Lacking a subject tonight, I thought I’d check out The Radiance Foundation Facebook page run by my favorite Benedict Bastard Ryan conceived-in-rape-adopted-and-loved Bomberger, the organization’s founder/director. The stated purpose of Radiance is:
We illuminate that every human being has inherent and equal worth.
We educate about culture-shaping issues.
We motivate people to put truth and love into action.
That is pretty puffy and vague. Radiance is, in fact, a right-wing anti-abortion/pro-adoption organization with its fingers in numerous pots outside of the abortion/adoption nexus. I’m a big fan of adoption intersectionality, but Radiance has developed its own shark-jumping brand, the marriage of Intellectual Takeout and the Atlas Society.
Bomberger & Co has a problem with anything that reeks of racial and gender equality, economic equity, bodily autonomy, and movements to establish or restore rights, that even he himself, a bi-racial adoptee, fails to qualify for under the gaze of white supremacy. Apparently, it’s enough that We-the-Fetus has been saved, and the only right we deserve after that, is the right to be adopted. I’m not sure how someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about adoptee rights, can ethically promote adoption. I could have missed something, but I’ve never heard a peep about erased identities, sealed records, adoption trauma, or any other garbage that is lobbed at adopted people. I am pretty sure he sees the adoptee rights movement as anti-family and a shill for abortion. A long time ago on Twitter, as I remember, I asked him why he remained silent on adoptee rights, and he blocked me.
In the past Radiance has been sorely offended by a long list of uppity groups and individuals including the NAACP, the NFL, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, feminists, queers, and Shonda Rhimes. I got so steamed (or maybe bored) during NAM 2015, that I blogged about Bomberger’s bug-a-boos three times (here here, and here) and once in June 2019. These blogs are much more clever and interesting than this current blog, so please check them out to read some serious whackery.
Tonight, as a NAMer in search of a subject, I cruised over to the Radiance Facebook site to see who or what had been added to the Radiance hit list lately. Well, we’ve got transgenders, Build-Back-Better,(anti-life, pseudoscientific, unconstitutional) vaccine mandates (especially churches that demand congregants be vaccinated to attend), YouTube, (communist maneuvering). No surprises there But then…
Bethany Christian Services!
Yeah, you read that right!
Bomberger rants that Bethany has gone over to the dark side. According to him, the Christian adoption powerhouse now identifies itself as an “anti-racist organization.” (Antifa???) He is seriously aggrieved that the agency’s adopter clients are subjected to training films “to (allegedly) teach adoptive families how to be “anti-racist.” He claims the once-mighty Bethany is on the highway to “Woketopia” hell. “Wokeness is Weakness” a Radiance banner shouts. He claims that most of Bethany’s leaders are followers of Boston University Professor Ibram X Kendi, author of How to be Anti-Racist, whom he calls a ‘race profiteer.” He claims that Bethany indoctrinates its adopters into Critical Race Theory; thus, teaching them how to be racist. Who knew that adopters were required to take advanced-level graduate and law school courses before they could take home Baby Bumble!
See, Bomberger subscribes to the dreamy belief that recognition of race is racist. You know, the colorblind trope that denies negative racial experiences, rejects cultural heritage and invalidates the perspectives of black people and people of color. I’d not be surprised if he denies the adoptee experience, too, since he is so happy with his. I believe that he believes that racism or any other ism doesn’t exist in structural forms. Saying it does is some kind of Marxist lie to turn the country communist. (He’s big on socialism and communism). As someone who actually lived in the Soviet Union in the 1990s, I can assure Bomberger that there was plenty of racism there. “Islam. “Death of Our Culture.” Vietnamese students: “Viet Cong.” Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow carried the nickname of the Russian word for AIDS.
Then, there’s Bethany’s historic turnabout on permitting queers to foster and adopt “vulnerable children.” Downright un-Christian and unconstitutional, though he doesn’t explain how it is either. Apparently, CIS people would never dream of sexually abusing an adopted child, but queers are just pedophiles waiting to grab Bethany’s low-hanging fruit.
Several years ago Bethany Christian Services quickly caved to unconstitutional LGBT attacks regarding foster care, first in Philadelphia followed by further assaults on religious freedom in Michigan. They never even put up a fight. I know, because I was part of a national #KeepKidsFirst coalition that was lobbying to protect faith-based child welfare agencies from harmful LGBT activism; Bethany wanted nothing to do with our efforts to protect…Bethany. The ACLU and Lambda Legal successfully shut down Catholic Charities’ adoption arm in several states and continues efforts to shut down more Christian adoption agencies that won’t bow to the demands of LGBT special interest groups.
Bethany, however, has made a practice of bowing. In March of this year, Bethany’s CEO Chris Palusky proudly proclaimed that the agency will now place vulnerable children in same sex homes, while “Bethany remains steadfast in its Christian faith.” So, denying the structure of family that God established, between one man and one woman in marriage, is “steadfast”?
Now, this rant is really entertaining in its cognitive dissonance, since Bomberger at about the same time he pissing and moaning over racism and queers and Bethany, he’s also celebrating the acquittal of that paragon of pro-life virtue, Kyle Rittenhouse. Here’s a post from the Federalist Papers Facebook page on the acquittal and Bomberger’s repost and response on the Radiance page. #fakenews
America’s tired of #fakenews always coloring the narrative. Millions are even more tired of fellow Americans falling for the racist and dehumanizing bait. Leftist media, obsessed with the #whitesupremacy boogeyman, defended or ignored #BlackLiveMatter and #Antifa violence in the Summer of 2020, which caused over 20 deaths of innocent people. You lost #fakenews. You couldn’t lie about #KyleRittenhouse enough. It’s so tragic that families lost loved ones because activists’ reckless behavior put them on the wrong end of a gun. Kyle Rittenhouse was found #NotGuilty. Our prayer is that America is found peaceful after this verdict. #PrayForPeace https://thefederalist.com/…/not-guilty-on-all-counts…/
This all makes my head swim, as my later mother used to say. Sometimes National Adoption Month is fun!
Day 20 of 30–
10 to go
