Call Me Petty, but I Don't Care. Anti-Adoptee Pols Get Bounced by the Blue in Ohio Midterm--Day 5 NAM/NAAM

Call me petty, but I don’t care! It’s a great pleasure to see a couple of Ohio pols with adoptee issues go down in flames on Tuesday.

Jon Husted: Adoptee. Former Ohio State Rep, Senator, Secretary of State. and Lt. Governor. Currently a US Senator, appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2024 to replace JD Vance after he was elected Trump’s VP. I’ve never seen Husted as true MAGA, although his ass and other body parts are greatly admired by the president. He jumps when ordered and is not the better for it. This week he was defeated for a full term by former US Senator Sherrod Brown (50-45%), who I believe is good on adoptee stuff. In 2024, Brown was defeated after 18 years in the US Senate by crazy MAGA Bernie Moreno, former father-in-law of even crazier MAGA Ohio State Rep and “alleged” wife and child-beater Max Miller, rightfully unelected this week, too. (55-45%) I don’t think he has anything to do with adoption issues, though I assume he would mess with us if given the chance.

Keith Faber, Adopted 2 Snowflakes. This is not an outing. He openly discussed his Snowflaking experience at a conference I attended at the Center for Adoption Law at Capital University. He is a former Ohio State Rep, and Senator, President of the Ohio Senate, and the current appointed Ohio State Auditor. I don’t know how MAGA he is, but he reeks of it. He endorsed Moreno in 2023. This week he was defeated by Susan Cunninigham in his run for Ohio Attorney General.

Our Ohio Story

Husted, was adopted as an infant out of foster care in Michigan, and was reared in Montpelier, Ohio, the small town where Safe Haven Baby Box Movement founder Monica Kelsey was born and abandoned. 5 years later. As a lower-level pol, he reportedly supported full unrestricted/unconditional restoration of OBC access in Ohio and had made his support known throughout Ohio AdoptionLand. As he rose the ladder of Republican success, however, he ignored us and remained silent. If he did attempt to influence his colleagues, it was never made public as far as I know.

Early in the 2013-14 session when Husted was Ohio Secretary of State, HB61, a clean, non-restricted bill to unseal the OBCs of those adopted between January 1, 1964, and September 16, 1996, was introduced. Pre-’64s already had complete access. Those born on September 17, 1996 and after were not covered due to the inexplicable opposition from anti-abortion and religious organizations who otherwise supported the bill and even issued apologies for their opposition and bad behavior in the past. Bastard Nation opposed the bill due to this exclusion, but big-name adoptee rights advocates in the state who had engineered the bill had no problem accepting leaving people behind. No one, including Vital Stats officials, knew how many bastards would, in fact, be left behind, but thought that there were about 20 whose bioparent(s) had signed vetoes. I attended hearings and watched the bill closely. I believe that the deformers like all rights compromisers, decided to get what they could, though they didn’t like it. I never was aware of any discussion on coming back in a few years to do a clean-up, and they haven’t. So, it looks like a handful of Ohio adoptees up to the age of 30 at the moment are shit outta luck, until that generation revs the engine.

On April 11, 2013, HB61 passed the House overwhelmingly and was moved to the Senate, where SB23, a companion but not identical bill, had been introduced, but not worked on. On Apri 17 2013, however the Senate Medicaid, Health, and Human Services Committee heard favorable testimony for it. The following week it passed 8-0 with a few procedural amendments that did not affect OBC access It landed in Rules. (NOTE: At this point I do not have my files here on Senate actions, and for some reason didn’t publicly document what happened in the Senate, so I’m going by memory. If am wrong about something I will gladly correct. What I do know is that the bill went locked-up as tight as an OBC).

For nearly a year SB23/SubSB23 sat in silence with neither movement nor explanation. Then, in March 2015, Senate President Keith Faber, a sponsor of the bill, changed his mind. claiming he was “worried about birthmoms,” and made his move. Reportedly he said he didn’t like being “pressured:(after a year!) and refused to discuss the matter. When he finally did discus the bill, he introduced a weird amendment that would remove the names of the parent(s) listed on the OBC, but the names of adoptee AND the addresses of the birthparents(s) would remain! Huh? As far as I remember, he threw the amended bill to his handpicked Civil Law Committee where it passed with a sunset clause that gave birthparents a year after the bill passed, to file an order with Vital Stats to black out their names on the document before it was released. Access would go live on March 20, 2015, and no redaction requests would be honored after March 19. The final bill is here.

As a result of SB23, 259 adoptees were blockholed with state-mutilated documents if and when they applied. Officials at the Vital Statistics without legal authorization, took it a step farther, to black out additional information that some nameless and faceless bureaucrat (how appropriate!) deemed identifying, including the original last name of the adoptee. I don’t remember if Faber protested, but I doubt it. Neither did the so-called adoptee rights bigshots to any degree–at least not much–, though I believe they were taken by surprise. They actually scolded this new and special class of left-behinds to just suck it up and seek therapy. I was sent copies of some of the “discussions,” and they were shocking. I don’t know if VS is still making ex parte judgments on the Ohio 259 if they are still applying. Here is a published account of what happened when some of the 259 complained.

On March 19, I attended a pre-unsealing celebration at a fancy downtown venue. I was certainly happy for those who would go to Vital Stats the next morning and apply for their OBCs. I would never begrudge them. (The line went around the block.). But I was depressed and angry over the crappy bill and the acquiescence of the Benedict Bastards. It was sad and painful to watch people I respected and worked with in the past, throw away principle for practicality. I wanted to get mean, but I just observed. and Merlot, which I don’t even like. Some media guy wanted me in a picture with the traitors, and I kindly declined. I went home and screamed in my pillow

In July 2025 I published a rundown of the law and its consequences.

Maybe I’m Petty, but I Don’t Care

Pettiness is My Love Language SVG PNG Cricut SVG Love – Etsy https://i.etsystatic.com/21967517/r/il/e49632/4453058929/il_1588xN.4453058929_4xw5.jpg

So, it’s been 12 years since this went down. I’m still not over it, and I hope you aren’t either. Times have improved (I think) and this kind of sell-out-practicality is no longer acceptable and “successful. ” Look at the success of hard-sell Louisiana, Georgia, and Virginia. I can’t remember the last time I saw actual adoptee rights organizations, national or state, pimp restrictions and conditions. Politicians, of course, are a different story. If they introduce a POS bill, it’s up to us to educate them on the real deal, hold their feet to the fire. Kill the the bill or turn it clean. I Bastards don’t give up! Bastards prevail!

I believe that Ohio could be fixed. I know that the current neolib deformers are too busy propping up the institution of adoption and fundraising to do anything. I welcome anyone in Ohio who would like to move on it to contact me and Bastard Nation.

Maybe I’m petty, but I don’t care. Today I just want to stick it to 2 politicians with ties to adoption who screwed us over, and celebrate their being flipped out of office. I don’t believe that Husted is totally awful. He’s does a few good things re: foster care, but he forgot where he came from when it came to us. Faber? I’m sure bastards are just trivial pests he’s long forgotten. Tuesday’s bad turn-out had nothing to do with how we were treated, but it’s satisfying. “By any means necessary” as I signed my posts on alt., adoption so long ago.

Every time I hear that Ohio is a free state I get pissed off. Really. pissed off. But that’s what the propaganda machine churns out. History has been revised and I’m attempting to set it straight. May the deformers be haunted by the 259 tossed-in-the blackhole-by- their-law adoptees and the handful of 1996ers who have to come back and clean up the mess. They cannot be forgotten. Maybe these 2 screwed-over groups can come together and rattle the halls of the Statehouse.