What I Found on Parler: Adoption, the Adoption Industry, and Katie Jay, Esq. A Little Adoption History Lesson

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“Will you walk into my Parler” said a spider to a fly;
” ‘Tis the prettiest little Parler that ever you did spy.
The way into my Parler is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to shew when you are there.”

….with apologies to Mary Howitt

Farewell, Parler. We barely knew ye!. Literally.

Last weekend I decided to open a Parler account for fun, especially knowing that it would soon go dark unless God intervened. I wanted to see if some of the Central Ohio ChristoFascists I have followed over the years (not adoption-related) were there as I was sure they were. I also wanted to see if Parler was as bad as I knew it would be. My expectations were exceeded,  My quick excursion through Parlertville featured the craziest stuff I’ve seen—ever. They make my local ChristoFascists whom I’ve documented in my Theoconia blog and the Columbus Free Press almost normal. Even my Alex Jones-obsessed former house guest aka HG, who preached incessantly about lizard people. fluoride, chemtrails, UFOs, mean-spirited lesbians, the deep state, and male-enhancement supplements now seems reasonable.

As midnight approached, I decided to see what Parlersites had to say about adoption. More specifically, just what adoption honchos—if any—were spewing there. I wish I’d thought to collect this information sooner The research, unfortunately, was an afterthought—and it didn’t help that the power went out here Sunday night for a couple of hours. I had only an hour or so to finish up. If only Amazon had waited 24 hours to kick Parler’s chair out from under.

I typed in “adoption” as a search term and as a #. The results were varied. By the way, nothing came up for “adoptee rights. Surprise!

Some “adoption” hits turned out to be animal rescue accounts. Some were adopters or adopter wannabees. Some were adoption prayer warriors. “Forcedadoption1” interested me but failed to grab me since she spoke in ChristoTrump tongues about everything but adoption. “AdoptionCombatZone” (I thought that was Adoptee Twitter!) pretty much Trumpeted scripture. Miscellaneous adoption rockers loved NAAM and called abortion “Satan worship.” Some bragged that they had adopted “drug babies that turned out just fine.” God is good!!

But…No Gladney, No Bethany. No Holt. Not that I expected them to be. Parler is the home of adoption bottom feeders and hacks not the “respectable” class.

But adoption never disappoints! To my delight, a few adoption agencies and related businesses, far removed from the captains of industry, hit the screen. This is nice to know.

Adoption Industrialists

Here is the list I compiled hurriedly before the shutdown. There are a couple more accounts that might belong to industrial entities, but I couldn’t verify so I have left them off for now. I believe there are other adoption accounts that didn’t show up due to my fast and furious search criteria. At the end of the list have included my own comments regarding Katie Jay, a partner in Jay ^ Campbell law.

I have linked these adoption businesses to their webpages when possible and posted a few notes about them, mostly in their own words, so you get their “mission” not my interpretation. Most are evangelical-centered. Their staffs, when posted, are mostly white. The babies they picture are mostly white (and healthy). Satisfied adopters illustrate clean-cut whiteness across the screen; children various hues.

A Gift of Hope Adoptions (@GiftOfHopeAdoptions)

Adoption Airfare (@AdoptionAirfare)

  • Location: Newnam, Georgia
  • About: “We are excited to help you with your Adoption Travel, International Missions Travel, Heritage Travel, Group Travel, and Orphan Care Travel. Our agents at Adoption Airfare®seek to hold your hand through every step of your Adoption Travel journey. We have special DISCOUNTED FLIGHTS with many of the major airlines, to provide discounted airfare for International Adoption Travel and Missions Travel. We seek to maintain a high level of integrity and morality in everything we do. Therefore, we will be glad to serve you to the best of our ability with your travel needs, as long as it doesn’t violate our conscience, and isn’t immoral according to the Bible.” (DB NOTE: My guess– this means LBGGQT) customers)

Adoption Choices of Colorado (@AdoptionChoicesOfColorado)

  • Location: Colorado Springs and Golden, Colorado
  • About: “We want to help you customize a plan that you are 100% comfortable with. Counseling and legal representation is provided to you at no cost. We also have many resources to help you during and after the placement of your child. We provide counseling to you as the birth mother, the birth father if he is interested as well as your family and other children. We want you to have a great support system and we believe that helping others around you understand adoption and what the future brings sets you up for success.”

AdoptionFinder (@AdoptionFinder)

  • Location: Cody, Wyoming; Austin, Texas; Rockwell, Iowa
  • About: “At Adoption Finder™, we strive to bridge the gap between adopting families and unplanned pregnancies. We are able to make this possible with our innovative, user-friendly app available for Android and iOS users. Our app also provides a way for women with unplanned pregnancies and people waiting to adopt the opportunity to connect, chat, create a profile, see who is nearby, and see who would be a good match. Our goal is to provide more resources and programs in the future that includes housing, counseling and support groups, educational classes, pregnancy resource centers, and more.”

CK Family Services (KathyV @Ckadoption)

  • Location: Arlington, Georgetown, and Plano Texas)
  • About: “CK Family Services is an organization of passionate, mission driven individuals united by common values and guided by Christian principles. We are mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. We are daughters and sons, aunts and uncles, volunteers, coworkers, neighbors, and friends… People united through God to enhance the physical, emotional, and spiritual well being of at-risk children and families.”

Christian Embrylo Adoption Network aka Embryo Adoption Project (@ChristianEmbryoAdoptionNetwork

  • Location: Nashville, Tennessee
  • About: “The Embryo Adoption Project offers its members the opportunity to meet your pervertible (sic) Ying to their Yang. If your aim is to adopt, you will be able to meet donor families on our membership website who want to donate embryos. If you want to donate, you will be able to meet potential adoptive parents. All communication is completely private and you can cancel at any time. It is the most affordable way to adopt today.”
  • Other: The company is founded and operated by Rebecca Westbrook, DVM and her husband Craig who have adopted 12 embryos—3 of which survived. Westbrook opposes open adoption and writes on the webpage: “We then looked at egg donation. My husband was not comfortable with that option so we considered adoption. Most child adoptions are open, so we were reluctant to pursue that direction. We were very fortunate that we were chosen by a couple to adopt their embryos. Over the next three years, we were blessed with two more girls.”

(Jay & Campbell Adoption Law (@flfamilyformation)

Joy (@ adoptionatty)

  • Location: unknown
  • About: Adoption attorney
  • Other: No information listed

Life Tree Adoption (@lifetreeadoption)

  • Location: Dallas, Texas
  • About: “Hi, I’m Robin Stephenson. Not only am I the founder of Lifetree Adoption Agency, I’m also an adoptive mother. Lifetree Adoption Agency is my ministry – not just a job. After five years of riding on the infertility rollercoaster and many unsuccessful infertility treatments, I still had the desire to have a child – a child who would love me and call me mommy. I wanted this more than anything in life. embraced a saying a friend had shared with me… She told me I would become a mom one day because only the Lord could put that desire into my heart. There were times I prayed for the Lord to take that desire out of my heart, but the desire became stronger than ever. The day my fifth and final IVF attempt failed, I came to realize that my dream of becoming a mom wasn’t me birthing my own child, but rather raising a child that grew up in my heart and not in my tummy…Lifetree Adoption Agency is a Christian-based agency based in Dallas, Texas (also serving Fort Worth) committed to fulfilling the dreams of Birth Parents and Adoptive Families while carrying out God’s will for our lives.”

American Exceptionalists:

Jay & Campbell Adoption Law and CHIFF

The list above is rather mundane. No high rollers. Just mundanes, But Jay & Campbell is far from mundane.

There is so much to say about Katie Jay (aka Katy/Katie Jay Gordon) outside of the scope of Parler. I can’t speak for her law partner, Sarah Campbell, though I presume she shares Jay’s views or they wouldn’t be business partners. Since I am unfamiliar with Campbell, I will stick to Jay who I consider to be one of the Top Five most horrible people in AdoptionLand.: Think: Elizabeth Bartholet without the grimace and Harvard back-up. Jay is cute which is probably why she gets away with what she does. Beyond cuteness, she believes the world owes Americans their children. Anyone who disagrees is racist, misogynist, child-hating, and probably anti-Semitic.

I spent the better part of February-April 2014 researching and exposing Jay on the Daily Bastardette.

In 2014 Attorney Jay was the self-appointed spokesperson for Children in Families First (CHIIF) an attempt, by secular and evangelical adoption agencies, well-funded evangelical child welfare and orphan ministries, and assorted do-gooders led by Senator Mary Landrieu and supported by the Congressional Coalition for Adoption, to legislate new federal adoption programs and incentives to implement and fund international adoption as American foreign policy That is, taxpayer-funded, ($2 billion) international arm-twisting and family-breaking white saviorism to create adoptive families for Americans” desperate” for children that their fellow Americans just weren’t pumping out and punting to the adoption spammer.

Here are three links to bring you up to speed on the CHIFF chimera. Check in with your anger management counselor before you read them.

  • The CHIFF webpage, loaded with toxic gumdrops is dead, but can be found on the Internet Archive.

CHIFF pimps promoted kinship dissolution, the shuttering of group homes and orphanages such as operated by UNICEF and Children’s Village in disadvantaged overseas populations. They created a narrative of false humanitarianism in order to make international adoption “easier” for America’s desperate and childless. Not surprisingly, CHIFF shills rejected all attempts of input by both domestic and international adoptees and other critical stakeholders. Leading the pack was Katie Jay who called us– gasp!– “socialists” while simultaneously promoting state-directed appropriation and redistribution of the other people’s wealth (children) to those they regarded socially and biologically needy but worthy. Those across the adoption landscape who dared to oppose the legislation—or even ask questions—were summarily banned from discussion groups and smeared on blogs and internet forums, mostly by Katie Jay herself. Pointedly, she never defined “opposition” other than to attack people who didn’t agree with her personally.

Katie Jay lost it repeatedly and publicly.  She used her Children Need Families blog (defunct but available on Internet Archives) and Twitter account (defunct) to weaponize CHIFF and stir up the troops. Opponents were smeared as racist, classist, misogynist, child haters, and just plain stupid. She referred to adoptee opponents of CHIFF as “idiots.”

____________________

Time and space and your patience don’t permit me to write a full report of Jay’s activities, but I am featuring a few examples from her blog and Twitter—a veritable garbage dump of mis- and dis-information, rightwing AND neolib propaganda, bigotry, entitlement, and just plain bullshit regarding CHIFF and her theories on adoption.

During the CHIFF campaign, Jay argued that anyone opposing international adoption or even questioning its standards and practices were running a dogfight. She fired off this tweet on March 23, 2014:

AdoptInternational ‏@AdoptInterna  Mar 23

Only people who don’t care about children try to pit children in need (in the US) against children in need (abroad) against one another

A month later she expounded this theory in detail in “Advocates” Who Pit Needy Children Against One Another Suck where she denied as overblown numerous reports and studies citing corruption and abuse in international adoption, as well as the lived experience of adoptees, first parents, and adoptive parents. She accused opposition (quoting the Cato Institute) of “beat{ng  down needy children to uplift others.” In other blogs she took the US State Department to task for investigating legal and ethics violations and mandating international adoption crackdowns and improvements and even shutting down operations between the US and other countries.

Three weeks later in What Progressives Believe About Child Welfare Jay ranted about “radical liberals.” She defined herself, the National Council for Adoption, and The Dave Thomas Foundation (which, in fact, only works in the US and Canada)  as “progressives.” battling the “wayward liberal fringe” whom she claimed embraced a nationalist position “that every child. in American foster care must be placed before any  foreign children can be adopted.” She accused “liberals” of “bigotry” rooted in race and religious intolerance since many international adopters are Christian. (Jay is Jewish.) Then she got really weird accusing opponents of international adoption/CHIFF of antisemitism:

The trend reminds me of how the radical left has latched onto anti-Semitism in the past 50 years. The ADL’s new, comprehensive study on global anti-Semitism indicates that people with dual identities, such as Jews or international adoptees, threaten others’ sense of identity and trigger insecurities and dilemmas. Extremists on both sides are the most insecure and threatened by dual identities because their outlook lacks nuance and multiple perspectives. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise then, that far-left liberals are often both anti-Semitic and opposed to international adoption.

In her International Adoption and Restrictions and Modernization, Backlash Jay complains about cultures and countries that value blood ties and kinship care and don’t accept the modern adoption plan that separates and anonymizes children from their families and communities. She blames “racist” colonized victims and the poor, not adoption industry greedy appropriation of children, for adoption shutdowns:

When countries see foreigners embracing their children in a way that they won’t, they are embarrassed. And suspicious. This shame then morphs into xenophobia, racism, and nationalism, which creates or sustains horrible child welfare laws. The simple “solution” has been to close adoption programs. It is this reaction, coupled with wealthy countries’ lack of leadership in global child welfare, which explains international adoption’s decline more than anything.

Regarding UNICEF programs, Jay blogged bizarrely and not very progressively, against international programs that economically and political that could uplift and preserve families (my emphasis):

What makes this even more sickening is that opponents understand the scope of the [orphan/child welfare] crisis, but they cling to ideology and power politics over the basic human rights of children. Instead, UNICEF employs an immoral hostage strategy, which is finally being recognized for what it is, in which UNICEF keeps children in orphanages to create pressure on the developed world to do something to solve the poverty and injustice that prevent their birth parents from raising them.

CHIFFster co-conspirator John Simon, notched it up with this tweet: probably posted the last week of April 2014. (He blocked me so I can’t get to it:

Most “orphans” have at least one parent that is alive. That doesn’t mean they don’t need new parents.”

If you think this is off the rails, try this post From Birthmothers Deserve Choice: dated August 23, 2013 where Jay claims that opponents to international adoption fetishsize women of color, force them to parent children they don’t want, and hold children, hostage, to a “futuristic social agenda” of economic improvement and social justice. Moreover, she implies further down (not quoted here) that child relinquishment is normal and accepted in the West. She claims that no one criticizes or complains about white middle-class women who chose adoption. They, in fact, are celebrated by “liberals “while they condemn women of color who do the same. I

Opponents of international adoption like to imply that third world birth moms with adequate food and shelter would never voluntarily give up their children, and therefore we should focus all of our attention on poverty reduction programs. There are a couple big problems with this argument.

…it is fundamentally racist to presume that women in third world countries would behave differently from women in first world countries, given the same set of circumstances and opportunities. I don’t see opponents arguing against the reality that birth moms in first world countries put their children up for adoption. Therefore, what they are really arguing is that women in third world countries are fundamentally “different.” This viewpoint reminds me of the “Noble Savage” myth, in which “native” people are idealized to the point of fetishism.

Finally, embracing the language of adoption consumerism she posits the absurd claim that exploited mothers voluntarily choose international adoption despite stipulations in the Hague Convention,  fantasizing apparently that “choice” is actually a choice for many women and families around the world and they choose to stick to the Hague:

The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption specifically requires that placement options within birth countries must be exhausted before international adoption can be considered. But apparently birth moms around the world don’t share that value. What they do value is choosing families for their children. When international adoption policy doesn’t align with what birth moms want, policy makers should take note.

I wonder how she feels about the choice of some American mothers to ship their children off to Europe or Canada for adoption; thus,.depriving “desperate” Americans their shot at parenthood?.

____________________

Jay, of course, attempted to demonize and silence adoptees, including international adoptees whom, she believes benefit from but are unfit for the largess of herself and her gang of white saviors.

She reserved special ire for Daniel Ibn Zayd/Daniel Drennan ElAwar, the Marxist in her woodpile. a highly regarded rematriated adoptee intellectual,and adoption critic and theoretician out of New Jersey who at the time was teaching at a university in Lebanon, his country of birth. For well over a decade he has published a series of blogs, essays, online comments, and delivered conference papers which must have blown the top off of Jay’s head . He uses big scary words –which she refers to in her Progressives blog as “appealing to the ignorant.”  Concepts she ridicules as  “liberation nationalism.” Terms like resistance, Neo-colonialism, ethno-centricity, de-colonization, intersectionality, cultural appropriation, radical psychology, imperialism, displacement, rematriation– and his routine fuck off to her.

I don’t know what specifically launched Jay’s crazy Twitter attack on ElAwar,:

And later  (I have no screen capture)

No, Daniel Ibn Zayd in particular does hate speech. Not adoptees in general, obviously. Have you read his blogs?

Yes, Katie…many of us read Daniels’ blog enthusiastically and agreed with him.

In Lebanon 2015: Adoption is War! ElAwar dismisses Jay’s name-calling  Orwellian accusations. There are links to other “Phelpsian” essays there,  ElAwar wrote:

To be against adoption makes us “crazy”. Our goal is to keep children in institutions. We “team up” and inflict this punishment on children. Our activism is somehow equated with the morally repugnant antics of Fred Phelps. The desire of countries to staunch the exportation of their children is belittled as “nationalist, ethno-centric sentiment”. Overlooking the implicit classism and racism of this statement, as well as the tacit ridiculousness of “arguing” on behalf of a dominant mode which shoves this treacle down our throats every second of every single day, we nonetheless know the statement she is making is much more than that. And it’s a filthy thing to say on her part.

Kevin Haebeom Vollmers, from the international adoptee organization Land of Gazillion Adoptees wrote a detailed account of what he called Jay’s “crazy train” on Buzzfeed. I also wrote about Jay’s train ride, which choo-chooed into a personal attack on me by Jay’s comrade-in-arms Martha Osborne, with Reese’s Rainbow an agency that places children with Down Syndrome and other special needs, Osborne first accused me of being a not-adopted agitator but then decided I’m an LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee.) (See Petard blog)

____________________

While all of this was going on Jay was in the midst of negotiating the adoption of a girl from the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am not sure if any of us paid much attention to her personal life back then or even read her blog. I didn’t, so it was pretty much after the fact that some of us heard about it. Jay’s desperate bid for motherhood, clearly sent her on her fanatic trip on the crazy train, though I’m sure the tracks were laid long ago.

In the midst of Jay’s adoption “journey,” DCR  clamped the adoption pipeline citing corruption and child selling, Adopters and kids were trapped in the pipeline with adopters saying adoptions had been finalized and the kids were ready for shipment while the Congolese government saying they weren’t and wouldn’t be. Jay went ballistic at the “withholding of her child,” laid siege on the State Department, and used her blog, apparently created to excoriate not only the US and DRC governments but child welfare NGOs, and adoption reformers.

She wrote continually about the situation and moved her attacks into other closed countries. citing  Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal as countries where American PAPs had been mistreated and their “rights” by the State Department. investigations.  She rejected claims of widespread adoption abuse in those countries involving adoption agencies, orphanages., and government officials although they had been credibility accused and proven as locations of corrupt practices and trafficking,

In May 2014  she filed for injunctive relief under the Freedom of Information Act against the State Department seeking documents about its role in blocking international adoptions. She wrote in Why I am Suing the State Department:

Tens of thousands of children who could have been adopted represents a humanitarian crisis. Adoption would have saved those children from death in orphanages or eventually being trafficked for sex or labor.

She reported receiving what sounded like voluminous records eventually.

A few children eventually got through, Miraculously, at some point (I don’t’ have a data handy), the little girl from DRC arrived on Jay’s doorstep with no public explanation but a big online Katie Jay brag, generating a lot of speculation among adoption reformers and adoptee rights activists she had used questionable or quasi-legal means to get the girl to the US.   Soon after Jay shut down her blog and went silent.

____________________

Astoundingly, despite its high roller pushers, CHIFF sputtered after Katie Jay’s meltdowns. It died officially at the end of the 113th Session of Congress, December 2014. Maureen McCauley, writing in Light of Day Stories explains how CHIFFters under-estimated their opposition, alienated government agencies and departments, and ignored the contradictions in their arguments. She doesn’t mention Katie Jay, but IMO, Jay’s tantrums turned off potential supporters and crippled passage, though in retrospect, CHIFF was probably on life support when she hit the keyboard.  Swinging a broad brush she refused to notice that some CHIFF opponents were not opposed to international, adoption per se but to CHIFF and its tactics. And her.

In 2014 Katie Jay was nominated for a Demons in Adoption Award, but lost to the odious child-stealing Adoptions by Gentle Care in Columbus, Ohio which finally went belly-up last year after a series of lawsuits tanked their bank account and credibility. She was nominated by an adoptive father.

After CHIFF died I forgot about Katie Jay, although I shouldn’t. People like her never go away. That she showed up on Parler, selling her wares, to a notably unpleasant consumer class, is no surprise. With her political contradictions (her inner argument global adoption v America First acquisition) , paranoia, hypocrisy,  and lack of filters, she fit right in.

Whence Parler?

I am not a huge fan of de-platforming, since I believe it’s safer for sunlight to burn the rot otherwise it festers in darkness, but Parler’s fall doesn’t bother me. Amazon, Google, and others are private businesses, not the government.  They are not subject to the First Amendment despite Trumpster whinging.  They can pick and chose whom they service, and they don’t want Parler, its Qs  Karens, and crackpots. But, as an oppositional researcher and activist, I also believe it is important to be able to mine those millions of posts for research and reckoning inside and outside of AdoptionLand.

Adoption businesses were clearly on Parler to market their goods to their rightwing and often evangelical base. Since I was unable to do a really good search I can’t discuss their messaging or success with any certainty. .That they chose to show up on that nut-populated platform, which ended up as the launchpad for the insurgent invasion of the US Capitol, however,  informs us of their belief system and agenda. Or else they were just stupid. Social media is social media is social media.

Fortunately, at least some Parler archives may be available soon. Gizmodo reported earlier this week that Parler is being archived and will be available eventually on Internet Archives, though since I’ve heard conflicting stories  I am unclear if this is a partial or full retrieval or how searchable it will be. There is also talk floating around that Parler will obtain an alternative platform. Mashable reports that Parler registered its domain with Epik, the far-right friendly platform that hosts Gab. Epik says, however, that the companies have not held discussions. We don’t know if Parler will migrate its voluminous site to Epik and how long that would take, or start over or remain dead.  If Parler shows up in any form, I’ll be checking posts daily, I’ll be mining data on the Wayback Machine or Parler no matter what.

 

2 Replies to “What I Found on Parler: Adoption, the Adoption Industry, and Katie Jay, Esq. A Little Adoption History Lesson”

  1. Katie Jay has, for 10 years, prevented her step-son, who has autism, from residing in her home. The situation was reported to the Department of Children & Families (Florida ). When questioned by said authorities as to any responsibility, including moral responsibility, she & her husband, Bennett (my son) had for Max, both of them said “none “. The authorities notified me re this conversation. Max’s mother died when Max was about 15. I acknowledge that Bennett could have prevented this situation, but, he will not oppose Katy. They have adopted 2 children, one from DRC and one from China. Max, at my insistence, is now in a supervised living situation. Before the intervention by the Department he was bounced from airbnb to airbnb. He was settled into an apartment where he was surrounded by drug dealers & was a “mark”. He is provided with $150 per week by his father for all expenses excluding rent. Max is 25 years old. He lived with me & my late husband for 5 1/2 years. Declining health & age prevented us from continuing this accommodation.
    There was a trust fund established before his mother’s death that would have provided Max with lifetime financial security. This fund has vanished.
    I am now 78 years old & am moving to Vermont so that I can be near my daughter & her family. Max has been abandoned emotionally.
    I don’t know what can be done. I am writing this because you understand Atty. Jay well. In my opinion she is evil.
    I am a licensed clinical social worker in Florida, and am retiring in the near future.

    Reply ↓

    • Thank you for posting this. I’m not sure what happened, but I just found it today waiting for approval. This is extremely disturbing. I have been concerned about her adoptee acquisitions for some time, and now moreso.

      Reply ↓

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