A letter in support (I think) of A572 appeared in Thursday’s My NewJersey.com. The writer, Cpt. Peter W. Franklin, believes that adoptee rights are being run over by gay marriage rights. He writes:
After decades of debate and compromise, adoption reform should not be sidelined simply because a few prominent Democrat officials insist that this is the “right time” for gay marriage. I simply cannot imagine that denying someone the right to a ceremony can be as cruel and reckless as denying someone their true identity and access to family medical history.
The hierarchy of pain has been a big deal in AdoptionLand for as long as I’ve been around. We share Cpt. Franklin’s pain that adoptee rights is not a priority issue with Joisy politicians–or even for the NJCare Krampi who claim to be the voice of NJ adoptee rights. Pushing one cause against the other, however, doesn’t help anything. It only alienates. Who’s to say whose “pain” is greater, or even if there is any “pain?” (Bastardette knows lots of painfree bastards,) There is no relationship between obc access and gay marriage for Pete’s sake. Whining about somebody trying to get something that you have by default is petty, divisive, and harmful. Nobody is asking adoptees to stand aside for gays. Queers make A LOT more noise. And that’s important.
It’s the “right time” for gay marriage in New Jersey because queers in New Jersey have put their money and bodies where their mouths are, demanding marriage equality now–for everybody. They don’t qualify which queers should be allowed to marry, what rules the state should set up to “protect” the community from them, or expect the state to launch an advertising campaign to warn off disapprovers. New Jersey queers don’t leave anyone behind.
It’s one thing to show up in Trenton (or any state capital) for 28 years and ask politely for our rights, kind sir. It’s quite another to pour millions into a state, elect and unelect politicians, pound the press, and put the squeeze on.
It’s the right thing to do now, in both cases, because it’s always the right time to do the right thing.
Agree, agree, agree!:-) As a resident of NJ and supporter of Gay rights and Adoptee rights, this is really annoys me. It is not a contest. Both causes are worthy. It is not about pain but rights.
The current NJ bill, sadly, is not about adoptee rights. It needs to die and a clean one be introduced and introduced again and again until finally it does pass. Not on my watch maybe, I’m getting old and so are a lot of us, but that is not the point.
Rights are rights, and I wish gays who want to marry well. I wish we had an adoptee rights bill up there this year that I could support, but we do not. As Brooklyn Dodger fans, of whom my Dad was one, used to say,”wait till next season……” Our time will come.
Hell, I’m Queer and a Bastard and I find the whole sordid NJ mess pathetic.
Bastard rights have been muddled down to a set of false issues like parents medical records (something that simply has no place in a genuine restoration of access to our OBCs discourse as it’s just a non-sequitor.)
Likewise, sadly Queer rights have been muddled down to the assimilationist goal of marriage.
That said, as Marley points out, at least the GLBT community isn’t carving out exceptions and left-behinds.
The NJ Adoptee “rights” bill is humiliating- and a prime example of how little people are willing to settle for when they can no longer imagine genuine equality.
Real human rights are not a matter of either/or, this community NOT that community.
Real humans rights have plenty to go around, everyone gets theirs, no one gets left behind.
The very notion of discussing such from some kind of scarcity model means we’re no longer discussing such in the realm of the authentic.
“The hierarchy of pain has been a big deal in AdoptionLand for as long as I’ve been around.”
And I know a lot of pain-free moms. The argument over whose issue is the most urgent and whose pain is the most debilitating in an exercise in wasting time.
Would that open records advocates were as well-funded, well organized and as unified as the gay activists.
What New Jersey needs is more gay adoptees. Wait, that would only fuel the fears of those who oppose open records. After all, who wants a gay bastard camped out on your doorstep. Nancy Effay would have a friggin’ field day.
Dad
What New Jersey needs is more gay adoptees. Wait, that would only fuel the fears of those opposed to open records. I mean, who wants an in-your-face gay bastard camped out on your doorstep. Nancy Effay would have a huge hissy fit.
Dad
“Penny Serenade” on TCM at 6am EST Sun morning.
Just saying!
Wow, that’s really rediculous. Not having a civil union is only one right that homosexuals are robbed of. They are also robbed of the rights that come along with being married. I think both suffer quite equally in their own ways at the hands of legislators and an ignorant society. People want gay people to change their “choice” and for adoptees to go away and get grateful.
I’d like to see the average person gravel before a Confidential Intermediary about where they are on his/her caseload so that their automatic state-inflicted restraining order could be removed and then tell me to be “grateful.” I’d like to see the same person not be able to marry the person they love or share in any of the benefits of marriage in what is now a modern industrialized society with an economy that in many cases requires a two-person income to maintain a household.
I hate ignorance.
If anyone is really concerned about the privacy of the mothers, give the mothers equal standing in this bill, and allow them unfettered access to their relinquished child’s identifying information. That should shut up those who are so terribly concerned that the mother’s rights will be violated.
Mothers have the right, as any citizen does, to privacy in her personal papers, including the HIPAA protected medical and pschological information. However, the right to identifying information, in the form of the Original Birth Certificate, is something that anyone not protected by a Witness Protection Program should be permitted to have. It is a Vital Public Record, emphasis placed on the Public. It isn’t the fault of the mother that the government saw fit to commit fraud!
Since neither cause requires any serious money to be spent by the state, there’s no reason to cry “our rights first!”.
There is one thing that will always separate marriage equality from adoptee access: If you want to marry your same-sex partner, you can always live in a state or country that recognizes it. If you are an adoptee, there is only ONE place you can go – your state of birth.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at Ohio Vital Statistics and overheard the following scenario. (not adoption related)
Customer: I need a copy of my birth certificate.
Clerk: You need to fill out that form over there.
(customer fills it out and hands it in)
Clerk: You were born in Montana. We only have Ohio birth certificates here.
Customer: Are you sure? I’ve lived here for 30 years.
The average person seems to believe that when they move to another state their birth certificate magically moves with them.
And you would not believe the number of legos who have no idea when or where they were born, or their parents’ names. Some married women think their bc is in their married name. And of course, some people aren’t sure how to spell their names.
I am sometimes critical of how VS operates, but if I had to be nice to these bozos all day, I’d sometimes lose it, too.