Specifically, this post deals with comments made by an ARD organizer in the aftermath of the event.

***

Gershom’s over on Adopted Jane’s blog rewriting history.

Gerhom’s comment is on Jane’s own blog post about her being banned from the adult adoptees forum as well. I am not going to muck up Jane’s blog with this crap, so I’ll be pointing folks here to this response.

I suppose it’s time to pull out the data, let people read it for themselves, and make up their own minds.

Let’s address some of Gershom’s accusations first:

As an ORIGINAL organizer, BLC hasn’t done anything BUT cry about it and me since I was in New Orleans, and have returned from New Orleans.

Well let’s see, the Adoptee Rights Demonstration (ARD) in New Orleans was held July 22nd.

Anyone looking at my blog can see I did a piece on the 21st, Adoptee Rights Demonstration / Day for Adoptee Rights some history and Gershom’s “storm”. In it, I discussed some background history of the terminology and the event. I also wrote a political criticism of some of the language Gershom was using in the lead up to the event.

IF media decided to do any kind of piece on the event in New Orleans scheduled for the next day, or if other bystanders or even participants were interested, I felt it was important to make some background history available. It was also important to point out that no (inter) national open records or adoptee rights organization had endorsed nor sponsored the event taking place in NOLA.

I also felt it was important that people understand that what had originally been called for was a mass event, not what would come to be 60 (or fewer) people. It was important to judge the ’success’ of the event against the call that had gone out for the event.

On the 22nd itself, after the march and protest portions of the ARD had taken place, I restored posts I had previously written prior to my resignation from the ARD calling for participation in the ARD. See ARD- Baby Love Child earlier ARD posts, history restoration.

On the 23rd, at the urging of my readers, who were searching for information on what happened in New Orleans and finding mere crumbs, I wrote ARD- Morning after media coverage , Afternoon Photo UPDATE. ARD organizers had not put anything out and people we genuinely wondering whether or not the event had even taken place.

On the 24th, I pointed my readers at the ARD page update, (so that they could get it ’straight from the horses….’ well, whereever,) Adoptee Rights Demonstration updates their page, now that it’s mostly over so they could read Gershom’s (and others’) perspectives as well. I didn’t have to agree with their perspective, but I thought it important that my readers read about it from multiple angles and get information directly from those who put it on rather than only second hand sources. Again, I trust my readers to be intelligent enough to make up their own minds about these things.

On the 25th, after the personal attack thread aimed at me on adult adoptees by ARD related individuals, including Gershom, I removed my writings from their ’support’ based board, and posted a brief note to my own blog about what happened to the writings before anyone assumed adult adoptees board administrators had done anything to them. See ARD related – my ‘Adult’ Adoptees posts are no longer available. I only wrote about such on my own blog. The last post I had made to adult adoptees was June 1rst.

I removed my posts from the adult adoptees forum for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being, it was clearly open season on me personally over there. For a ’support’ forum, it was hardly a welcoming, let alone supportive space. I wanted to protect my own work that I had once posted over there, and did not want board administrators, such as Joy who were clearly acting in an antagonistic manner towards me to have an opportunity to in any way delete, alter, or lock down any more of my posts on the forum. I did however, maintain my account there, after removing my own work.

On the 26th Joy ‘releived’ me of my adult adoptees account. I explained to my readers what had happened on my own blog, ARD, Adult Adoptees “relieves” me of my membership.

Gershom attempted to comment on my blog, and I moderated it at the time, saying that yes, I had received her comment would get to it as time allowed. (Later, after Gershom responded to a later post of mine on my blog with the YouTube video and song lyrics to “pepsi anyone” on her personal blog, the gist of which can of course be summed up by the line “I’m gonna keep on I’m a do my own thing”. I ‘reprioritized’ getting back to her comment in light of how pointless such clearly was. You can find a copy of how her blog appeared at the time via google’s cache.)

Her comment, which remains moderated, (as ARD organizers such as Gershom have the rest of net to spew their bile all over, I needn’t add my blog to such real estate) was filled with ‘gems’ such as these:

What does it feel like to be someone who just makes things up in order to prove a point? Do you ever feel concrete at all? Do you wobble when you walk? Do you roll right out of bed when you are sleeping? You must have no solid ground beneath you

and, referring to the thread targeting me on adult adoptees:

I posted in that thread last night, it was long over due and it felt great. I posted a picture of an Attention Whore in honor of you.

While I won’t post details of what was in the adult adoptees thread entitled “Comments to Baby Love Child’s blog that’ll never see the true light of day” as adult adoptees is a private forum, Gershom’s comment above should certainly give readers a feel for the ‘tone’ of the thread before it came down. It was petty, childish, and yes, ARD organizers lashing out and name calling in what was billed as an ‘adoptee support’ forum.

Nor was this the first such instance aimed at me personally there. After I posted my two sentence resignation back at the end of May, Joy and others proceeded to ream me for having done so. Joy (acting as the moderator) eventually went so far as to slap me with a warning, saying:

You go on about your 2 sentences but 2 sentences are enough

(You can read the full text concerning such in my eariler post, My brief statement on what happened on the Adult Adoptees forum.)

The two sentences in question, the ones I posted as the beginning of a thread to the adult adoptees forum (May 31, 2008, at 1:43:44 AM) were:

I and my partner Sleeps with Bastard will not be in N’awlins this July.

I have resigned as the Adoptee Rights Demonstration/Day for Adoptee Rights March/Protest Volunteer Trainer and Head Monitor.

Remarkable, isn’t it? That simply posting those two sentences was enough to kick off a firestorm.

To quote Marley/Bastardette’s comment on my blog post:

Absolutely, BLC. I have no idea where this hatred is spewing from from and why. If one reads the actual thread, the question that pops out immediately is why are they so mad? What in the world did you do that was so wrong? Why would your simple statement of resignation set off one of the worse, if not THE worst trashing of an activist I’ve seen in my 15 years online? Why you are the target of this hate-a-thon is beyond me. This is a perfect example of why the records access has not gotten farther than it has.

July 28th, I posted, again, this time, in response to readers wondering whether or not Abrazo Adoption Associates had actually been present in New Orleans considering the splintering of the ARD organizing committee Abrazo’s fundraising activities (without organizer’s knowledge or consent) had been one cause of. This is the post I wrote, *UPDATED* Abrazo revised fundraising dates, Abrazo related personnel were at the ARD, and Gershom’s comment on such.

All of which is to say, far from “crying” about any of it, I’ve been providing strategic political and tactical analysis, information into the vacuum left by ARD organizers themselves, (as the ARD page certainly wasn’t answering these questions for my readers), and historical perspective.

But back to Gershom’s comment on Jane’s blog, Gershom then goes on to get her chronology ‘tangled’ (to put it as charitably as possible):

In fact, one of the major reasons she was on moderation at AAAFC is her tantrum she tried to throw on AAAFC after she was booted ( before she “resigned” )from the protest organizers list.

(AAAFC, “Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change” is the full title of “Adult Adoptees” AAAFC’s Forum is the venue in question herein.)

The actual chronology was that I resigned from the ARD organizer’s list (no one ‘booted’ me, my partner and I posted our resignations and unsubscribed ourselves the night of May 30th, no one ever asked us to leave, and if anything, we stayed on roughly an extra day after Bastard Nation had withdrawn.), then I posted my two sentence resignation on my blog, Baby Love Child’s resignation and on the adult adoptees forum.

As a result of those two sentences, and that multiple page long thread on adult adoptees, Joy slapped me with the ‘warning’. In part II readers will be able to see the exact post she tagged, keeping in mind, Joy claims my “two sentences are enough.”

Which then leads me to my original posts on the adult adoptees forum in the resignation thread, the ones Gershom just characterized as a “tantrum”. As they are no longer available online, I will continue with my ongoing process of ‘history restoration’ by making them available again in part II.

I’ll leave to to my intelligent readers (as opposed to my delusional readers) to decide for themselves whether or not said comments constitute a “tantrum.” Unfortunately, as adult adoptees is a private forum, I will only be posting my own writings, not the rantings directed at me which were also originally part of the thread.

Suffice it to say, I find Gershom’s characterization disingenuous at best.

(Part II will be posted when I have some time to clean out and reformat the text, it won’t be immediate. It will likely be a few days as this is a busy week for me.)

Consider this babystep towards writing Ron and Bastard Nation back into the ARD history as well, particularly in light of statements made by Gershom, the current organizer such as

I have done EVERYTHING. Not you, not bastard nation, not ron, ME.

from this Bastardette comment thread posted by Gershom at June 5, 2008 12:25:00 AM EDT.

Why would I start with such a quote in the prelude? Because it’s belies exactly how much history Gershom doesn’t know and precisely how vicious she became when those who had been around through it called her on her crap.

I’m not writing on behalf of anyone in this other than myself. And as I’ve said in my “about page” I consider myself, particularly in relation to the current Adoptee Rights Demonstration from which I’ve resigned,

far enough external to the industry, and the seats of power that it’s relatively ‘independent’ by comparison.

***

Long before the Adoptee Rights Demonstration (which will take place in New Orleans this week) was even a glimmer in the eye of those who eventually began down the path of starting work upon it, there was the original “ARD”, the “Adoptee Rights Day”.

The First Adoptee Rights Day was celebrated in 1998 to mark the one year anniversary of the passage of Oregon’s measure 58, the statewide referendum that eventually led to open records. Which means we need to go back even further still to understand how things came to the point of even having an Oregon victory to celebrate.

We have to go back to July 18-20th 1997, in Chicago, IL where Bastard Nation first held their initial conference, “Birth of a Bastard Nation.” I wasn’t there. I missed it entirely.

(Instead, I first met Marley staffing the BN table over Comfest in Columbus, Ohio that same summer. Having been a Queer Nation member, I took one look at Bastard Nation’s “spermburst” logo and I knew I where I had to be. You can see Marley’s write up of the tabling here, I was one of those “These are MY records” types.)

That was all back in those halcyon days of our youth before we learned just how ugly adoption politics really can be, what with entrenched industry interests demanding their own actions be covered by sealed records on the one side, and adoption ‘deformers’ willing so often to sell genuine open records down the river in exchange for a pittance on the other. (”Here I am, stuck in the middle with you,” I rather like the Bob Dylan version myself.)

But the Chicago conference was a watershed event.

One of the workshops, “Applying the Principles of Tactical Activism: Fostering the growth and political clout of Bastard Nation” given by “Activist/Attorney/Author Randy Shaw got some Bastards thinking. (Shaw: founder and Executive Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic and more recently BeyondChron named in part due to its criticism of the San Francisco Chronicle, importantly, he’s also the author of “The Activist’s Handbook: A Primer for the 1990’s and Beyond“, a book that got many Bastard Nationals thinking, and strategizing.) Ballot initiatives are one of the things Shaw views as an important tool in the activist’s toolbox.

Again, you would have to speak with those who were actually there at the time, but the ‘action path’ that came out of that first BN conference eventually became the statewide general election referendum in Oregon in 1998 that came to be known as “Measure 58.” (Unfortunately Bastards would have to wait until May 30th, 2000 at 5:01pm for Measure 58 to finally go into effect due to challenges winding their way through the courts.) You can read about the history of the initiative here.

Now I’m not saying Bastard Nation did it all by our lonesomes (speaking as a lifelong BN member, myself), but I am saying the spark that grew into measure 58, came from the rubbing of Bastard Nation members, specifically a few BN related individuals (steel) against early Bastard Activism and wanting to actually gain our records (flint).

You see, Helen Hill, the Chief Petitioner in Oregon, and Shea Grimm, both Bastard Nationals had been at the Chicago conference. They went home, rolled up their sleeves, and set about changing the world. You can read about how coming off the conference moved into measure 58 in E. Wayne Carp’s book “Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58.” (Page 32 is kind of a jump to starting point mentioning the conference.) I’m not saying the book is perfect, not by a long shot, but it does at least lay out some of that “spark” in published form.

BN itself of course was crucial to Oregon’s measure 58. It was certainly a real focus by the time of the second conference, Bastards by the Bay: The Convergence, in San Francisco. My partner, Sleeps with Bastard and I were both involved by then. Keynoters Christina Crawford, Ricki Solinger, and Anne Babb gave us lots to chew on, before folks headed out to do a sealed records protest.

Indeed a key piece of that (first ever) Birth of a Bastard Nation (Chicago) conference was moving from theory to practice. Randy’s session was Friday July 18th, 1997 from 10:30am to noon. From 12pm to 3pm was Bastard Nation’s “Sealed Records Protest” which you can see the now historic photos of here.

Many of the people who went on to form the backbone of BN were present, specifically, I’ll mention both Marley Greiner and Ron Morgan as they form perhaps the bridge from that moment in Chicago to what became the “Adoptee Rights Demonstration”.

Now the conference may have been titled “Birth of a Bastard Nation”, but BN activism was born long before Chicago. On the these BN pages (here and here as but two examples) you can explore bits and pieces of Bastard activism going back toward the mid nineties.

In any case, the current Adoptee Rights Demonstration’s roots lie in those events and those early Bastard activist friendships that formed in the early days of Bastard Nation.

Which brings us up to Adoptee Rights Day. As I said, the first was back in 1998, “Commemorating the Anniversary of Oregon’s Historic Adoptee Rights Initiative” (to use a particular turn of phrase the Adoptee Rights Day came to use.)

ARD has always been both an educational event and an activism event. Legislators were contacted, and many Bastards went to Vital Statistics, to request copies of their (sealed) records, to protest, and to pass out educational material. More than just a single day, ARD has also been envisioned as a week of actions, including educational events and street theater. You can see this How to ARD page leading into the third anniversary to help you get a better idea what ARD was all about. (you will note that it is on the BN site.) Also be sure to see Anita Field’s (she’s a current Bastard Nation ExecCom member) Editorial written for ARD.

There was also a NARD e-mail group on Yahoo. There was always a focus on tying ARD events to what was happening state by state legislatively. State legislators were contacted concerning upcoming open records legislation, but also sometimes contacted about the ARD event itself, particularly bill sponsors and cosponsors.

To anonymously quote one e-mail from a Bastard in the wake of holding their state’s ARD event:

…I want to thank BN for providing us the avenue of ARD.

Clearly, the original ARD was of mutual benefit, organizationally it was good for BN nationally, and those in their home states also found it a productive tool both individually and organizationally.

It’s important to note that even back of the days of the original ARD, there was participation by parents and adoptive parents alongside Bastards.

This is a press release from what was then called “NARD” or “National Adoptee Rights Day.” Note that it contains sentences such as this:

Bastard Nation, the leading national adoptee rights organization, is helping coordinate events at Vital Statistics offices nationwide to show solidarity with the adoptees of Oregon and to celebrate National Adoptee Rights Day: a day dedicated to supporting dignity and ending government-sanctioned shame in adoption.

And that Ron Morgan, himself a Bastard National, was the “National Leader” as well as the contact person for the protest in San Francisco:

Contact National Leader Ron Morgan

You may also want to note the leadership of other sites, Helen Hill, for example, in Oregon. Bastard Nation was an intrinsic part of (N)ARD, so much so that the NARD webpage was hosted by BN.

When all was said and done, the first “ARD event” had occurred at 20 sites spread across 16 states.

In 1999, Bastards were at it again. The second ARD encompassed 27 sites in 15 states.

Want to read some individual state reports, see pictures, and even read press related to those original ARDs? You guessed it, you’ll find several ARD archives on the Bastard Nation page; here and here. Also note the e-mail address on the second link:

To get involved in your neck of the woods email nardinfo@bastards.org

Here, out of Bastard Nation’s Bastard Quarterly, you’ll see a write up and many pictures from ARD ‘01.

Starting to see a pattern? That’s because BN and (N) ARD were absolutely interconnected. Without BN how much ARD do you suppose would have happened?

And yes, Ron Morgan was a huge part of all of that, his role in it can not be understated. As I said, he was the “National Leader” on the original ARD in addition to pulling the SF event together. ARD was in some very concrete ways, his ‘baby’ so to speak. It is also important to note that both he and other BN activists worked together on CA open (see the CA section out of Bastard Nation’s Bastard Quarterly, the June ‘99 LegWatch). As early as ‘99, perhaps even earlier, Ron was the contact person in the “CA open” efforts and was doing the legwork of building towards CA open 2000, this grew into CA open 2001, etc.)

In short, both on the state and national levels BN and BN activists like Ron were working in their home states, doing work legislative, educational, and yes in the streets.

Which brings us up to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration. As I’ve said here on my blog before, Ron had been strategizing the idea of targeting the National Conference of State Legislators annual meeting for some time. He was interested in putting together a “mass action,” a large national (or even international?) event in which Bastards brought pressure on state legislators.

Note that I said “pressure,” as what Ron envisioned was an event or series of interconnected events that could be used together to essentially force the issue. This was going to take people fully versed in what the issues were, what language to use (and not to use), people who were thinking and strategically, and ultimately, the bottom line, an awful lot of them. Not just a few. Not ’some’, or even ‘many’, PRESSURE LOTS!

Which brings us up to last year. No doubt there are many other bits and pieces I should have included in the Original ARD (O-ARD) history, but I’ll leave that for those who experienced it directly to help fill out if they so chose. For the sake of brevity, I leave this portion at that. So last year… .

(First I’m going to have to do some adoption related blog introductions, please bear with me.)

Ron aka B.B. Church (who blogs Are you adopted? Are you sure? A Blog About Late Discovery Adoptees and B.B. Church’s Funhouse.)

and

Gershom (who blogs (Without a Tribe)/The Adoptee Rights Demonstration July 22, 2008, CALOpen, Anti-Adoption, and the Adoptee Rights Demonstration page itself. )

The two ran across one another and decided to move on Ron’s idea of an Adoptee Rights Demonstration outside the National Conference of State Legislators annual meeting.

Ron had written about the strategic importance of their annual meeting back in March of ‘07 in this post where he took on previous attempts at open records “marches” (on Washington in particular), his post is perhaps the articulation of his earlier vision for the Adoptee Rights Demonstration as requiring a mass movement kind of effort willing to utilize pressure tactics:

If Open Records leaders wanted to get the loudest bang for their buck, they would take a pass on WDC and go to Boston this August, for the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislators. These are the guys and gals that hold the keys to our records. We should be dogging their steps. We should be camped outside their hotels. We should be glad-handing at their receptions. We should be demanding that our so-called and self-styled leaders organize a march to the real heart of the matter or get out of the way…

Out of this and other such seeds, Ron and Gershom agreed to turn such ideas into an actual event slated for this July in New Orleans, as that was where the annual conference was being held this year.

Gershom, apparently completely unaware of the pre-existing Original ARD (O-ARD) history described from her perspective, how that coming together took place on her blog (on a piece from many months later, after Ron had left the Adoptee Rights Demonstration he had helped build.)

Last year I was an active poster on Soul Of Adoption, and there was this other quirky, yet intelligent, to the point, man there who went by the name of Late Discovery. His avatar had this man who looked like he’d been playing the blues and I liked what he had to say.

So on April 20, 2007 I declared my “passion” for the movement:

I think it would be powerful to have at LEAST one person from every closed record state across our country to enter their counties birth and record department at the exact same time, on the exact same day with media coverage behind them. We will be requesting our ORIGINAL birth records ( which will be denied ) and at the moment they are denied we can begin to have a non violent protest. I am willing to be arrested for this. And i am looking for other like minded adoptees who are willing to do the same. HOPEFULLY we wouldn’t be arrested but that COULD happen.

Sure my vision was a little “blurry” i didn’t understand the politics of adoption and open records, it not being a vital records department issue, but a state issue that had to be taken to the legislatures. That, is where Ron came in. That is when he told me about the NCSL.

By Gershom’s own admission, she’s new to all this. At the dawning of the “Adoptee Rights Demonstration/Day for Adoptee Rights”, as New Orleans protest came to be called Ron was going to be the voice of experience, essentially the lead organizer. Gershom was inexperienced, but learning many new skills from him. Again to quote Gershom’s piece:

Over the next few months he taught me a lot, about politics, about people, about utilizing opportunities to their greatest potential. He taught me so much in those first few months I felt like a student. Most of all, he believed in me.

May 25th, 2007 They put out an announcement entitled A Day for Adoptee Rights, July 2008, New Orleans LA! a copy of which can be found on his B.B.Church’s Funhouse blog. To the best of my knowledge this is the inital announcement of the event. Note that, it is was named “Day for Adoptee Rights,” which to many of us, not just Ron, had a pre-existing history attached.

This time instead of acting in our individual states, they proposed bringing Bastards from all 50 states to the legislators in one place and time, essentially a national action under the DAR name. Basically, as the announcement put it, a PROTEST FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS (PAR?) which over time evolved to the event in N’awlins being called any number of variations along those lines, the “Adoptee Rights Demonstration”, the “Adoptee Rights Protest”, “Day for Adoptee Rights”, (among others, shall we say.)

Clearly, from the start what was being proposed was not anything on the scale of what Open Records related protests had resembled in the past.

We propose a mass action of adoptees representing all fifty states, a one-day rally that will be an opportunity for adoptees demonstrate their commitment to adoptee rights and to meet their state delegation.

We’re back to Ron’s use of the mass action concept- go big or go home. Anything less, again, going back to Ron’s March 7th 2007 blog entry was only a means by which to ultimately shoot ourselves in the foot to his thinking:

Past marches on Washington by Open Records organizers were a bad idea, poorly executed. I think it’s fair to say that they had minimal effect in changing any laws. Worse, by bringing together a few dozen Open Records supporters in the largest possible venue, they create the perception that the Open Records movement is weak and small. Bad political actions discourage people from participating in further actions. Why should they follow leaders that waste their time and resources?

So the effort was begun, the parameters of what they were setting out to achieve were laid out, and they were to be honest, pretty damn ambitious.

Sadly what happened next was the unforeseen, quoting Gershom again:

When his family needed him however, he knew that he couldn’t “be” here for the protest. He withdrew his leadership immediately to myself and a few others on a private board. He would be here for guidance, but his primary concern, like any good man ( and I say that with extra bitterness because I currently can’t STAND my childrens father ) was his family.

The event to which Gershom alludes to is elaborated upon here on Ron’s post announcing his no longer being involved in the Adoptee Rights Demonstration and his

retirement from “adoptee politics”, such as it is

As Ron says in the post:

When I first advocated an action at the National
Conference of State Legislatures lat year I knew how
much hard work it would take to be successful. I knew
it was possible for a small team to organize such an
event, but that the burdens would be great. Then, late
last summer, my wife was diagnosed with a malignant
brain tumor and my entire life focused on her
wellbeing and care.

Unfortunately, this unimaginably sad and difficult set of events changed the entire dynamic of how the Adoptee Rights Demonstration went forward from there on. With Ron unavailable, and later not overseeing the day to day of the preparations many things fell to Gershom. And thus many of the preparations ended up in her name.

As Ron said:

In retrospect it was a serious mistake on my part not to call for a suspension of planning for the ARD event at that time.

Which is not to say, Ron at the time of his stepping away from the current Adoptee Rights Demonstration wanted the idea to die, rather, he advocated a suspension, working towards ‘doing it right’ so to speak, at some future date.

My original vision for the ARD protest was that it
would be a mass action, that it would create an
impact, as opposed to the small-scale adoption reform
actions of the recent past. As the low numbers of
committed attendees attest, this is not happening. I
would like to call for a suspension of the New Orleans
ARD protest. I say suspension rather than cancellation
because I still believe that a protest at an NCSL
annual meeting at some point in the future is a viable
and effective action if executed properly. A
suspension, rather than a cancellation, would allow
the committed attendees to meet in NOLA face to face
and plan next steps.

Now that Ron has “retired,” I would not expect him to be back working for some other year’s event (though I suppose to whatever degree, anything is possible.) Point being, when he initially called for a suspension he had not yet retired and clearly those circumstances have changed now.

But the call for suspension of the N’awlins protest from Ron came many months later. Allow me to back up yet again.

Once Ron was in many ways simply out of the picture the day to day making things happen fell to Gershom. A website was up, donations were being collected, but there was no structure to the “Adoptee Rights 2008 Committee” that had announced the action (as you can see on Ron’s May 25th 2007 post.) There was no non-profit status, there was no fiscal agent, and the webpage never clearly delineated precisely WHO that full committee was. Later, who was and was not an organizer with the event would become an issue, and because there was no publicly available listing of who was responsible for what, it ended up making a bad situation worse.

To this day, the current ARD organizers have never publicly listed exactly who was organizing the event, nor into quite what people were making donations. I am not alleging any fiscal misconduct, I am merely saying one of the reasons I chose not to donate directly to ARD was that there was no visibility into the process and thus it was in some significant ways ultimately ‘accountable’ to no one.

Bastard Nation was a cosponsoring organization, as was “the adoption show” and internet broadcast, along with “Adoptees Unite” a cafepress page selling various logoware.

(The logo is based on a tree with roots which has gone on to become the Adoptee Rights Demonstration’s logo, something many of us objected to as ‘family trees’ are about search and reunion, which are interpersonal issues, not a civil rights issue, and not inherently about restoration of the records confiscated by the State. See Bastard Nations’s FAQ page section entitled “Is Bastard Nation a search organization?” to get a clearer understanding of the issues involved.)

Various individuals were picking up bits and pieces taking on tasks, and preparing to come to N’awlins in July. Well some of us anyway. Speaking for my partner and myself, we certainly had hotel reservations reserved in the Bastard Nation block.

In some ways I felt very ‘late to the party’ when I first blogged about the Adoptee Rights Demonstration back in January ‘08. I contacted Gershom about where things stood and what needed doing, offering to help back in February. She passed my e-mail on to Ron. Later, in March, Ron contacted me and asked if I would be willing to take on a position as the “March/Protest Volunteer Trainer and Head Monitor.” While I had concerns (among others, about coming on what I felt to be so late,) I ultimately agreed to help however I could.

Then we enter a period I’ve already blogged a fair amount about (see my “Adoptee Rights Demonstration” tag for my writings on this matter, the tag will them up in reverse order, newest to oldest), but I’ll draw out a quick sketch for new readers,

May 28th, Gershom coming back to organizers with what quite honestly were pathetic numbers of people who had bothered reserving hotel rooms in the non-BN hotel block (BN’s numbers were likewise, unimpressive) Neither of which amounted to ANYTHING on the scale of the event proposed.

May 29th Ron called for a suspension, which again, you can see the full text of here. AND ARD organizers learned an adoption agency, Abrazo Adoption Associates out of San Antonio Texas, had set up a facebook fundraising page collecting monies off our event, without our knowledge or consent. (At the time, I was still involved, hence my use of “our”.)

The Abrazo fundraising was going into their own 501c3, and had come to over $900. This led to the dual problems of whether the money which was unbeknownst to us up until this point was ultimately supposed to end up in their own agency coffers or whether such would be transfered from their account (now that we knew about the money) into ARD. Which raised it’s own issues.

BN has a policy against entanglement with agency money, I personally take a similar stance.

No matter where the money was going to end up (and actions spoke far louder than words, they money was already in their agency’s 501c3 and they had never told us of it’s existence, despite them utilizing our event to raise it in the first place) the circumstances under which it was raised were to say the least highly questionable.

The two simultaneous issues, that of the projected minimal attendance AND the Abrazo fundraising along with the previous history many of us ‘long timers’ had with both Ron and and the Day for Adoptee Rights in its previous incarnation led us to take Ron’s call for suspension very seriously.

However, as I pointed out above much of the preparations were in Gershom’s name, so even had the rest of us decided to ‘turn it off’, she still could have gone ahead. This was problematic, not merely in terms of the event itself, but in terms of what it meant to the entire legacy of what DAR had originally been. Some of us were not aware things were in Gershom’s name until we were well into this process. When I was contacted to work with DAR, for example I was under the impression the Adoptee Rights Demonstration was also Ron’s ‘baby’ with Gershom working as an assistant, and learning from him. Instead, we found ourselves in the situation where it was not under Ron’s control. The ‘buck stops here’ had shifted.

Simply put, Ron’s (and BN’s) ‘babies’ had been ‘adopted’.

And so the Adoptee Rights Demonstration essentially lost all the people with Day for Adoptee Rights institutional memory; Bastard Nation organizationally looked at the numbers and the ethical issues raised by the Abrazo fundraising and came to the conclusion that they organizationally had to withdraw their support from the event. The evening of the 29th, Bastard Nation (which to some of us was synonymous with what ARD had always meant in the past) withdrew. Early the next week, Bastard Nation posted their statement on the withdrawal.

This left the Adoptee Rights Demonstration with no national open records membership organization supporting it.

Two webpages and the people behind them as your sponsors along with numerous individuals simply cannot equate to what losing BN meant. When current DAR representatives speak with state legislators over the course of this event, they speak for themselves, not the broader adoptee civil rights/open records movement.

Going ahead with plans to continue the event with such non-mass movement numbers when that was part of what had been at the heart of the event signaled a fundamental change in the very nature of the event. It was no longer true to the original articulation of what people had signed on for, nor the vision of the event they had originally donated to.

The previous history Bastard Nationals and others had working under the name Adoptee Rights Day was likely an important part of why donations were given to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, in essence, it was building on a foundation laid by Ron, and with Ron’s name on the ARDemonstration, no doubt many people took his and Bastard Nation’s presences as an indicator of a good thing, worthy of donations.

My partner and I stayed on for an additional 24 hours, waiting to see if the Abrazo mess had any hope of being straightened out before we made our final decision of whether to stay or go.

The following evening, (the 30th) Ron reported back the results of his phone call with the executive director of Abrazo, Elizabeth Jurnovich, she refused to acknowledge Abrazo had done anything wrong.

My partner and I resigned that evening, and I posted my two sentence statement.

Later, we would find one of the ARD organizers, Amyadoptee was pointing readers of her blog into the Abrazo fundraising, which was still ongoing and Abrazo continued on until what appears to have been June 4th, despite Abrazo being contacted by Ron on the 30th.

This was how the post originally appeared back when it was originally posted on May 31rst-

OPEN ADOPTION ROCKS

I have only been in avid support for one agency in my time of writing this blog. They are the only agency that puts their money where their mouth is. Abrazos Adoptions Services have began a fundraiser for the Adoptee Rights Protest. If you can join them on facebook, please do. Introducing OPEN ADOPTION ROCKS. Thank you so much for doing this for us adoptees. We really appreciate all the hard work that your agency does for adoptees and their families.

Amy has since changed the text, obliterating her link into Abrazo’s “open adoption rocks” fundraising page, which has also undergone dramatic changes since we first discovered it as well.

To the best of my knowledge Amy continues on as an ARD organizer to this day.

On June 5th Ron posted his statement.

Also on the 5th, Bastard Nation’s Executive Committee unanimously voted Amy off the Bastard Nation Legislative Committee. Amy posted BN’s letter on her blog (she has since removed her post):

June 5, 2008

Dear Amy:

The Executive Committee of Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization has voted unanimously to remove you from the Legislative Committee effective immediately.

Bastard Nation has a long time policy of not accepting support from the adoption industry. Without saying, we do not advocate for the adoption industry or any adoption agency or professional within it. You have done both. As an private individual you have the perfect right to do so, but as a member of BN’s Legislative Committee your duty is to uphold BN principles, practices, and integrity.

Your relationship with Abrazo as documented in your own blog, “Regarding Bastard Nation’s Withdrawal” posted on June 2, 2008 at 3:51 pm and your actions on the original DAR Action List clearly demonstrate a lack of understanding of and concern for Bastard Nation’s mission, activities, and ethics, as well as the security and integrity of the original DAR. We are astounded that you failed to grasp the ethics and motives of an adoption agency funding the DAR protest, much less their procedure of funneling funds sent to them into their own 501(3)(c) account. This funding was done without the knowledge DAR sponsors and leaders, and would never have been approved had they been informed of the scheme.

We take this step to insure the security of Bastard Nation correspondence and the upholding of our principles and rules.

Bastard Nation Executive Committee
Anita Walker Field
Patricia Marler
Marley Greiner, Executive Chair

As I mentioned above, Amy, to the best of my knowledge is still working with nuDAR.

These withdrawals, Bastard Nation, my partner and I, and Ron represented more than half of the original organizing committee for the event.

Gershom had by now announced she was going ahead with the event. Those who were left from the original organizing committee, and other people organizing on adultadoptees.org’s forum decided to try to make an orders of magnitude scaled down Adoptee Rights Demonstration go forward.

Apparently, far from filing the streets, the current Adoptee Rights Demonstration does not even have a permit for the march from Layfayette Square to the convention center. So they, and their attempts at mandated signage will be ‘marching’ on the sidewalk.

For clarity’s sake, some of us ‘old’ DAR organizers have taken to calling this new incarnation, nuDAR. So you have O-DAR, DAR, and nuDAR, or O-ARD, ARD and nuARD.

O- meaning Original, pre-Gershom

just plain ARD or DAR being the period where the two overlap,

and nu, meaning those pretty much without the benefit of history.

Unfortunately nuDAR is not the only thing being built upon the bones of the pre-existing history, thereby leading to confusion. As Gershom has set up her Calopen that too, will no doubt be confused with pre-existing history, not only in that state, but more broadly with other states’ “open” efforts. One can only hope Gershom’s Calopen is with the knowledge and consent of the previously existing CAopen activists, else, well, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.

The sad part is how much of original Day for Adoptee Rights information is still available publicly on the web, and yet the nuDAR organizers often appear oblivious.

And with that lack of history and experience at least on the part of Gershom have come other problems.

Not the least of which being perhaps the single worst example of ‘activist’ tone-deaf insensitivity I have seen in my going on way too many decades of activism (not merely Bastard activism, but my years as an activist period!)

I had been speaking for some time now, both on my blog and behind the scenes about my love for N’awlins itself and how working in the city in this post-Katrina aftermath was going to take sensitivity and cluefulness. As recently as July 10th, I tried to make this abundantly clear in my post ARD- For those going to N’awlins:

Those still going would do well not be ‘tone deaf’ to the realities of N’awlins.

Unfortunately, Gershom, here on the eve of the event has managed to do the unthinkable.

In her July 19th blog post she likened the (nu) Adoptee Rights Demonstration to a “storm”:

The calm before the storm has come and past and the storm is here, WE ARE THE STORM, and we are NOT going away.

Girl, trust you me, the last thing N’awlins needs right now is another “storm.” Let alone one that won’t leave. (Natural impossibility, but truly a nightmare prospect for those who have already had to endure too much!)

Are you daft?

Likening those working to regain our basic rights and restore the records that were taken from us, (i.e. rebuilding what was lost, hoping to regain what we once had that is now gone) to the destructive power of a “Storm” heading towards NEW ORLEANS is in a word unforgivable. Period.

As I said, perhaps the single worst example of ‘activist’ tone-deaf insensitivity I have seen.

So that’s it. A last straw if you will. Any benefit of the doubt accorded to inexperience, gone.

My disgust runneth over.

By all means, go ahead, tell someone who’s living on the street, having lost everything in the last storm, that there’s ANOTHER storm headed their way.

Think they can’t wait for you to get there? Think again.

On this one, my heart is with my friends, still living in the city.

Not with at least one self professed ‘activist’ who even after reading this may still not understand she did anything wrong.

Unfortunately the legacy of what once was Adoptee Rights Day has fallen into the hands of a least a ‘leader’ the very opposite of what the Adoptee Rights Demonstration was intended to be: politically savy, clueful, streetsmart, mass enough to create political pressure, and most importantly, effective, creating measurable tangible results.

Instead she brags of having people coming from around the world to:

SCREAM WITH US

Effective that’s not.

If you want to throw a little party in New Orleans for yourself and your friends from adultadoptees, knock yourselves out, doesn’t have much to do with the realities of the New Orleans you’ll be sitting in the middle of, but hey, they could use the tourist bucks, as I said, tip well. But right this moment? Words like ‘political activist’ aren’t exactly what come to mind.

(Just a hint, utilizing phrases such as “our discrimination” when what one means is “the discrimination we endure” leads preexisting Adoptee Rights Day folks, not just me to cringe. (Oh, and “eyes roll in disgust”, a late breaking addition from across the room. He’s entitled.)

So folks, bring your sunscreen, pack a hat, drink tons of water, and don’t feel like a wuss for recognizing your limits in the N’awlins heat. The ARD you’re about to get is unrecognizable to the ARD that was originally planned.

And me? I’m just disgusted. Not with youth and inexperience, but with the narcissistic insensitivity.

See, you’re visiting someone else’s home, and while there, it’s best not to put your muddy boots on the antique heirloom coffee table.

So let’s be real clear, Gershom and by extension the Adoptee Rights Demonstration do not and cannot speak for me this week in New Orleans. Further they do not speak for any National or International adoptee rights membership organization.

Individuals from adoptee organizations, and for that matter, individuals related to adoption agencies may be present, but even T-shirts with adoptee rights groups logos such should not be mistaken for any organizational involvement.

On a more personal note? In light of the blatant lack of empathy on display?

Far as I’m concerned, Tuesday is the anniversary of one of my blogs.

In the following, I am basing this timeline on events from the organizer’s list, no doubt many things were happening simultaneously, and individual people may or may not have been aware of each one, further many other details were happening via phone calls and interpersonal e-mails. This is merely the information all ARD/DAR organizers had access to. (Which does not mean each individual organizer was aware of each of the following at the time.)

Also everything in the following is/or has been either already out in public or is paraphrased after first gaining permission to share the details, except the exact times.

Amy’s mention of the Abrazo fundraising to organizers which she had mentioned on her own blog in her piece “Regarding Bastard Nation’s Withdrawal” (originally posted June 2nd) has now been been removed and replaced with a new entry. Originally, the entry detailed her “history” with Abrazo.

Originally, it read in part:

I said that there were people raising money to come to the Adoption Rights Protest. I mentioned Abrazos…

As for the times, they are details I have brought to this because they are essential to explaining what happened; the times relate to what was know-able when.

When the list was presented to individual organizers, it was not explained to be ‘private’ or ‘confidential’ in any way (common sense would say such SHOULD have been, but it wasn’t.) Others have also moved many other details from onlist into a variety of spaces both public and private.

All that said, I don’t speak for Bastard Nation. I’m writing merely as myself, based on some of what my perspective was an organizer within ARD/DAR. Actual Executive Committee members with BN no doubt have a far more detailed timeline.

The following is just was what was onlist, available to any of us from the times they were posted. Essentially, this forms the backbone of a lowest common denominator of information available to ARD/DAR original organizers.

To fully understand the impact of Ron’s proposed postponement to try again another year on many ARD/DAR organizers, readers would have to first understand that even going to the National Conference of State Legislators annual meeting had been Ron’s idea in the first place.

It was Ron who contacted some of us to work with ARD/DAR, and it was my understanding (speaking only for myself here) that he was to have been the lead organizer on ARD/DAR, yet due to his wife’s illness (among other factors) he had been unable to fully take that on. Many things got left to a less experienced organizer who initially was to been helping him. He was the seasoned activist who wanted to make this happen, further, (again speaking only for myself) he was the activist I knew. So naturally when he assessed the situation and said in essence, let’s try it again at a later date, his words carried great weight.

May 29th 2008

(all times are Eastern)

11am BB Church/Ron proposed a postponement of the Adoptee Rights Demonstration /Day for Adoptee Rights (ARD/DAR) You can see his writing from the 29th included in his June 5th blog entry.

11:13am Amyadoptee mentioned Abrazo Adoption (Associates) had a website up to raise money (around ARD/DAR)

9:41pm I requested a very basic, statement from BN for the organizers list only, as to whether BN was going forward or not, purely so other organizers could base their own decisions on whether they wanted to stay on or not with as many facts as possible. BN being on or off might be a deciding factor for some, and so I thought it was important that in light of Ron’s proposed postponement from that morning, that we hear something from BN (as they were a co-sponsor) about what Bastard Nation intended to do organizationally. I asked for such in part because knowing who was in or out would help all organizers with their own evaluation/assessment process of whether or not it made sense to go forward.

10:36pm Marley (the Executive Chair of Bastard Nation) dictated a very brief (two sentence) private statement for the ARD/DAR organizer list by phone, informing us that BN had voted to withdraw organizational support from the event.

11:14pm I said I would be holding off on my personal decision about whether or not I would continue on with ARD/DAR until after Ron’s call with Abrazo the next day.

May 30th

2:36am and again at 3:42am Marley got her first access to e-mail and sent e-mails to me, which I passed along to the list as she was unable to post to the list directly. (The times represent when the e-mails arrived on list.) The two e-mails she sent out were further clarifications of BN’s organizational decision to the organizers’ list.

11:23pm (After Ron’s call with Abrazo) I resigned and my partner, Sleeps with Bastard, and I removed ourselves from the organizers list.

June 1rst

(late Sunday night/Monday morning)

Bastard Nation’s public announcement on their withdrawal from ARD/DAR went out.

June 5th

I am unaware of when Ron ceased working the the current set of ARD/DAR organizers, but his blog statement went up on the 5th.

Between BN, myself and my partner, and Ron’s withdrawals, that represents more than half of the original organizers on the list leaving.

So yes folks, BOTH Ron’s call for postponement (based on low numbers etc) and Abrazo’s fundraising were definitely ‘in play’ BEFORE Bastard Nation withdrew.

In the midst of that, I’ve been working on the Abrazo Adoption Associates angle, and trying to write my own piece about my own past involvement in the Demonstration for Adoptee Rights, my work to make it a success prior to my resignation, my own deep sadness over it, and the many factors that led to my final decision to resign.

Many people fail to understand that for those of us who faced the excruciating decision to withdraw or to make the decision to resign, we’ve been going through our own ‘mourning’ process over what we signed on for, vs. where things finally ended up. We hurt because we too, wanted for this to be a success. Being almost any active part of the way this unfolded was deeply painful. (More to come on that, as more becomes public.)

I myself, I was backed into a corner, where to stay true to my own ethical parameters I was essentially ‘forced’ into the position of resigning. Amyadoptee’s entanglement with Abrazo, which she did not disclose until well after her initial announcement of Abrazo’s fundraising, and her staying on with the event made it impossible for me for me to work with her, and thus continue working with whatever version of ARD-DAR was going to go forward. This alone was enough.

It was still a distinct issue for me from whether or not Abrazo money was ultimately going to go into the event. Something Amyadoptee pleaded for, something I balked at, and something Bastard Nation had (to my understanding) a standing policy against.

And as a third distinct issue, even worse still, Abrazo money apparently may ALREADY be in the ARD/DAR something I first saw posted publicly on Amyadoptee’s blog:

I know that is not the truth because this agency already contributed to the protest previously…

(dated Monday June 2, 08, 12:42am)

But this was not an issue I was aware of at the time of my resignation. I resigned Friday evening. This was posted publicly Monday.

I had ZERO knowledge of any Abrazo money in ARD/DAR during my time as an organizer. This apparent donation only came to light afterwards. If this is true a whole new set of questions arise.

Suffice it to say, the Abrazo issue from where I sit is ANYTHING BUT resolved.

Friday night, I resigned.

People having not heard from the event in some time, (no website center column update since the tail end of April etc), they were like coiled springs, suspecting something had happened, and yet not hearing any news. When my resignation hit, particularly in not publicly available forums, I got the full blast of people’s fury, which so often didn’t even seem related to the words I was writing, even as I worked to clarify.

You can’t explain to people who won’t listen.

But ultimately the facts have borne me out. I said statements would be forthcoming, they have been. They will continue to.

Those of us who have personally resigned represent decades of political experience, and organizing.

‘Sure’ you argue, ‘all you big ole activist types, and this is all you have to show for it?’ Well folks, real life intervenes:

* health issues arise,

* doing the day to day work on legislation- you know like fighting multiple bills at once?- while fighting in multiple states comes to mind- I was certainly working both Ohio bills this time around,

* the fact that I was only asked to work on ARD/DAR in March,

* the list goes on and on.

Yet keep in mind, no matter how much effort was put into it, ultimately I have no control over whether or not people respond, i.e. do things like register for a hotel room. That’s just outta my hands.

Bottom line is before you jump to conclusions, you might just want to wait a moment and get the whole story.

So yes, we were living our day to day lives, (we are after all human, believe it or not,) and doing this on an all volunteer basis, and in the end (of that phase of ARD/DAR, the period when we were on it, not the now) we spent a few days of sheer hell getting through to where we are now. And yes, those of us who left are if anything, trying to get a grasp on the exact details of how this all came down.

And yet in the midst of all that, yes, there still needs to be at least some form of public explanation of what happened, because we’re certainly not the only ones shocked, hurt, and left feeling betrayed.

What I haven’t had time to even start on is the bare facts of the low enrollment and how critical that was to much of the decision making for many of us.

To once again quote the Bastard Nation Statement on their Organizational Withdrawal:

While many people exhibited an interest in attending all or part of the event, the number of people who actually registered or made a serious commitment to attend was minimal.

That’s putting it damn politely.

Fortunately, my partner, Sleeps with Bastard has a new post up on his blog which I will quote in full:

Stating the Obvious

I commented over on The Daily Bastardette on the circumstances of Bastard Nation’s withdrawal from the “Day for Adoptee Rights.”

I am merely a lifetime member of Bastard Nation and have no formal role with the organization.

-

When an event planner books a block of hotel rooms, and about a month and a half before the event (that’s been talked about for most of a year) a minuscule number of people have made the most minimal effort to pick up the phone and make a fully cancelable hotel reservation – thus signing their name to their intended participation in a way that matters – it is time to decide whether or not the event is viable.

Bastard Nation’s leadership, as far as I can tell, has evaluated the situation and made what I think is the only sane decision.

The actions of Abrazo, while critically important and disturbing in their own way, are distinct from the fact that, at the time the decision was made, nearly nobody was attending, and that’s what the decision had to be based on.

A mailing list of people who may be casually interested in the event, and even a verbal statement that someone hopes to come (which included some organizers of the event but not me/us), is not sufficient to gauge interest. Since there’s no formal registration involving paying a fee as there would be with a conventional conference, this is a reasonable alternative to measure how many people are seriously considering coming, even if some were planning to stay with relatives or friends.

I think it’s obvious that if you’re coming to a conference or other event like this, you first register for the event, and then you book your hotel room. This shows the organizers your intent to do something, because if you don’t you’re going to have to make another call and cancel that hotel room.

I do this all the time. It’s not rocket science.

As he said, and as I blogged here, previously, we had our reservations. We felt it was absolutely crucial to do so.

Ron has said on that same Bastardette comment thread that he would be…

…posting a personal statement on the Day for Adoptee Rights later this week…

Many more details will become public at this point, so once again, I urge the impatient (and the loudmouths flying off the handle) to chill, before speculating further.

Finally, I would point readers to my two comments on my post here for further reading of posts written by the full spectrum, from clueful people, from ARD/DAR organizers, from Abrazo, and from aforementioned loudmouths.

(All times in the below are Eastern Standard time)

I told other Adoptee Rights Demonstration organizers at 7:38pm Thursday May 29th:

Point blank had I known about the Abrazo aspect to all this I would have resigned.

This deserves a LOT more discussion than it’s going to get in light of it being overshadowed by everything else.

This was mere hours after Amy revealed at 11:13am to us that Abrazo had been fundraising (off our event without our knowledge). She saw nothing wrong with the fundraising, if anything she appeared to think it was wonderful.

My words above are basically my first response after reading the e-mail from Amy, the time delay is real life folks.

At 6:48pm Ron had also said he had made arrangements to talk with Abrazo the following day (Friday May 30th.)

(The below are SOME of my posts about my concerns about Abrazo, others may make it into another blog post at a later date.)

At 11:14pm on the 29th I said:

I will be holding off on my personal decision on involvement until after we hear back from Ron about tomorrow’s phone call with Abrazo.

At 12:06am On Friday May 30th, I said:

Well, I think the agency aspect needs to be addressed. Obviously tomorrow will be the day that happens but I think it’s pretty damn important.

(I also think there are many other issues as well.)

Tonight anyway, I just see people barging ahead as if nothing happened and not addressing what the agency aspect really means.

At 9:30pm Friday May 30th news about the call reached me

At 9:51pm and 10:07 pm I stated my opinion of what I thought we should do.

Then at 11:23pm I resigned.

At 1:43 am May 31, 2008, I placed the following on the adult adoptees forum:

I and my partner, Sleeps with Bastard will not be in N’awlins this July.

I have resigned as the Adoptee Rights Demonstration/Day for Adoptee Rights March/Protest Volunteer Trainer and Head Monitor.

And not long thereafter placed my resignation here on my blog)

Amyadoptee remains proud of her support of Abrazo Adoption Associates and apparently does not believe she did anything wrong despite her own blog post directing people into Abrazo’s facebook fundraising.

Yes, this means a person subscribed to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration organizer mailing list was simultaneously (See the May 29th 2:33pm date on her post) encouraging donors to give money to the adoption agency itself. (An agency, who was collecting the funds into their own 501c3, using our event without our knowledge or consent at the time.)

This was vastly problematic to some of us.

See her two blog entries:

Regarding Bastard Nation’s Withdrawal

Onto Other Things

To the best of my knowledge she is still currently an organizer with the Adoptee Rights Demonstration.

Abrazo continues to fundraise on facebook. As I am no longer with the Adoptee Rights Demonstration I am not ‘in the know’ to know whether this is now with explicit permission from the current organizers of the Adoptee Rights Demonstration or not.

But even if they now have consent, that most certainly doesn’t change the history nor the circumstances much of that was collected under.

Bastard Nation, my partner Mike/Sleeps with Bastard and I (who were not acting on behalf of any organization in our DAR work, I described myself as a “God Damn Independent” or GDI) as well as others have stepped away from the event in no small part due to the Abrazo involvement.

Once again, quoting the Bastard Nation Withdrawal Statement:

BN has a long-standing, hard-line policy of accepting no support from the adoption industry. Bastard Nation specifically, and the adoptee rights movement in general, cannot and should not be co-opted or used by the adoption industry to promote its own agenda. We disavow all industry involvement in our work. Any entanglement with the adoption industry endangers the integrity and credibility of the adoptee rights movement.

That is close enough to my personal stance. I don’t knowing consent to work with industry money as a matter of personal policy. Particularly an agency the likes of Abrazo Adoption Associates.

Please read the entire statement.

For those following the details of the involvement of the Abrazo Adoption Agency in San Antonio, Texas, the BN statement includes the following:

Unknown to DAR and BN until just a few days ago, Abrazo has been raising funds for the event in DAR’s name.

LINK

These funds went and continue to go directly to the agency, raising huge ethical issues for Bastard Nation and the equal access movement. Records and identity access is about our rights and has no connection with the marketing schemes of adoption agencies. BN has a long-standing, hard-line policy of accepting no support from the adoption industry. Bastard Nation specifically, and the adoptee rights movement in generally cannot and should not be co-opted or used by the adoption industry to promote its own agenda. We disavow all industry involvement in our work. Any entanglement with the adoption industry endangers the integrity and credibility of the adoptee rights movement.

Although BN solicited funds for our specific DAR activities, the only official fundraising site for DAR is on the DAR site. Do not send funds to any other solicitor.

This speaks very specifically to some of the concerns I had which led in part to my resignation.

For further backgrounder, be sure to see these two links, and in particular the characterizations of the links, that my partner, Sleeps with Bastard, included on his blog entry, a very brief comment concerning adoption:

This is an adoption agency collecting money through a website that makes reference to an “adoptee rights demonstration.” Note on the top of the page that “donations to the cause benefit ABRAZO ADOPTION ASSOCIATES,” the agency itself.

This is a person who is subscribed to an organizer’s mailing list for that same “adoptee rights demonstration,” a list that was set up by the primary organizer of the demonstration. Here she is encouraging donors to give money to that same adoption agency.

As of the time of my resignation “amyadoptee” was still on the invite only Day for Adoptee Rights (DAR) organizers list. I am unaware of her current status/current involvement or lack thereof with DAR.

After posting to the “adult” adoptees forum in the thread about my resignation from the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, a post in which I included the text from My partner’s Sleeps with Bastard’s post A very brief comment concerning adoption
by way of explanation for some of the factors leading to my resignation, at 6:15 I was given a warning for “attacking members” and my posting privileges were cut.

I responded to the warning (From Joy, an administrator) at 6:33 asking:

I would like to formally request you explain precisely where in the message I “attacked” a member.

If this board has a dispute process, I would like to formally contest this warning.

At 6:39 Joy, the administrator responded:

You linked Amy’s blog in a disparaging way, you are attacking Kali’s work, AND we love them here, we love them. That includes Me, Dory, Addie, Lillie and Stewie. You are disparaging and insulting the reputations of our loved ones. You are spreading nasty rumors about them. This is not acceptable

I can’t believe you don’t get this. You go on about your 2 sentences but 2 sentences are enough.

You claim you are so much better than the rest of us, so why are you slumming?

Honestly, the warning stands.

Personally, my beef is not with Gershom. Let’s make that clear from the start.

As for Amy, all I’ve ever done is link to information she herself put out on her own blog. Is it “disparaging” to show her own work on behalf of Abrazo’s fundraising, when she herself is proud of it? I think not.

Much as there are certainly more details involved here about the Abrazo fundraising, they are not public knowledge and you would have to talk with both current and former Adoptee Rights Demonstration organizers to get the full story. My partner and I have only pointed to what information is publicly available.

This is not an attack on Gershom, this is about the involvement of the agency’s (Abrazo’s) fundraising and the involvement of Amy with the agency and its fundraising, something she proudly trumpets on her on blog.

My partner and I will not be in New Orleans this July.