to a scenario like this? Do you think the Harrises really believed the girls were possessed?

So many crappy things - the main one being, why the hell is that legal in Arkansas?

Apparently, the girls' biological mother asked specifically for the Harrises to adopt them. I think maybe Mrs. Harris has some kind of untreated psychosis, since she thinks she sees demons. Her husband sounds more like a clueless dolt who has no idea how to really handle children, and asks for advice in all the wrong places. It does say, further down, that Mrs. Harris had cancer, and wasn't in shape to take care of five children, of which two were extra challenging. If there was a tumor in her head, maybe it caused her to hallucinate the demons. It also says that several child experts had been advicing them to find another home for the two youngest girls, because they weren't capable of taking care of them.

I'm not familiar with Arkansas, so I can't give any educated insight on the state of anything that goes on there. Isn't it concidered to be a relatively unorganized place in general, though? Wikipedia says: The stereotype, frequently characterized by a lazy, rural, poor, banjo-playing, racist, cousin-marrying hick is commonly applied to Arkansas and her residents. Arkansas's hillbilly reputation, and her citizen's defensiveness on the subject, are a very important piece of Arkansas's culture. Many Arkansans defend the state from this image, yet others embrace it. The Old State House Museum currently houses an exhibit regarding the state's reputation. The image of the state is derived from whites from the Ozarks, yet the image has been applied to the Arkansas Delta and across the state. The Beverly Hillbillies, a sitcom in which poor Ozark residents moved to California, is a typical example of the hillbilly image applied to the Ozarks, an image closely related to that of Arkansas.

I think having friends in high places had a lot to do with why the Harrises were allowed to adopt the girls, when they were already competently taken care of by foster parents. The place I live in is far removed from Arkansas, but I remember hearing about a member of the government intervening to allow a single woman with Down syndrome to adopt a baby. The woman's parents wrote a letter pleading with her that it would mean the world to their daughter. Eventually, the decision was overturned, but it just shows that there are always people willing to bend the rules, even in places that aren't Arkansas.

Excuse me while I clean up the pieces of my head that flew all over the room after it exploded.

I'm a High-IQ European, and what is this?

Isn't Bill Clinton from there?

This is what happens when a bunch of people scoop out their brains and replace them with Twinkies. The preservative chemicals keep them from dying.

Moved on, though. After Georgetown, Yale Law, Oxford, ... maybe he wasn't content merely to be the big fish in a very small, stagnant pond. I wonder if that's why the small States do, once in a while, produce some serious national figures.

Well, he moved on after being Governor of the "Stagnant Pond" for a total of 11 years.

Totally not surprised. It's Arkansas. Haven't you seen their 12th Grade Reading Test? http://www.joke-archives.com/youmay...eadingtest.html

This is so sad. Those poor kids.

I don't like to offend people as a rule, but some people need to be jolted to their senses. To claim a child is possessed is fucking ignorant.

This place is truly backwards i know of no other state that actually gives benefits to adoptive families. They give them to Foster families but once adopted the child or children in this case would then become the responsibility of the Adoptive parents and the state no longer provided any care financially for the child.
They at times now if they know that the child is dealing with some trauma in their past be that abuse or neglect will provide counseling at the expense of the state.
So it amazes me that not only can the people in this state "giveaway" a child they go to court to adopt but also receive benefits for the child. That is crazy to me.

I pray that these people are held responsible All of them and that these children get a real home that cares for them and will get them the care they need mentally to deal with this trauma

That is so fudged up ._.