Mission accomplished!
I’m really tired and won’t write much tonight, though. Maryanne, Mike, Sabina, Toff, Dan Haines, Susan Grundberg (and I) were there. We kicked some ass in what would have been otherwise pretty much of a snoozer. How many times will they float down the Nile? Lots of adoption is wonderful blah blah, lots of compromise is good blah blah, you don’t understand us blah blah. . Our questions and comments upset a bunch of them. DMC continued to threaten to kidnap politicians parents. I finally got the draft of the Manifesto finished. It needs some work yet , I used part of it, and it will be posted in the next few days. Afterward we went to lunch at Junior’s. I came back to the hotel, watched TV, feel asleep for an hour, got back up and wandered the streets in the rain. Really, there is a lot to say, but I’m just too tired right now.
Thanks to: Maryanne Cohen, Toff Phillipo, Dan Haines, Mike Doughney, Sabina Kneisly, and Susan Grundberg for making this a fine day in Bastard History.
You guys rock. Love the pic.
pWell done all!
What a beautiful group!
Bastards and bastard lovers are beautiful!
Wonderful to see you as always…hope your luch at juniors was most cost effective than mine at the HardRock.. granted it was a two martini lunch! But 2 drinks and a salad for $50 bucks..ouch!
You know what was missing most from the event? The PRESS!
Claud, sad to say it was a non-event and a good thing the press was absent. Nothing presented was really new, having been around for several years at adoption conferences and on the internet, and the quality of the panel of “experts” was embarrassing. I kept thinking “is there a point here? Why am I missing it?”
A nice venue and great to see a lot of folks I seldom see, but to me it was rather lame and stale.
Yes, we made out MUCH better money-wise at Juniors:-)And the food was good.
I don’t know if I’ve ever attended such an adopta non-event in my life. No substance. No core values Outside of a narcissistic back-slap dance, what was its purpose?
Part I.
Since my comment has disappeared from another blog where I tried to explain the difference between contact veto and preference, among other things, I will try to reconstruct it here.
OK, for those who do no understand, a contact VETO and contact PREFERENCE are two different things. A contact preference, as exists in Oregon and some other real open states, is just that, a PREFERENCE, not binding and with no penalties. The adoptee still gets their full OBC with nothing whited out. They are also told that their mother “PREFERS” not to be contacted, but if they ignore that and make a contact there is no legal penalty. Most adoptees respect the mother’s wishes, but that is a personal matter, not a legal one.
A contact or disclosure VETO prevents the release of the OBC or releases a damaged document with things like the mother’s name whited out. If a contact veto is in place and the adoptee violates it, there are fines and other legal punishments in place under law.
I would be a little less upset about badly compromised adoptee access legislation if those supporting it were honest and did not refer to it as “adoptee rights” or “adoptee birthright” legislation, because it is not.
What it is is search and reunion legislation, sometimes with a mishmash of other things like medical records to further complicate things. It gives new legal rights of confidentiality to birth mothers that did not exist before under law, which most of us do not want. It is not about rights, but about permission from Mom and the state for some adoptees to get their own OBC. Such legislation admits this is not about civil or human rights for all adoptees, but about granting a favor to some.
The point is often made that “99%” of adoptees will still be able to get their OBC because so few mothers will file vetoes, so what’s the harm? Another point also made is that “adoptees are dying” in large numbers without being reunited because mean people like BN insist on only clean bills.
Both these assertions are distortions and exaggerations. Even if your point of view is about reunions, not rights,certainly more than 1% of birthmothers do not welcome contact, based on the experience of search results for many years, Yes, a majority want to be found, but nothing in the real world indicates that high a majority. Self-selected surveys are skewed, always.
Part II.
As far as search and reunion go, something I totally favor as a personal choice, there are so many ways to search and reunite now that do not depend on legally obtaining an OBC that very few adoptees who want to search actually die without finding. Sadly some of those who do have the OBC or all the information on it, never find their families either, because the information was all false at the time of surrender so is useless for searching. Many adoptees who have already reunited still would like the right to their OBC, as would some who have no intention of searching.
Looking at the situation realistically, there are several separate issues here, and at least two kinds of legislation which should not be misrepresented as something they are not.
My last point is that in states where veto legislation, black hole, compulsive intermediary or anything else short of simple adoptee rights bills have passed, no one has ever successfully gone back and “fixed” or “tweaked” a flawed bill as our opponents keep promising will happen. It is harder to fix a bad bill in a state that has passed one than to pass a clean bill in the first place, not that we are saying that it easy, but it is not impossible either. It HAS been done, in Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine. A bad bill has never be revisited and fixed anywhere, and the one in Ohio has been in place for decades.
Badly compromised bills such as those some want to pass in order to pass something/anything on their watch do more harm than working for more years to pass a clean bill. Look at the facts, and decide which kind of bill you favor for your state for years to come.
Thanks for posting these Maryanne. I really don’t understand what is so difficult to grasp about conditional access other than deformers and deactivists don’t want to feel guilty about the people they are screwing over. The sickening display of sell-out at the Hard Rock was probably actually good but painful to experience Now we really know who our friends are; and they aren’t in the so-called movement.