The Rhode Island House yesterday passed unanimously (and here) H 7877, a bill that curbs the right of adoptees to receive their own original birth certificates.
The bill, 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 or definition of “permanenty disabled”) . That is, to people who may have pressured the parent to surrender their shameful secret into the secret adoption mill to start with. Hen meet Fox.
Would a Rhode Island legislator tolerate for one moment a law that would predicate release of his or her own own birth certificate on the desire, comfort zone, and permission of his or her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles? Of course not! And certainly the not-adopted wouldn’t. Why should any self-respecting bastard be expected to roll over for this absurd bill?
The key word is self-respecting.
Deformers scurry all over AdoptionLand like cockroaches swarming after daily pottage. They sell their own birthright and then steal the birthright of everyone else in the name of privilege for some. Benedict Bastards. Class traitors. Cowards. Your “grand strategy” harms us all. Your despicable bills create a permanent underclass of adoptees. No lawmaker will return to fix your fuck up.
H7877 is about privilege. It is about adoption industry secrets. It is about family secrets.
H7877 is about special $$$ interests controlling the historical documents and genealogies of the adopted population, apparently so dangerous that they cannot be trusted with their own information.
And H7877 is about the moral bankruptcy of compromisers who fornicate with their own opposition. The people at TRACE and their supporters, in their own confused way, know exactly what they are doing. I talked to a Rhode Islander recently who told me that the only way H7877 pushers believe they can get any bill through is to accept the veto language iinserted by a long term opponent. They call this progress? Any talk of “grand strategy” and a deus ex machina is wishful at best.
I wrote about H7877 previously here.
I despise everyone who had a hand in this bill!
Shame and a disgrace!Money always talks.
I live in Rhode Island.
Not surprised at all by this bill or its passage.
Not surprised at all.
It’s a corrupt little state. Yes, it is.
Thats what I thought Marley..dont post my commet..who’s the coward now.
Since I have no idea what you’re talking, I am posting this. What did you think? This is the first I’ve heard from you.
It saddens me so deeply to read or know there are adoptees out there against this cause. Not everything in life can be ALL or NOTHING. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to get what we want even if its a little. Is this bill perfect? No. TRACE and RI adoptees who do support this bill do not want to deny ANY adoptee access to what ALL adoptees deserve. Realistically, how many people will actually sign a no contact form? The percentage is very low. The fight will not be over when this bill passes… there will be more work to do. TRACE and their supporters know this. There will always be more work to do. Adoptees need not to forget that we are on the same side… WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE SAME SIDE… shame on adoptees who do not support any bill that gives us back our identity.
Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas…these laws are fundamentally flawed from the get-go when they try to take into account the industry’s cleverly inserted ideas.
It is against the interests of adoption facilitators, attorneys and adopters to open the door to true open access. This is why I decry “sleeping with the enemy.” It’s like some of these deformers are on a people-pleasing jag, trying to be all things to all people.
The so-called “baby-steps” strategy is doing nothing but producing terribly restrictive legislation.
Of course, to me, “adoption reform” is a oxymoron. It’s like saying “serial killer rehabilitation.”
All of these bills are egregious, but find this one even moreso, since it lets others speak for mothers, even from the grave.
In the mean time as adoptees in the legislative arena fight for open records and depict who the enemy is albeit legislators, attorneys, adoption agencies,etc. and who also oppose the efforts of anyone who accepts anything less than unrestricted access, I have news for you, you are just as much as part of the problem.
Each adoptee in opposition of the RI Bill I want you to tell the adoptees who have children born with genetic illnesses, or who are perhaps ill themselves, why they cant have access to their OBC sooner than later. I want you to tell that adoptee and that child born with a heart complication they can not have their OBC or the opportunities an OBC would provide because of the ideal that not everyone will have access.
So let’s get this straight, upon passage of this Bill it’s realistically predicted based upon other states experience, that 99% of adoptees, perhaps more, will get their OBC in 1 year upon passage. On the other hand if this bill does not pass, or more specifically, if we used the unrestricted access bill, it would NOT/will NOT pass, then 0% of adoptees would have access. Lets do the math, on one hand 99% of adoptees, including sick/ill adoptees and their children who are also impacted, can have access to their OBC within a year, or on the other hand zero adoptees can have access. Does that really make sense? Who are we helping if we oppose this legislation? If we oppose this we help no one and suddenly we’re a part of the problem and no longer part of the solution. I refuse to have the take my ball and go home attitude.
There is more than one way to go about things, its okay to make this a 2 step process. It’s okay to chop down the tree first and go back and get the stump later. Its okay with this cause to be crafty and innovative. How long has this cause been going on? 20, 30 yrs? Only 6 states has changed their law to allow unrestricted access, guess what? The traditional approach, all or nothing attitude, IS NOT WORKING! We need to get access to the OBC’s in this lifetime while adoptees are still alive.
If any one has an issue with things in RI, never mind this Statler & Waldorf crap (the muppets in the balcony) with blogs and presumptions while looking in on us like we’re inside of some sort of fishbowl, unless you’re inside you do NOT have the slightest clue of what’s going on. I dont want to hear what occurred in other states or what you think is wright or wrong. If you’re not in RI or have not helped us when we did have the unrestricted access bill in the legislation I dont want to hear a word out of you. I you’re not going to help us fight you certainly dont have the right to appose and criticize.
If you do have questions, concerns, or would like to be educated on our approach you contact me directly.
John J Greene
[email protected]
401-440-8368
I agree with Kristen – this is very sad that you cannot see past your own viewpoint. There are people that really NEED the opportunity to ask for medical information because they, or their children have genetic issues that require more medical information. Not all TRACE members completely agree with this bill – but we have come together and agreed to fight for full access – however long that might take.
Feel free to criticize the fact that we are trying to put our feelings aside and HELP those adoptees that really NEED this. Perhaps you should put aside your adoption issues and see that there is a bigger picture – where children are in serious medical need and the only way to have the OPPORTUNITY to ask for medical information is to get some form of this bill passed.
I have put aside being selfish for this bill – I realize that there is an opportunity I may not be able to get my OBC but if it helps even just ONE child have more information to help them, then I’m in.
“If we would just support each other – that’s ninety percent of the problem,” – Edward Gardner
There are no “baby steps”. Let’s all be clear on that. There has not been one instance of bad legislation passing that was later revisited and fixed. None,nada, not one. Got that, Kristen and other supporters of the Rhode Island bill and others like it.
What you vote for now is what you get for decades to come. If you are ok with that, say so, but do not hold out hope that bad legislation can be revisited and fixed in a few years.. Indeed, the fight WILL be over for Rhode Island if this bill passes. These reforms do not come in increments, as legislators do not want to revisit what to them is a minor issue they already dealt with.
(part I)
Kristen, I am one of those whose rights were “sacrificed” in the Ohio deform effort.
My civil/human/identity rights were left behind, painted over with promises that ‘the fight will not end with this, we’ll come back for you later.’
The bottom line is, no legislature who has ever passed one of these abominations of legislation have ever come back to INCREASE access for adopted people.
I’ve written a great deal about bills similar to Rhode Island’s do incredible amounts of damage, damage that echo down through the decades and generations.
Legislators feel they ‘just dealt with that’ and have no interest in revisiting the issue for years, if not decades to come.
When organizations claim to speak for adopted people, yet are willing to trade away a percentage of the Bastards standing next to them in some vain effort to ‘gain some’ at the direct cost to the rights of others, they loose the moral authority to speak for adoptees.
Marley, Bastard Nation, and a number of others of us stand for the rights of all and refuse to use the rights of any portion of the broader “class Bastard” as a political bargaining chip.
We understand, often from firsthand experiences, what horrible legislation like the bill in Rhode Island will do, and we refuse to settle for anything less than the full human and civil rights for ALL adopted people.
You want to talk about what’s “shameful”? The behaviour of those who feel it is their place to speak for others, that they are somehow empowered to trade away the rights of some other subset of “expendable” adoptees. It’s a co-optation of our voices.
They act if it doesn’t matter so long as it’s ‘only a few’ who end up vetoed, or black holed by arbitrary dates systems, or otherwise barred.
Further, if you think those who just got theirs will continue to labor on, working to ensure full access to everyone, think again. Most adopted people have no comprehension of the broader class Bastard, they get theirs and go home, leaving those left behind to slog on by themselves, fucked over by both state and Benedict bastards.
There are really two primary models of legislation being built upon at the moment: full restoration of rights, such as OR, AL, NH, ME, and fucked up partial access for a lucky few at the direct expense of others bills like TN, OH, MA, etc.
Those in RI had a choice, they could fight for full human rights restoration, or they could settle for a half-assed broken bill that will segregate a portion of Bastards away and bar them access, all accompanied with the usual excuses of ‘we’ll get to your rights later… .’
Tragically, many in RI have chosen the latter path, creating a bill that not merely settles for the broken veto system, but actually EXPANDS it, setting a new precedent, and giving new veto powers out to extended family members.
This will have the effect of further screwing Bastards with larger biological families as the larger the extended biological family, the greater the likelihood that there will be at least one member of the family who wants to use their new veto powers.
We are treated like dangerous axe-wielding lepers to be greatly feared and that the rest of society must be protected from us.
Compromise human rights, Kristen? Anyone who agrees that we should be treated any differently than non-adoptees should have their head examined.
Equality means NO COMPROMISE.
part II
Rhode Island’s bill, is far from some notion of a neutral bill, it actually builds a whole new tool to bar access to the subclass of Bastards you’re so willing to write off.
So, are some of us disgusted and infuriated that certain people are so willing to support this atrocity? Of course we are!
We’re the ones left behind by the very people claiming to speak on our behalf.
Apparently you don’t understand why ‘ a little bit of human rights for a lucky few at the direct cost to others’ is a problem to those of us on the wrong side of those arbitrarily created lines you support.
Do I oppose the bill?
Yes, with every fiber of my being.
Am I willing to speak out on such and say that when organizations begin to view some adoptees’ rights as expendable they no longer speak for adopteees?
You better believe it.
Deform bills do lasting damage.
Shame on you, for in essence supporting a bill that says not all Bastards’ rights matter. (At least not right now, but don’t worry, we’ll get there, really we will…)
There’s no self respect in that.
There’s no fundamental understanding that all Bastard rights matter.
This bill reduces whatever access some will have (at the direct expense of others) to a mere state granted privilege, one it can extend to adopted people, or withdraw at whim.
The bill’s a sham, and it deserves nothing other than contempt.
I agree with Kristen, John and Lola’s mom. I am a Rhode Island adult adoptee who knows the identity of my first mother. I have known such information for many years. However, this has never stopped me from fighting for the right to access my OBC. I did not say “Well now I’ve got mine, forget about everyone else”.
I am willing to accept the fact that I may not get my OBC. But John is right when he says that 99%of adult adoptees will get access to their OBC. Right now, no one gets access.
Also, for those who have the all or nothing attitude, where were you when we had the unrestricted access bill last legislative session? No where to be seen, that is where you where you were. Yes, some did come out to support us in that effort. Many professionals came forward, too. But there is strength in numbers. If more adult adoptees came out for that bill maybe things would be different.
But that is in the past. We must go forward from here. I am still for equal access for all, but right now, many will be able to get access.
Folks, there’s not an adoptee on this earth who isn’t dying, be they a child or a grandmother.
The family medical history argument fails in practical application, it results in states building new mechanisms of data collection and the state playing intermediary and arbitrator of who gains access to what rather than restoring full OBC access.
Worse, it often crafts mechanisms to coerce or even force Mothers or other family members to hand over their personal medical backgrounds a likely HIPPA violation.
Family medical histories belong in the realm of the interpersonal, just as they are for non-adopted people.
Medical arguments devolve down to avoiding what’s really at stake here, what we genuinely seek is equal treatment under law.
Not some system whereby there’s the way non-adopted people deal with their family medical histories and some ‘new’ and ‘special’ structure just built just for adopted people.
And this supposed “99%” bullshit may be fine with you, but having been structurally consigned to that other percent (whatever it may be) that was left behind, it’s not so fine from this end of the stick.
John, I’m no Muppet, I’m a human being, every bit as deserving of my full human rights as anyone else.
Dismiss us all you want, we speak as the authentic voices of those you would leave behind.
If you don’t think the mess being made in Rhode Island doesn’t have broader implications you’re disregarding history.
As new mechanisms to prohibit access have been developed, they’ve been turned against other Bastards elsewhere time and again.
While deformers continue to insist ‘we’re all on the same side’ I think it grows ever increasingly clear, we’re not.
Some are willing to settle for table scraps, while others of us are genuinely fighting for human rights for all.
If you feel human rights can be “compromised” or can take a number, and that that’s ok, I really have nothing more to say.
Clearly, we’re not on the same page and never will be.
BD, I am so tired of other people presuming to speak my mind for me that I could scream. I am 64 years old and well-read and can express my own thoughts and feelings without any help. I have vocal chords in good working order, a decent vocabulary and my own opinions and I don’t faint if someone knows who I am. Jeez!
Kristen–Once a compromised law passes, that is the end of the issue. It’s over. Zilch. These laws are not revisited; they are not re-evaluated. What you have is what you’ll live with–forever. Not one state has ever returned to revoke in-place vetos with unrestricted access. Legally ,they cannot.
Why in the world would RI leggies revisit, in fact, when it’s been made clear that the only way the current abomination can pass is with Draconian veto language that tosses rights down the chute and doles out favors to some.
Even if a veto disclosure were removed years from now prospectively, there are still bastards trapped in the state’s black hole. The state has promised that the identity of those parents will never be revealed vis a vis the obc and is legally bound to that promise. How will you explain that to the blacklisted bastard? Sorry You’re expendable.
If this bill passes, the fight is over, and RI will remain a closed-in-perpetuity state, no matter how you want to claim it’s not. As long as one adoptee is denied access to their obc, all bastards are subject to the pleasure of the state. Your privilege is at state pleasure.
es, we are supposed to be on the same, side, but deformers are clearly the enemy of the bastard class. Not only do they accept the enemy’s arguments of their own unworthiness, they frame their arguments in the enemy’s language. Deformers have thrown away their moral authority to promote rights. They don’t know the meaning of the word.
The fight for our obc access is a class war that is winnable. It is ridiculous that in 2010 we are having the same argument that we had in 1996 when BN was founded. It is ridiculous that that argument was already old going back to the early 1980s. We and others have proven that standing your ground, asking for what you really want, and demanding no less, works. Why is it so difficult for the folks in RI to understand that?
John–the right of adoptees to their original birth certificates has nothing to do with getting a medical history. The obc does not contain a medical history, nor is anyone entitled to anyone else’s medical history. The not-adopted have no right to their parents medical history, and you can be sure that there are not-adopteds out there who do not have it.
Ever hear of HIPAA? NJ deformers are currently courting huge legal problems with their extortionist scheme to blackmail first parents out of their medical histories to maintain “anonymity.”
Medical histories are a red herring for people afraid demand what they want. Once you use that end run, you end up with state-mediated anonymous medical history registries for bastards and their families, which effectively kills any real chance of genuine rights-rooted access. You wanted medical histories, didn’t you? We gave that to you. If I am to follow your logic, what do you you tell Rhode Islanders who get left behind on the state blacklist?
TRACE’s laydown to the enemy is the problem–making you the enemy. You base your own arguments in the language and claims of the enemy. You throw away the rights of all Rhode Island bastards to get favors for some–or maybe even most. In liberal fashion, you value state-supervised and monitored relationships over letting people make their own decisions and live their own lives. It’s the state v the people, and the state wins. By pushing this horrible bill you devalue adoptee rights. You endanger the rights of every bastard in the US with the parental and expanded disclosure veto. That in itself should be reason to kill this bill. What are you thinking?
The traditional course of action, despite your claim is compromise. Do you not know adoptee rights history? Asking for what you want and fighting for it, even if you have to kill some bills, is the “non-traditional,” successful method. We would have more states in the fold at this point if people had not been afraid to do that. Please name one state that has come back and fixed the mess deformers have created? One state…It’s over, John.
We are not outsiders, John. We have worked in RI. NH Rep. Janet Allen, a member of our ExeComm testified for a clean bill. She worked with RI leggies. We wrote letters, despite all despite the fact that it was clear that the bill would get no where without compromise.
Finally ,I don’t want to hear about how your state is different. All deformers say that. Certainly, some states have a better chance for passage than others Utah is way down on the list. Alabama and NH restored adoptee rights–two of the most conservative states in the country.
Please dont be naiave about this. Once your bill is passed, it’s over for the others. You can only lay that on yourself.
God Marley, this is SO depressing. When will this secrets and lies bullshite end?
I’ve all but given up hope that I’ll ever have my own original birth certificate and adoption documents, but when I read this, now I have no hope for YOUNGER adoptees either.
What a sucky thing indeed.
BTW, John. My medical history is protected by HIPAA and it, along with any other personal information is MINE to share as I see fit and should never be demanded of me by any government agency. You will find a lot of mothers fighting this one. Our raised children don’t have the right to this info. Why should you? Do you really want equality or are you just super-special?
I am reunited with my adult children and I have shared with them, PRIVATELY, what they need to know. There are somethings I share with no one and it’s none of your business.
Big Brother lurks.
I apologize for not making myself more clear. I dont use medical history as a bargaining chip in the legislative arena as something that’s entitled to adoptees. Rather, I argue that adoptees once again do not have the same opportunities as every one else, as a result of not having the opportunity to such vital information. Perhaps its not a civil right per se, however is a human right which can be just as compelling.
I dont care what pitfalls other states have fallen into, we are NOT those states and would greatly appreciate that you stop lumping us all together. If you oppose the bill here in RI you havent read it close enough, not in it’s entirety. Perhaps you missed some key components or dont fully understand the language, but its important that you understand the entire Bill and law. I bet none of you have full knowledge of the entire scope of RI General Law that surrounds civil rights pertaining to the entire triad, if you did there wouldnt be a discussion here. I cant not and will not divulge any of that information because it is a major element which our overall strategy is built upon. We expect there will come a time and day where our strategy will unfold in a way that no other state has utilized. When that does, I’ll expect an apology from each one of you who have opposed us, so save this blog.
And please, please, stop making accusation that we wont finish what we began. Apparently you dont know how I operate or know me on a personal level, which is fine, but dont assume nor imply that what occurs in other states will occur here, I dont appreciate the disrespect.
Final question, if all of you that are taking such a position against us on a national platform because of the issues of equal civil rights surrounding identity, why do you use a nick name further promoting anonymity?
~John
Sorry John, if you had been following what happened in other states you would know that your unique secret plan to open records sounds very like a recent debacle in California, with a very bad bill that thankfully went nowhere.
The supporters of that bill were also telling people to “trust them”, that they had some magic rabbit to pull out of their hat at the last minute if only everyone followed like good sheep and went along with whatever they said. Sadly the special bunny never materialized in CA, which also had “special, unique” laws that the secret plan was supposed to work around. Lots of good people got hoodwinked and burned with that one, and its proponents sounded very much like you. I am in NJ, another state that is “special” where activists have caved in and are pushing a bad bill. I have withdrawn from supporting it, even though I have been involved for 30 years and have lost friends over it.
Every state has its own laws, but the simplest bill, plain equal access to OBC for all adopted adults with no restrictions, is always the way to go. Some states it is almost impossible to pass any records bill, even with a million convoluted compromises. Better to keep trying with a clean bill that leaves hope alive rather than passing something flawed that will be on the books for decades to come.
OT: Laura Silsby released from prison in Haiti.
“The last of 10 Americans detained while trying to take 33 children out of Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake was freed Monday when a judge convicted her but sentenced her to time already served in jail.
Laura Silsby, the organizer of the ill-fated effort to take the children to an orphanage being set up in the neighboring Dominican Republic, returned to her cell briefly to retrieve belongings before quickly heading to the Port-au-Prince airport.
“I’m praising God,” Silsby told The Associated Press as she waited for a flight out of Haiti. She declined to answer further questions before clearing immigration and heading through a gate to catch a plane to Florida.
The Idaho businesswoman had been in custody since Jan. 29. She was originally charged with kidnapping and criminal association, but those charges were dropped for her and the nine other Americans who were previously released. Silsby she was convicted of arranging illegal travel under a 1980 statute restricting movement out of Haiti signed by then-dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100517/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_detained_americans
Thanks anon guy. This doesn’t surprise me. They want to get rid of her .
I’ve been real hung up with legislation, but will be writing about this soon.
maryanne, in CA with its “recent debacle” you’re talking about Jean Strauss. She also did her little appearance in Rhode Island this time around.
And John, we got the exact same shit outta Strauss in CA as well as your
If you oppose the bill here in RI you havent read it close enough, not in it’s entirety. Perhaps you missed some key components or dont fully understand the language, but its important that you understand the entire Bill and law.
Once again, we’re told we only oppose the bill because we ‘can’t comprehend it’, or ‘haven’t read it closely enough’ etc.
Give me a break.
Stop dismissing us as if we’re too dumb to understand.
Some of us HAVE taken to the time to understand the bill and context in which the bills sits, but the bottom line remains the same, you continue to advocate for a bill that will by your own admission leave a percentage (whatever that percentage may be) of adoptees vetoed.
We expect there will come a time and day where our strategy will unfold in a way that no other state has utilized.
Any strategy that takes the lack of state promises of anonymity and lack of Parental veto privilege (let alone rights) and for the first time codifies a new privilege, that of vetoes, and not merely vetoes, but now vetoes for extended family inherently fails Bastards.
Once you build a veto privilege and that first veto comes in, now you have at least a single Bastard who will be locked behind that new promise from the State.
You continue to talk about a “two step process” or that you’ll ”come back for people later, apparently still not understanding that once the state creates vetoes, those vetoed cannot be come back for later.
No one vetoed has ever come back out of that hole. They are the truly fucked, and in this case, fucked by other adoptees themselves.
Vetoes come out of the Tennessee sell out, where instead of pushing for full access for all as part of the aftermath of Georgia Tann, the AAC and others cut off percentages of adoptees by offering up vetoes.
They didn’t come from the industry, they came from Benedict bastards too scared, or tired, or simply too self centered to the direct detriment of other adoptees to hold out for the real.
In the wake of the creation of a veto system, anything going forward, as BD rightly pointed out will not be able to come back and clean that up afterwards.
So if you’re waiting for an “apology” prepare yourself for disappointment.
I have no interest in ever “apologizing” for standing firm for the rights of those who you cast aside with promises of “later” that will not be in your power to fulfill.
…why do you use a nick name further promoting anonymity?
I can’t and won’t speak for others here, though I support their ability to divulge or not divulge as much as they chose to, but speaking for myself, had you bothered to click on my username/URL http://www.babylovechild.org/ and gone to my “about” page- http://www.babylovechild.org/about/ you could have noted that the first three words are my name, Lauren Sabina Kneisly.
John, perhaps it is you not doing your homework and failing basic reading comprehension.
What fascinates me, like a train wreck fascinates, is that these deform schemes don’t mean a damn thing to the “official” opposition.
NCFA the Bishops, ACLU, anti-aborts, liberal feminists, don’t give a rat’s ass about what deformers throw away, they still oppose access. NuNCFA promotes “mutual consent” which puts them on the same page as the deformers, though the semantics are a little different. Deformers continue to frame their half-measures in enemy ideology and language. Do deformers think our opposition actually takes them seriously? I’ve been around them. around them. They don’t.
I appreciate John clarifying the medical history issue. While a medical history is certainly desirable, it’s a fallback argument with serious repercussions as I said earlier. I don’t think it’s a civil or human right, though.
The people who have read the RI bills aren’t not stupid and objections go way beyond Bastard Nation and people commenting here. The people who object are quite familiar with adoption, legislative history, bill reading and writing, political strategy, and the end result when you take for less than you want. Tennessee, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Illinois are current examples, but there are many more. It has become quite clear here in Ohio that with the 1996 veto privilege, the state will never be a free state.
RI is not different or exceptional. Each state, of course, has its own laws and custom, but legislatore behavior is universal. They don’t like controversy. They give up as little as they can,and they don’t revisit.
Unfortunately it makes no difference how you operate, John. It’s the pols who hold the power. You can come back for the next 50 years to try to fix the mess, but if they don’t want to fix it, they won’t.
RI’s strategy is not related to CA AB372 in the least.
TRACE’s John Greene has posted on his Facebook wall that I have refused to post comments he’s sent to the Daily Bastardette. This has been followed by a lively discussion. Since I cannot post on John’s FB page, I am making a public statement here (and a shorter statement on FB)
I receive all comments for moderation through Blogger and email. I have posted every comment John has sent to Bastardette and responded to them. If he sent something else, I never received it.
I do not bar posts or posters to the Daily Bastardette with 2 exceptions: (1) spam, obscene, and racist/anti-semitic/etc comments and (2) two very specific persons who I have publicly announced were banned.
My comment rules are posted in the right sidebar:
Bastardette promotes and supports free speech and spirited discussion. Obscenity and spurious personal attacks on other posters, however, will not be tolerated. Offending comments will be removed . Posters who continue to post inappropriate messages will be banned.
John comes far far short of qualifying under that standard.
I see he is still ignoring your comment, here, BD. Some people just don’t like it when logical arguments are given to counter their views. Pity.