RHODE ISLAND: Good News! Clean OBC Bill Introduced

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While Indiana piddles along the road to adoptee serfdom (apologies to Friedrich Hayek!) Rhode Island activists tread the road to liberty. On February 16, Representatives Carnevale, Mattiello, Hearn,Ucci, and Marcello introduced H5453, a short and sweet bill to restore OBC access to all Rhode Island’s adoptees with no restriction. The bill is backed by long-time Rhode Island activists, Rhode Island Access. RIA is not to be confused with the amateur muck-abouts who created last year’s deformist debaclethat ended in the passage of the fox in the hen house H7877 which took the veto where no man has gone before, and consideration of S2759 which took man even further. Don’t remember the details? Here’s a refresher from my May 13 2010 blog: The bill (H7877), framed in deformer NewSpeak as a records access and adoptee rights measure, creates a ” do not release” option (a nice name for disclosure veto) for families of origin–in this case not only a parent, but a parent or sibling of a deceased parent– to keep their Family Bastard de-identied and at bay. The Senate’s close companion SB2759 extends the veto to the parent or sibling of a “permanently disabled ” parent (no mention of proof Continue Reading →

INDIANA: SB 469 More Compromise

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Currently, Indiana has two access bills in the hopper. HB 1201 is a convoluted, incomprehensible eye-burning mess that must have been written by a random bill generator. It seems to have something to do with access, but the several of us who have read it are not sure what. SB 469 is a different story. The bill seeks to expand backwards the state’s OBC access law to cover pre-1994 adoptees. The only problem is that (1) the current law, although it allows many adoptees to access their OBCs, contains a disclosure veto, and (2) the new bill expands that veto backwards; thus, creating a significant pool of potential unworthies to be blacklisted by the state. HB 469 is backed by the American Adoption Congress and other compromisers. Pam Kroskie, AAC Midwest Director wrote a glowing report on “our legislation,” (HB 469) in the January 29, 2011 Bloomington Adoptive Families Examiner. She thanked deformers Adam Pertman (director, Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute), Mary Mason, Donnie Davis, Wendy Rowney (all AAC) and Judy Foster (president NJCares and AAC NJ State Rep) for their “terrific help.” The February 2 Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University) included Kroskie and the AAC. AAC North Carolina State Continue Reading →

Oregon HB 2843 is Dead!: Measure 58 and Our Rights Prevail!

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The best valentine ever! Please spread the word! Helen Hill posted this news about 5 minutes ago on Facebook: UPDATE UPDATE! HUNTS OFFICE DROPPED THE BILL! IT”S OVER! I just got a call from the LA McGlone who told me they are NOT pursuing this bill. They did their research and are DROPPING THIS BILL! They are circling around to the Judiciary Committee to give them the heads up. The JC will NOT proceed without prompting from Hunt’s office. McGLone said he was VERY GRATEFUL they didn’t get slammed with emails, he sensed we were telling folks to hold off. He said thank you thank you thank you. They just wanted a little breathing room to see what this bill really meant, ramifications, etc. the info I brought in did that. They don’t want to touch a hair on the head of this excellent piece of legislation!!! In the last couple minutes Helen has added two more posts, which I’m including here: THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR VIGILANCE AND FERVOR! Thanks especially to Ron Morgan who broke the story!!! Back to your wonderful lives!GODSPEED! SincerelyHelen Hill In the last couple minutes Helen posted two new entries , which I’m including here. Continue Reading →

Important New Update on Oregon HB 2843: Clarification from Helen Hill.

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Helen Hill has clarified what went down in Salem yesterday about HB 2843. (see blog directly below this). I’m quoting her entire post here so there are no questions: TO BE CLEAR! I did not meet with Rep. Hunt… I had a very brief meeting with the outer office people, who told me Hunt (who is Speaker of the House, by the way) was floating this bill at the request of a constituent. Two of the office people said “you don’t have to worry about this. it’s not going anywhere” or something to that effect. I left some written info. I have a meeting at 1:45 this coming Tuesday with the legislative aid that is running with this. Ron Morgan is going to be there too, (YAY RON!) and any of you who are in the area and would like to come and discuss why this bill should be dropped, please do stop by Rep Hunt’s office next Tuesday. This is not the time for conspiracy theory. There is internet chatter that HB 2843 was induced by any number of factions: adoption agencies, intermediaries, searchers, churches, and money interests. Helen has been very clear that the bill, as far as Continue Reading →

Oregon HB 2843: Hold Your Horses! Send Affirmative Letters

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Earlier today we learned that Rep. Dave Hunt (D-Gladstone) recently introduced HB 2843 in the Oregon House. The bill essentially repeals the adoptee rights landmark Measure 58 ballot initiative, which in 1998 restored the right of OBC access there. This bill came out of nowhere. Helen Hill, chief petitioner for Measure 58, met with with Rep. Hunt and his aides this morning. Helen reports that their talk was very fruitful and highly positive. Helen will be meeting with Rep. Hunt again on Tuesday and feels that any escalation at this time would not be useful. If more action is needed after that meeting, she will let us know. In the meantime, Helen requests that no “angry letters” be sent to Rep. Hunt, but…if you are an Oregon adoptee please write a note to him affirming the positive results of M58. [email protected] You can also make make comments on the bill here: Read the Oregon Adoptee Rights Blog and join the list: Mary Hunt Peret’s blog on the history original birth certificates is here. The history of the M58 campaign is here. Well keep you updated!

Cognitive Dissonance: Bastards, Birthers, and Bad Bills

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Adopted adults, especially since 9/11, have increasingly been denied passports, drivers licenses, pensions, Social Security benefits, professional certifications, and security clearances due to discrepancies on their fictive amended birth certificates produced by the state, and their inability to produce a true original birth certificate to respond to those discrepancies. Now, due to our lack of an OBC, we may not be allowed to run for president or vice president (or other offices) if some states have their way. Currently, 11 state legislatures are looking at bills to force presidential/vp candidates to divvy up their birth certificates to prove citizenship and that they are who they say they are. If these measures pass, the birth certificate requirement will no doubt seep down to all elective offices from city council and county commission to state and federal legislatures and courts. Although voters are already required to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote, I don’t think it’s beyond reason that more stringent requirements will be mandated; thus potentially disenfranchising millions of the country’s adopted adults due to lack of their “real” birth certificates. The highly unpopular Real ID,which about two dozen states have refused to implement. and other Draconian “security Continue Reading →

Connecticut: Bastard Nation Letter in Opposition to HB 890

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Connecticut currently has two OBC access bills in the hopper. The first, HB 65 is a placeholder which has yet to be written. The second is HB 890 which would open OBCs prospectively for adoptees 21 years old and older adopted after January 2, 2012 contains a disclosure veto. HB 890 is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow before the legislature’s Select Committee on Children. We sent this letter opposing the bill to committee members this afternoon: Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization, is the largest adoptee civil rights organization in the United States. We support full, unrestricted access for all adopted persons, upon request, of their own true, unaltered original birth certificates (OBC). We oppose HB 890, a bill that would prospectively the OBC to adoptees, with disclosure veto restrictions, to persons 21 years of age or older, whose adoptions were finalized on or after October 12, 2012. This bill is scheduled to be heard tomorrow, February 8, 2011 by the Select Committee on Children. Bastard Nation. opposes HB 890, and urges you to vote Do Not Pass. HB 890 creates a nonsensical tiered discriminatory system of OBC access for Connecticut adoptees based on their date of birth, date of Continue Reading →

HuffPo Continues to Censor Bastardette: TRAs aren’t all happy dappy!

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I’m working on some Russian updates. What were once simple and straightforward reviews of cases have turned into tales of Tolstoyan proportion. Meanwhile, yesterday I was censored again by Huffington Post. This time over daring to suggest that international adoption isn’t white bread. My comments came under Adam Pertman’s new blog entry, Lessons in Adoption from BJ Lifton, Harvard, and Oprah. I’ll post some comments on that in a separate blog and try to get it on HuffPo as well, but I may be expelled to the Bad Bastard’s corner unless I limit myself to commentary on Kim Kardasian, Melissa Etheridge, and the decline of the American Left. Part of my comment to HuffPo was cross-posted to Facebook, but due to size restrictions FB won’t carry the whole thing. Left off were comments from the Transracial Abductee site that I included. Here’s how it played out. Poster Jack Grissom wrote in part: One of the issues people bring up is adopted children being raised by parents that are of a different biological ethnic background than their own. All I can say is, I don’t think that I’ve ever heard an adult who was adopted as a child wish that they Continue Reading →

Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Evan B. Donaldson Strikes Out on HuffPo

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Wednesday (January 12) the Huffington Post published a blog, A Civil Right: Adoptees Have a Right to Access Their Own Birth Certificates by Adam Pertman, director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. In it, Mr. Pertman calls for the restoration of the right of adoptees to their own original birth certificates. Or does he? Only after 3 1/2 paragraphs, in which Mr. Pertman discusses slavery, suffrage and DADT, does he get around to adoptees (not bastards) and our obcs. To the casual reader, with little or no background on deformist history, the piece may make a good read. Unfortunately it isn’t. Mr. Pertman simply continues the Donaldson’s spurious claim to support obc access for all, while it happily works for passage of bills that restrict access for some, leaving classes of bastards behind to float in a black hole. For instance, last year Mr. Pertman delivered eloquent testimony before a New Jersey House committee hearing declaring the right of all adoptees, without restriction, to their original birth certificates Unfortunately, he was testifying in support of A1406, a deform bill that contains disclosure and contact vetoes (even worse, used interchangeably; that is, a poor bastard with a contact veto slapped Continue Reading →

My Unicorn by Guest Blogger Justin Mitchell Bennett

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Another year draws to a close, and thankfully, another Christmas has passed. I have never been one to celebrate Christmas, and perhaps the most memorable, and darkest had been the one experienced, December 24th, 2006. I’d sat atop Twin Peaks, in San Francisco, California, the cold wind that night chilling me to the bone. As I’d ridden a motorcycle there, I couldn’t just hop into a car and turn on the heater. For many, Christmas may be a time to be among family, yet that evening. I’d never felt so isolated, and alone – as though the chill of death surrounded me. I had returned from an Iraq deployment earlier in the year, and though I would depart San Francisco shortly into 2007, during my time in San Francisco, I’d made progress, on a lifelong quest, which to an adoptee, may be referred to as “The Search.” Perhaps part of what made that Christmas so dark for me, I had reunited, via telephone, with one half of my biological family, an Uncle. Sadly, I’d been informed of my birth father passing away. Mourning the death of someone you’d never known, and whose passing had occurred years prior, coupled with understanding Continue Reading →