For once we have some good news!
California AB 372 is officially dead! The January 22 deadline for it to pass out of committee and on to the Senate floor went by with no action. Although nothing official has come from sponsor Sen Fiona Ma, her office told CalOpen that the bill would “will not be pursued.”
Astoundingly, CARE (California Adoption Reform Effort) as of tonight, has not seen fit to announce the demise of their bill on its website. It’s last update is dated May 28, 2009. That’s what we’ve come to expect, though, from fake reformers who scrub their website of their own history and embarrassing documents, dismiss an ideology of rights. embracing instead “non-emotional” wishes and desires”, (whatever that means), and posit that adoptees need to be “navigated by professionals” rather than ourselves. Veteran grassroots bastard activists who have actually gotten clean bills passed were ordered to take a hike by the dilettantes of CARE.
We’re sure CARE, like herpes, will come back. Jean Strauss and CARE are all over the March 18-21 AAC conference in Sacramento.
CalOpen and Bastard Nation continue to hold the line in California. There is much work to be done there, and it needs to be done by real bastards, not those of the Benedict sort, who (sorry to be trite), throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you’re from Cali and would like to help, drop CalOpen a line.
On the New Jersey front, the veto-laden S611/A752 never made it through the year end process. It’s dead.
Unfortunately, it’s risen from the dead in the form of S799 and A1406, similar if not identical to last session’s throw-away-our-rights-for-favors-for-some. What is this: Year 29 trying to get to bill passed, first clean and then pieces-a-crap? I feel bad for those people.I know some of them and like them. Really. But, as BB Church likes to remind us, if this were a job, they’d have been fired a long time ago. I fear the adoption-happy ACLU, crotch obsessed RTL Marie Tasy and her croaky bishops will just have to croak before rights are restored in Jersey.
There are some other bills pending, but at the moment reside in a state of confusion. Once they straighten up, well let you know.
Small correction; for most of those 29 years the Jersey bill was a clean bill. We even pulled it once when someone tried to make it only prospective, not retroactive. It is only in the past few years that all the stupid compromises have creeped in. I wish Jersey would start over with a clean bill, as it stands as much chance of passing (not much) as the deformed version.
I think that this version dying yet again in committee proves that no amount of compromise satisfies our enemies, so we might as well stand up and go for a clean bill eventually, maybe as you say when our enemies all croak, but that will happen eventually:-)
I am not on any of Jersey committees any more, but maybe will at least put a word in suggesting this. They tried compromise, it did not work. Back to the drawing board.
RIP (means rest in a puddle) Too bad the NJ one staggered to life one more time.
Thanks for posting this.
Marley, in your December 9/2006 post, which you link to, the following links aren’t working:
* For a good laugh see Access to Birth Records for Adult Adoptees, Myth v Fact
and
testimony of Marlene Lao-Collins, Oppose S670 and S1098 which would open adoption records, June 7, 2004
Any chance you could get them live again?
You’re right Maryanne. I was unclear on that. I corrected it. Thanks.
I don’t see how “coming clean” could hurt any. Throwing everything away and still not getting anywhere certainly hasn’t achieved anything other than piss off people and turning them into sell-outs.
Osolo–I googled for them, and then went back to the original source, the NJ Catholic Conference to look for the links. The NJCC has a new webpage that has erased it’s old stuff. I then went to the Way Back machine and couldn’t find them either. It’s too bad. They were good!
God Marley,
Jean Strauss has nothing to do with CARE anymore.
How can you inform people when you are not paying attention?
Kitta here:
good riddance to bad bills.
My bad, Joy. I should have checked to see who was still on the sinking ship, but it never occurred to me that the navigator would bail. The captain is supposed to be last to go. As usual, they have erased their own history:
VACANT
Founding Member & President
How appropriate. How adoptee.
“but it never occurred to me that the navigator would bail”
Surely you understand making commitments you can’t keep.
I was hoping that open adoption legislation would of passed in NJ this January. It seems to look as impossible as it ever has. My husband’s birth mother passed away in 2006 and his extended adoptive family doesn’t have anything to do with him now. He was an only child making matters worse. He’s gotten very depressed feeling so alone. Because my husband is 55 and his birth parents must be around 75 I don’t think there’s much time left to wait for politicians to do the right thing. NJCARES lists 3 private investigators: Joe Collins, World Wide Tracers and McCabe Associates. Does anyone have experience with these investigators or others? We’ve already lost $500. to one jerk and we don’t want a repeat. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
To H:
adultadoptees.org has a lot of search support, or at least people in NJ who could point him in the right direction in re: to a search and possible reunion.
If your husband is interested he should join.
Good luck.
This just came in my email about Fiona Ma’s atrocious AB 372. Can someone please translate it into english for me? Here it is:
CURRENT BILL STATUS
MEASURE : A.B. No. 372
AUTHOR(S) : Ma.
TOPIC : Vital records: adoptees and birth certificates.
+LAST AMENDED DATE : 05/07/2009
TYPE OF BILL :
Inactive
Non-Urgency
Non-Appropriations
Majority Vote Required
Non-State-Mandated Local Program
Fiscal
Non-Tax Levy
LAST HIST. ACT. DATE: 02/02/2010
LAST HIST. ACTION : From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to
Joint Rule 56.
COMM. LOCATION : ASM APPROPRIATIONS
TITLE : An act to add Section 102705.2 to the Health and Safety
Code, relating to vital records.
Joe Collins has an excellent reputation as a searcher and a human being and friend to adoptees.
Does BN plan on having a represntation at the AAC conference?
I’ll be there. I don’t know about anyone else.