(NOTE: this is the first part of a two part blog. The second part will be posted in a few days. This serves as an introduction. Please go to my originsl Adoption Not Abortion piece lined below for background.)The adaption not abortion crowd is back!
A year ago,in Adoption Not Abortion: Pimping Adoptees for a Higiher Purpose, I wrote about Student’s for Life’s misleading flyer project : What Do Willie Nelson and Eleanor Roosevelt have in Common? Willie and Mrs. Roosevelt and other celebrities presumably without their (or their estate’s) consent) were described as adoptees, and pimped out to promote the group’s adoption- not-abortion.message for National Adoption Awareness Month 2011.
The Students for Life lie-based publicity campaign. has been updated and streamlined a little for the 2012 season. . In what appears to be a SFL attempt to look relevant to its intended target, a few new “adoptee” celebrities, including Snooki (!) have been added to the page to, I suppose, to illustrate positive adoption outcomes.in pop culture. To be fair, a few genuine adoptees are included..
The number of adoption lies on this page, however, are so staggering we can only wonder if Students for Life didn’t outsource the job of compiling the celebrity adoptee list to a high school intern who was as familiar with “fact checking” as she is with Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.. It appears that these names were randomly pulled off the adoption.com celebrity adoption list where kept bastards, and anyone reared by a stepparent or guardian. or in an orphanage are considered adopted.. Our young scholar couldn’t be bothered to even check Wiki–the easiest place to start–to see if these “adoptees” were actually adopted. I did because already knew most of them weren’t. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t cut and paste so much, but I wanted to put the actual text here so you can see how shamefully ill-informed Students for Life is. Or may be they don’t care. After all, any lie for the common good is acceptable. If they are so careless with historical facts in a simple-minded adoption makes-cool- celebs campaign, what are they claiming about adoption otherwise?
I’ve paired up our “adoptee” celebrities in the order found on the SFL page. Direct quotes from Wiki are in italics. Otherwise, the comments are mine.
Babe Ruth. Not adopted.
wiki entry
Ruth was born at 216 Emory Street in Pigtown, a rough neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Ruth’s German-American parents, Kate Schamberger-Ruth and George Herman Ruth, Sr., owned a succession of saloons and sold lightening rods. Only one of Ruth’s seven siblings, his sister Mamie, survived past infancy.
Not much is known about Ruth’s early childhood. His mother was constantly ill (she later died of tuberculosis while Ruth was still a teenager). Ruth later described his early life as “rough.” When he was seven years old, his father sent him to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory and orphanage, and signed custody over to the Catholic missionaries who ran the school (the site of St. Mary’s was occupied by Cardinal Gibbons School..Ruth remained at St. Mary’s for the next 12 years, visiting with his family only for special occasions.
Jamie Foxx -Adoptee lite. Adopted by birthmother’s adoptive parents
wiki entry
Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop in Terrell, Texas. He is the son of Louise Annette Talley Dixon and Darrell Bishop, who sometimes worked as a stockbroker and changed his name to Shahid Abdula after converting to Islam. Shortly after his birth, Foxx was adopted and raised by his mother’s adoptive parents, Esther Marie (Nelson), a domestic worker and nursery operator, and Mark Talley, a yard worker. He has had little contact with his birth parents, who were not part of his upbringing.
Jack Nicholson – kept bastard, not adopted
Nicholson was born in St, Vincent’s Hospital New York City ,the son of a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson (stage name June Nilson). June had married Italian American showman Donald Furcillo (stage name Donald Rose) six months earlier in Elkton,Maryland on October 16, 1936. Furcillo was already married. Although he reportedly offered to take care of the child, June’s mother Ethel insisted that she bring up the baby, partly so that June could pursue her dancing career. Although Furcillo claimed to be Nicholson’s father and to have committed bigamy by marrying June, biographer Patrick McGilligan asserted in Jack’s Life that Latvian born Eddie King (originally Edgar A. Kirschfeld), June’s manager, may have been Nicholson’s biological father. Other sources suggest June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was….Nicholson was brought up believing that his grandparents, John Joseph Nicholson (a department store window dresser in Manasuan,NewJersey and Ethel May (née Rhoads, a hairdresser, beautician and amateur artist in Manasquan), were his parents. Nicholson only discovered that his “parents” were actually his grandparents and his sister was in fact his mother in 1974, after a journalist for TIME Magazine who was doing a feature on Nicholson informed him of the fact. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). Nicholson has stated he does not know who his biological father is, saying “Only Ethel and June knew and they never told anybody”,and has chosen not to have a DNA test or to pursue the matter.
Faith Hill – adopted
Wiki entry
Hiill was born in Ridgeland, Mississippi, north of Jackson, Mississippi. She was adopted as an infant, and named Audrey Faith Perry. She was raised in the nearby town of Star, 25 miles outside of Jackson, Mississippi. Her adoptive parents raised their two biological sons along with Hill in a devout Christian environment..I.n 1988 she married music publishing executive Daniel Hill (not to be confused with Canadian musician Dan Hill).Two years later, she began a search for her biological mother, whom she eventually met and with whom she corresponded until her mother’s death.
Jesse Jackson -kept bastard, stepparent adoption
Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina to Helen Burns, a 16-year-old high school student, and her 33-year-old married neighbor, Noah Louis Robinson, a former professional boxer who was an employee of a textile brokerage and a well-known figure in the black community. One year after Jesse’s birth, his mother married Charles Henry Jackson, a post office maintenance worker who would later adopt Jesse[ Jesse went on to take the surname of his stepfather, but also maintained a close relationship with Robinson over the years, and considered both men to be his father.
Newt Gingtrich-adoptee lite; stepparent adoption
wiki entry
Newton Leroy McPherson was born at the Harrisburg Hospitalin Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on June 17, 1943. His mother, Kathleen “Kit” McPherson (née Daugherty; 1925–2003), and father, Newton Searles McPherson (1923–1970), married in September 1942, when she was 16 and McPherson was 19. The marriage fell apart within days… In 1946, his mother married Army officer Robert Gingrich (1925–1996), who adopted Newt. His father, a career officer, served tours in Korea and Vietnam. In 1956 the family moved to Europe living for a period in Orleans, France and Stuttgart, Germany.
John Lennon. Not adopted
Anyone with only passing knowledge of the Beatles knows that John Lennon was not adopted, but reared by his Aunt Mimi.and her husband, Geroge Smith. Any claim that he was adopted is an insult to John, Aunt Mimi, and the legacy of Julia in his life and music..
Wiki entry:
Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son’s birth. He was named John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John “Jack” Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother, but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man’s child—rejected the idea. After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool’s Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946, Lennon’s father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, ‘Bobby’ Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again….
…Julia visited Mendips (Mimi’s home) on a regular basis, and when he was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, learning how to play “Aint That a Shame” by Fat Domino.
…His mother bought him his first guitar in 1956, an inexpensive Gallotone acoustic for which she “lent” her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi’s, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son’s musical aspirations. As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, “The guitar’s all very well, John, but you’ll never make a living out of it”On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths’ house, was struck by a car and killed.
In 1944 Julia became pregnant by Taffy A welsh. He offered to marry Julia, but only if she “gave up John” which she refused to do. After pressure from Julia’s family, John’s half-sistger was surrendered for adoption and adopted by Pederson. Now known as Ingrid Pederson, his sister, learned of her relationship to hm in 1966, but was afraid to contact him for fear of huring her adoptive mother.
In September 1980 he talked about Julie, Mimi, and the other sisters in his life growing up. The interview, conducted by David Sheff, appeared in the Jaunary 1981 issue of Playboy ,
… There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic … that was my first feminist education … One happened to be my mother … she just couldn’t deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn’t cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister … the fact that I wasn’t with my parents made me see that parents are not gods.
Steve Jobs – Adopted
wiki entry
Steven Paul Jobs was born in San Francisco on February 24, 1955 to two university students, Joanne Carole Schieble, of Swiss-Catholic descent, and Syrian–-born Abdulfattah “John” Jandali who were both unmarried at the time.Jandali, who was teaching in Wisconsin when Steve was born, said he had no choice but to put the baby up for adoption because his girlfriend’s family objected to their relationship.
The baby was adopted at birth by Paul Reinhold Jobs (1922–1993) and Clara Jobs (1924–1986), an Armenian American whose maiden name was Hagopian.[34] According to Steve Jobs’s commencement address at Stanford, Schieble wanted Jobs to be adopted only by a college-graduate couple. Schieble learned that Clara Jobs didn’t graduate from college and Paul Jobs only attended high school, but signed final adoption papers after they promised her that the child would definitely be encouraged and supported to attend college. Later, when asked about his “adoptive parents”, Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs “were my parents.”He stated in his authorized biography that they “were my parents 1,000%.”Unknown to him, his biological parents would subsequently marry (December 1955), have a second child, novelist Mona Simpson, in 1957, and divorce in 1962.
Nancy Reagan – adoptee lite, stepparent adoption
Bill Clinton – not adopted
Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe, III, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas.His father, William Jefferson Blythe Lr., was a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before Bill was born.[His mother, Virginia Dell Casssidy (1923–1994), traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after he was born. She left Bill in Hope with grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store.At a time when the Southern United States was segregated racially. Bill’s grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. In 1950, Bill’s mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton, Sr., , who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Aransas with his brother.The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.
Although he assumed use of his stepfather’s surname, it was not until Billy (as he was known then) turned fifteen that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfatherClinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton, Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple times with the threat of violence to protect them..
Nelson Mandela – not adopted
Mandela’s family status is part of a highly complex system of clan and power relationships which are irrelevant to the claim of catholic vote.org that he is adopted.
Mandela’s father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, served as chief of the town of Mvezo.However, upon alienating the colonial authorities, they deprived Mphakanyiswa of his position, and moved his family to Quin. Despite this, Mphakanyiswa remained a member of the Inkosi’s Privy Council, and served an instrumental role in Jongintaba Dalindyebo’s ascension to the Thembu throne. Dalindyebo would later return the favour by informally adopting Mandela upon Mphakanyiswa’s death. Mandela’s father had four wives, with whom he fathered thirteen children (four boys and nine girls). Mandela was born to his third wife (‘third’ by a complex royal ranking system), Nosekeni Fanny. Fanny was a daughter of Nkedama of the Mpemvu Xhosa clan, the dynastic Right Hand House, in whose umzi or homestead Mandela spent much of his childhood.His given name Rolihlahla means “to pull a branch of a tree”, or more colloquially, “troublemaker”.
Rolihlahla Mandela became the first member of his family to attend a school, where his teacher Miss Mdingane gave him the English name “Nelson”.
When Mandela was nine, his father died of tuberculosis, and the regent, Jongintaba, became his guardian Mandela attended a Wesleyan mission school located next to the palace of the regent. Following Thembu custom, he was initiated at age sixteen and attended Clarkebury Boarding Institute.[Mandela completed his Junior Certificate in two years, instead of the usual three. Designated to inherit his father’s position as a privy councillor, in 1937 Mandela moved to Healdtown, the Wesleyan college in Fort Beaufort which most Thembu royalty attended.
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JRR Tolkein, not adopted
wiki entry
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province, part of South Africa) to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on 17 February 1894.
When he was three, Tolkien went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, and so Tolkien’s mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath,[Birmingham…
In 1904, when Tolkien was 12, [is mother] died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was then renting….Prior to her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics.
Dave Thomas – adopted
wiki entry
Dave Thomas was born on July 2, 1932 in Atlantic City, New Jersey to a young unmarried woman he never knew. He was adopted at 6 weeks by Rex and Auleva Thomas,[and as an adult would become a well-known advocate for adoption, founding the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
Willie Nelson – not adopted, reared by grandparents
wiki entry
Willie Nelson was born in Abbott, Texas, during the Great Depression, on April 30, 1933, to Myrle Marie (née Greenhaw) and Ira Doyle Nelson.Nelson’s ancestry includes English, Irish, and Cherokee.[ His parents moved from Arkansas in 1929, to look for work. Nelson’s grandfather, William, worked as a blacksmith, while his father worked as a mechanic. His mother left soon after he was born, and his father remarried and also moved away, leaving Willie and his sister Bobbie to be raised by their grandparents.
Eleanor Roosevelt – not adopted. reared by grandmother
wkii entry
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born at 56 West 37th Street in New York City, the daughter of Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt. She was named Anna after her mother and her aunt Anna Cowles; Eleanor after her father, and was nicknamed “Ellie” or “Little Nell”. From the beginning, Eleanor preferred to be called by her middle name. She was the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt.Two brothers, Elliott Roosevelt, Jr. (1889–1893) and Hall Roosevelt (1891–1941) were born later. She also had a half brother, Elliott Roosevelt Mann (died 1941), who was born to Katy Mann, a servant employed by the family.
….. Her mother died from diphtheria when Roosevelt was eight and her father, an alcoholic confined to a sanitarium, died less than two years later. Her brother Elliott Jr. died from diphtheria, just like his mother. Thus, she was raised from early adolescence by her maternal grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843–1919) at Tivoli, New York.
Not much is known about Eleanor’s half-brother Elliot except that the Rooseveelts made a financial settlement with Katy Mann for hs support and that Theodore Roosevelt acknowledged him as his nephew.
Other celebrities Students for Life are shilling this month are singer Sarah Mclachlan, rapper apl.de.ap retired football player Duante Culpepper, Jersey Shore sleep–around, publicity hound, and bore Snooki and…Marilyn Monroe! Good God! Are these people deranged? Do we really need to go into Marilyn’s history of serial foster homes and child sexual abuse. And, she was never adopted!
Out of the 20 celebrities featured by Students for Life, only five were were adopted in traditional stranger adoptions (Faith Hill, Steve Jobs, Dave Thomas, Sarah Mclachlan and Snooki.) . apl.de.ap and Duante Culpeperer were adopted very non-traditionally. Three celebs are stepparent adoptees (Jessie Jackson, Newt Gingrich, Nancy Reagan) one was adopted by his grandparents (Jamie Foxx). The rest, weren’t adopted at all! (Babe Ruth, Jack Nicholson, John Lennon, Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, JR Tolkein, Willie Nelson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Marilyn Monroe.) So out of 20- “adoptees” only seven are adoptees in the traditional sense of the word.
Um I don’t recall Faith HIll being married to anyone else but Tim McGraw..
& what does adoptee lite mean?
Adoptee lite: adopted by a stepparent.
Thanks Lucille I thought I responded, earlier, but I guess not. I’m flummoxed about two things:
)1) the obc’s of people adopted by step parents are sealed
(2) anti-aborts are passing off adoptee lites and the people not adopted who were reared by relatives or in institutions as adopted.
I wonder how John Lennon would react to them erasing Julia from his life. I’d love to see Yoko take legal action since I’m sure they’re using John without the estate’s permission and lying about him to boot.