This afternoon I attended the first hearing of HB 307, Ohio Right to Life’s cheap and easy adoption scheme that I wrote about last month. I suggest you go there first for background.before you continue here. For those not so inclined, here’s a cheat sheet: HB 307: Continue Reading →
.…Raymond Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoption aka Capobianco, Inc. I’m not surprised. I can’t remember ever running into a more despicable gang of adoptahugs than the Cs and their entourage of baby grabbing lawyers, adoption agents,professional media whores,PR hacks, racists, haters, religious nuts, and crybabies. They make the DeBoers look sane. The Demons of Adoption Award is a response to the annual Angels in Adoption Award sponsored by the Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute (CCAI). Ironically, in 2010, Godwin and his wife Laura, the head of Nightlight Christian, received an Angels of Adoption. Award. They were nominated by former Senator Jim DeMint (SC-R), now president of the conservative Coors-family founded Heritage Foundation and long-time friend of Bill Pierce, founding president of the National Council for Adoption. A few years ago, a writer for the Heritage suggested that women be allowed by law to sell their parental rights. (not online; document in my possession.) Announcing the latest Demon, Pound Pups Niels and Kerry write: : Knowingly starting an adoption procedure that can reasonably be expected to be contested, is immoral. Adoption, when practiced, should increase a child’s stability in life, not lower it. Raymond Godwin and his wife [director of Nightlight Christian]Laura Continue Reading →
Just a morning thought on International Adoption and American foreign policy, such as it is. I had never heard of MLJ Adoptions before this morning, until I ran across it on a re-Tweet 30 Things to do During Adoption Month. Since I’m lazy and didn’t make a list of things to do for NAAM I’m ready to take on an assignment. Not content with telling people to set up book displays or make a “life book” for their kid, MLJ busy-ness is more specific and time-consuming. If I’m not promoting Orphan Sunday, subjecting my friends and neighbors to Stuck, raising $$$ for other people’s adoptions or setting up an adoption booth at a local high school’s Friday night football game to drum up producers and consumers, I’m not doing my fair share to spread the Good News of Adoption. Why NMJ has even created a handy-dandy selection of MLJ adoption banners and pictures for my FB page. Aimed at the crunchy social justice crowd the selections include the consumerist: Adopt Globallly — Love Locally By globally MLJ means adopt from our program. MLJ’s grabby fingers reach into Bulgaria, Congo (oh! oh! just closed!), Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Samoa, and Ukraine. It Continue Reading →
I don’t live in NYC, but if I did I’d vote for James Lane on Tuesday. James is the Green Party candidate for New York Public Advocate, He is also an LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee) who learned in his early 20s that he was adopted, but that under New York law, he was prohibited from getting information about his biological family or his adoption. Being barred from accessing his own birth records propelled James into lifelong social justice activism for adoptees and others; From James’ campaign webpage: From that moment, his fight for justice through political activism formally began, with the hope that laws such as denying a person’s right to know about their origins will be removed from our society forever. James has been active in adoptee rights movement for years. I can vouche for that! He won’t remember this, but we ran into each twice, once at an AAC conference a few years ago and again in 2011 at the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe. Ramping up activism to electoral politics, James has made the restoration of OBC access the centerpiece of his Public Advocate campaign (with election reform especially involving third parties and re-allocation of tax money “back Continue Reading →
We have proven that focused, energized civil rights campaigns can win. Yet, today we are sitting in the midst of corporate America–the Hard Rock Cafe– amongst a sea of adoption tweakers, self-defeaters, self- promoters, and neocons, who have never passed a “clean bill,” having a bizarre discussion over what we can learn about adoption (or open records?) from Oprah Winfrey–or so it was billed. This is the most bizarre adopta meeting since Ron Morgan, Bill Pierce, and Troy Dunn hooked up in LA to go on the Dr. Laura Show. We know how to restore adoptee access to our OBCs.. The only question now should be: why isn’t everybody following the model? Continue Reading →
National Adoption Month 2013 opened with a bang today. Clicked on a link to “Bethany Christian Services” and “NAM” and got a live sex site. (No, I won’t put up the link) Then there’s the real porn. ABC/s 20/20 Facebook question: Do you think all adoptive children should have access to their biological parents? Excuse me? Some production intern, without much thought or grammatical skills, must have posted the question. I’m not even sure what the question even means: Does it refer to actual children, open adoption, the right of adult adoptees to their own original birth certificates? Or what? For the last 80 years, for their own specific and sometimes unrelated reasons, the state and its politicians, along with social engineers, private industry, therapists, churches, and social do-gooders across the political spectrum have moderated the public and private lives of adoptees and their families. Nowhere is the entwining of the personal and the political so grotesquely practiced as in adoption in the United States today. Nowhere is the conflation of adults with children in public policy and public imagination so blatant.. Hence, even those deeply involved in bastard rights, don’t know for sure what the clumsy 20/20– post even Continue Reading →
I’m working on making fixes on the new Bastardette format, and i’ts taking much longer than I thought. Too much racket at home, so I packed up everything and came down to Subway on campus since there’s free WiFi here.. It’s open 24/7 and nobody cares how long you stay as long as you at least by a small drink.. It’s quiet (more or less but what a strange mixture of music–dance and country) with plenty of room. AA mouse keeps running across the floor. I’m not snitching. I’m trying to do one “page” a day. Today I’ve listed my favorite adoption books. Look under “Media”. Keep in mind that these are books that I like, not necessarily what you like. They range from adoption history to policy to memoir to novel. No Primal Wound! There’s more to add, but it’s enough for tonight. BTW, I don’t know why last nights blog on the anti-ICWA folks decided to format different from the rest. I’ll work on that later.
A couple weeks ago I wrote about an ICWA law forum being held today in St. Paul. (I’m posting this early Tuesday morning/.)
Sunday, the misnamed anti-ICWA Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare. (CAICW) operated by non-Indian Lisa Morris, sent up a tizzyful prayer on Facebook: Ms Morris, in case you’re you’re not familiar with her, is a graduate of Bible College (unnamed), has “dabbled as a registered nurse” (her words) and is an active member of the Minnesota Tea Party. She believes (at least on paper) that prayer is the greatest weapon against ICWA, If the US were a sane country, Ms. Morris would be left standing on a street corner passing out tracts to the unsaved and unwashed. Instead she’s running an anti-civil rights organization.
CAICW (or Ms. Morris) urges us: Continue reading
Nice guerrilla action in New York this weekend. Not about adoption but close. The National Women’s Liberation Army hit five pharmacies in the Union Square area Saturday in search of Plan B (emergency contraception). According to Reality Check, some drug stores not only hide the Morning After Pill behind the counter, but keep it in a locked box! From Realitly Check: (emphasis (mine) During the action, group leaders would loudly announce to the store that the brigade was looking for the morning-after pill. Group members then would disperse, asking where the emergency contraception was and handing shoppers a letter to the pharmacy’s CEO. “The morning-after pill is locked in a box? You have to carry the box around the store?” protesters would say to each other. “Sure, so the whole store knows you had sex last night. That’s like wearing a dunce cap!” Indeed, many stores either keep Plan B behind the pharmacy counter, don’t stock more than two pills at a time, or keep the pill in a locked box that has to be opened by a store employee at the counter. Furthermore, employees are often confused about who has permission to open the box. NWL’s letter to pharmacy CEOs Continue Reading →