Assemblywoman Fiona Ma Opens the Door

I'm not going to spend a lot of time kicking on C.A.R.E in this post, but it's not because my leg is getting tired. C.A.R.E is pretty irrelevant to the process now, for two reasons.

The first reason is that Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, who introduced AB 372 on Monday as a placeholder bill, has communicated through her staff that they are open to conversations with stakeholders in the issue of adoptee records access. That means any and every body. So if you're interested, like I am, in a bill that recognizes the rights of adult adoptees to access their records of birth, contact her office, linked here, and let her know. You can also let her know that you won't accept anything less than unconditional access for all California adult adoptees. If you're a California resident, contact your Assemblymember and State Senator. If you don't know who they are, start here. Standard Disclaimer here: be respectful, be concise, be calm, be reasonable. I guess you don't have to be any of those things, but if you're not you'll end up in the Moonbat File...




The second reason that C.A.R.E. is irrelevant is their own message on AB 372, which is:

"A word about reading a bill: Legislative language, and the language of statutes, can be confusing. The language is based upon existing legal code which encompasses thousands of pages that are all interrelated. The change that we are requesting will allow adult adoptees over the age of 18 access to their original record of birth. The text herin is written by the legislative counsel for the California Assembly and is written for lawyers, not lay people. What's important is that it creates a legal right for adult adoptees to get their birth records."

Try reading this aloud in a Bobby Jindal voice to get the full effect. "You are too dumb to read our bill." No mention of the process. I actually asked a couple of attorneys on Tuesday to read AB 372 and they both told me it was a confused and purposeless bill, so I figured it was a placeholder before I heard the official word from Asm. Ma's office. So if you have a question about this bill, again, contact Asm. Ma's office. They will at least be accurate in communicating the process.


The bottom line is that the door has been opened to the process, time to elbow your way in...

Tweets 'n' twits....

I am totally luvin' Twitter! I can post bon mots to the Funhouse from my iPhone and keep the rumor chamber throbbing with tid bits I pick up from across the vast blogosphere... My tweets are in the sidebar to the right... Don't let the fact that nobody's following me keep you from subscribing, cuz it's only going to get more interesting as AB 372 winds through the sausage maker...

One rumor I heard was that AB 372 is a "placeholder" bill, an innocuous and essentially meaningless piece of fluff designed to hold a place until a REAL bill is introduced. This makes a certain amount of sense; the deadline for introducing a bill is this Friday, February 27th, and if C.A.R.E and Assemblywoman Ma haven't compiled the bill they want, then introducing a placeholder is a good alternative. But AB 372 is kicking up a poop storm in Adoption World, with the moderate reaction being "WHAT?" and the immoderate response being "HORSESH*T!"


Folks are writing strongly worded emails and letters to Ma, organizations are revisiting their decisions to hook up with C.A.R.E... and that's just a reaction to the bill dropping... Wait til things really get rolling...

If AB 372 is a placeholder, then C.A.R.E could have saved itself and its author a lot of grief by saying so up front. There's no shame in that game. "We're submitting this bill that admittedly doesn't go as far as we want in order to save a spot for the bill we will support..." Something like that. And warn your coalition partners so they don't have to face angry villagers carrying torches...



AB 372 was introduced, for all practical purposes, in the dead of night, with no fanfare. No press conference, no media alerts (that I've seen), an announcement on the sponsoring group's website that was a day late and a dollar short... My favorite rumor so far is that a national adoption advocacy group may endorse it... I'm waiting to hear what the adoption attorneys say...

Good times! Stay tuned!

BB Church vs CARE, Nikfa and THE Adopton Institute, with one hand tied behind my back...

C.A.R.E founder Jean Strauss has gone to great lengths to distance her group from the argument that adoptees have a right to know their origins, in part because she assumes this will be a winning strategy for her. I have my doubts. The C.A.R.E. website does mention rights prominently on their website though, the first text you see on the Welcome Page is: “Welcome to C.A.R.E. California's effort to open "original records of birth" for adult adoptees while acknowledging state privacy laws!”

So C.A.R.E acknowledges rights, just not adoptee rights. This strategy completely surrenders the argument of rights to those who oppose Open Records, oh, excuse me, equal access (a phrase that’s pretty meaningless unless you’re arguing that adoptees have a right to equal treatment). And the opponents of Open Records, equal access, adoptee rights, or whatever you want to call it, are happy to use the rights argument to bury the hatchet, right in your pointy little head.


Want to see?

NCFA has just published an article, “Mutual Consent: Balancing the Birthparent’s Right to Privacy with the Adopted Person’s Desire to Know” in their newsletter, “The Adoption Advocate”. The author, Marc Zappala (who deserves some google time if you have a mind for it), has written this as a rebuttal to the study released last year, with much fanfare, by the EBD (which wants us to refer to it as the Adoption Institute, or maybe THE Adoption Institute), “For the Records: Restoring a Right to Adult Adoptees”. I didn’t find the EBD study that compelling, although it paid lip service to the notion of adoptee rights, it didn’t articulate or assert those rights in any meaningful way, and spent much of its ammunition in spreading a gloopy veneer of therapeutics all over everybody. Nikfa’s Zappala uses the original study’s internal contradictions adroitly in his critique.

Under normal conditions I wouldn’t spend a lot of personal units on this. It’s a war between experts, non-adoptees exerting their muscle over which organization gets to control representation of the “triad”. A pox on both their houses, I say. But then there’s this C.A.R.E. business. C.A.R.E evolved, or devolved, out of a conference call work-group hosted by… the EBD, “THE” Adoption Institute. So an attack on THE Adoption Institute can be extended to C.A.R.E. A lot of C.A.R.E. rhetoric and strategy streams from “For the Records”, low on rights, high on emo.

You think not?

Go check out the video on their welcome page… Now, I have to give them props, this is a high quality production. Nice videography, nice editing. The music is down right funereal though. The tone of the whole is totally emo. Strauss made a big deal about how “we”, the undefined adoption community that’s supposed to lap up this stuff, need to drop our “emotional” arguments in favor of the newspeak of C.A.R.E, and what are they featuring? “Adoptees are dying!” EMO!

Well, C.A.R.E has handed their opponents just what they need, the privacy argument. Just for my own sanity, though, I’m going to surgically pull the Nikfa argument into jerked chicken using a rights-based approach. Here’s Nikfa’s closing statement (they use “mandatory openness” for “equal access, Open Records, adoptee rights, etc.” Adoption World is all about the lexicon. If they can define it, they own it…) from “Mutual Consent”:

“Arguments for mandatory openness which attempt to create an equivalent right – the adopted person’s “right to know” – to compete with the birthparents’ fundamental right to privacy rely on disproved assumptions regarding the formation of an adopted person’s identity.”

This is unadorned bullshit.

A right, especially a right that is being enshrined as fundamental, is presumed to preexist law. Laws don’t create rights, laws acknowledge rights. A fundamental right would by definition be universal, applicable to all. In the case of parental rights a fundamental right would be applicable to all parents. But no other parent enjoys the right that NCFA asserts for “birthparents”, the right to remain anonymous to their children. “Birthparents” are a special class of parents created by statute, and could hardly be said to have rights that preexist the law since, as a class, “birthparents” don’t preexist law. First parents have the same right to privacy as any other citizen, no more and no less.

For a right to be recognized, a person must be able to realistically assert that right. Calling a first parent’s right to privacy “fundamental” is a rhetorical bit of legerdemain that obscures just how little a first parent may actually assert this right to privacy in real life. And how far does that “fundamental” right actually extend? Not very. It’s not illegal to discover the identity of your parent, even if you’re an adoptee, it’s not illegal to contact them (unless you’re subject to a Contact Veto, but CVs are unconstitutional. Don't even try them in Cali, C.A.R.E., or you'll open a whole nother can of rights whuppass). With the exception of access to birth records from the state, this “fundamental” right to privacy is porous to the point of absurdity. Individuals may communicate the identity of first parents to others, journalists may publish and broadcast the identities of first parents without their permission, the courts may release the identity of first parents without their permission or even their knowledge. Again, how far does this “fundamental” right actually extend? Evidently only far enough for Nikfa to use it as an excuse to seal adoption records from adoptees. (Or C.A.R.E to use to rationalize a compromise.)

Conversely, the right to know one’s origins is a fundamental right. It preexists law. You don’t need data from psychological studies or a note from your therapist to assert it. All you need is to begin a discourse of inquiry, “Who am I?”, and you’ve tapped into a stream that stretches as far back as Socrates, at least in the written record, and no doubt back to the Magna Mater.

You don’t need to be an adoptee to assert the right to know your origins, it’s universal. It's FUNDAMENTAL.

There, that was easy. That's the real McCoy, you know you want it. Lay off the emo, guys, it's a solid bringer downer... it's time for the bastids to go funky...

C.A.R.E Knows My Secret Name But Won’t Tell Me What It Is…

If you’ve been following the C.A.R.E. website (and not many have, evidently, according to their page counter), you’ve noticed some substantial changes in content in the last few days. They’ve jettisoned a lot of the incomprehensible original text and substituted leaner-meaner declaratives. There’s one statement, though, that’s got me scratching my head…

Check out the last sentence in this paragraph, I’ve added bold italics:

“CARE seeks to provide adult adoptees with uncertified copies of their original records of birth. This record contains accurate information regarding ethnicity, nationality, date, time and place of birth. In addition, the original birth record contains the name given by the birthmother to the adoptee which is non-identifying yet serves as a protection against potential incest.”

Come again? I imagine this is the name whispered in a baby’s ear by a midwife or doula, right before she smacks it on the ass, to prevent warts and incest. This name must then be enscribed into the birth record using umbilical cord blood with the quill of a porcupine...

What is this name? I dunno. My first mother didn’t bother to give me a first name, or perhaps she did and it wasn’t recorded. In my foster care paperwork I was Baby Boy Church. Oh, and the Church name was a pseudonym. Fortuitously, my adoptive parents kept a copy of a medical release form she’d signed, first with the name Church and then again with her real name (her name at the time, that is. She was waiting out a divorce and lost that last name forever a few months after I was born). I was her fifth child, out of thirteen, and my siblings have an assortment of last names (she had five or six husbands and kids with all of them, some of whom were relinquished and subsequently took on different names). I guess it’s a miracle I didn’t end up dating one of them without my protective name.

If anybody finds out what C.A.R.E. is talking about, let me know.

Does CARE care? Nope...

(First a little blog administrivia; I disabled comments on BB Church’s Funhouse last year but I thought a discussion about this California mess is appropriate and changed the settings. Nothing happened. I just noticed that comments are allowed on my last blog post, so hopefully they will be for this one and all posts going forward.)

I posted the full content of Jean Strauss’ email to her troops, or at least twenty of them who attended a Sacramento meeting earlier this year, here. I commented on their website here. Bastardette has her own take on CARE on her blog...

After wading through all this what I was waiting for, as a California adoptee whose rights and records are at stake in this enterprise, is a statement explaining what gives CARE the moral authority to advocate for compromises to my rights. There is nothing in this letter, or their website, that addresses the fundamental question: Who are they to say that its ok for some adoptees to get their records and some not? I certainly never gave CARE permission to negotiate over whether I’m subject to a contact veto or a disclosure veto. Neither did the millions of other California adoptees, past, present and future, who will have to live under whatever regime CARE deems fit for them.

CARE is without a credible base of support and has not articulated a clear and precise vision of what the legislation they’re advocating will do. They are self-described amateurs with little knowledge or expertise in organizing or issue lobbying… my next question is why are they doing this in the first place? And since it’s a question that I don’t anticipate will be answered, and one I that I can only speculate to answer, I have to move on to the next question, which is what can I do about it?

I am not going to attempt to lead or organize a challenge to CARE within the adoption reform community, like CARE I have forfeited the authority to do so. I will still assert my rights as an individual and will fight anyone who threatens them by any means necessary.

Below is my commentary on the Strauss email. Portions of her email are in quotes and italicized. My responses are not, duh.



“Dear Everyone:”

What I like best about the Jean Strauss/CARE email is the opening, it could be the title of a dreamy Pink Floyd song. Things deteriorate pretty quickly after this inclusive salutation, though… If this were a letter it would be on pink paper, “Dear everyone, half of you are fired!”…


“Your support (and the support of many others) will be the only way to achieve our goal of providing access to original birth records for as many California adult adoptees 18 and older as possible.”

Here’s where CARE articulates clearly what their website mumbles semi-coherently. CARE is not going to fight for access for all California adoptees, they are going to fight for access for some California adoptees. Or as many as they can get, leaving the rest to suck hind tit or fall off the sow. Note that CARE doesn’t specify how many would make them happy. Is it 80%? Is it 50% +1? Less than that? Who knows? Does CARE care?



“Our bill was submitted the third week of January, and we have an enthusiastic and very distinguished author in Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, the Majority Whip of the Assembly…”

“Our effort is a professional one, not a grassroots one. We are being guided through the labyrinth of the California legislature by Stephanie Williams, a lobbyist with over two decades of experience walking the halls in Sacramento. Our strategy, language, and any ultimate success, will be largely due to her expertise and hard work. We would not be where we are without her, and supporting her is an important aspect of our membership.”

What membership? It’s one thing for a robust grassroots movement to engage professionals to advocate with them in the legislature, it’s another for a small group with no demonstrable base of support to saddle a legislator, kick in the spurs and holler “Giddyup!”

Legislators are politicians, and California legislators are highly skilled politicians who know where their power lays; it’s in their base. They read endorsement lists like a Zoarasterian priest divining a goat’s intestines. They wake up in the morning counting votes and voters. I’ve worked with and for several of these folks, on issue campaigns and to get them elected. I know how they think. The first question they’re going to be asking themselves when confronted by CARE, a group they’ve never heard of, is “Who is their base? How big is it?” Hint: CARE doesn’t have one. Worse, it doesn’t want one.

If a group doesn’t have an active base then it will easily lose control of the process. If CARE’s legislative author decides to take a detour to Tijuana on their trip to the Promised Land, what can they do to stop her? At this point, nothing, nada, zip, they’ve handed her the car keys and locked themselves in the trunk, happy just to be along for the ride. CARE states in several places in this letter that they don’t have a firm grasp on the process, so they’ve lost control right out of the gate.

If you have no base, you have no credibility. Even your sponsor will treat you like a joke.

“One of the first hurdles we have to overcome as a group is how to educate others within the adoption reform movement about the strategy we are undertaking in California. It will be crucial to our success that people understand that our strategy in the California Adoption Reform Effort is solely based upon the legislative process that exists and what will work within that process. Hence, this is not an effort to 'right a wrong' or a 'fight for our Constitutional rights'. Our approach is a non-emotional one based upon statistical and empirical data. Thus, ours is 'an effort to update an antiquated and outdated policy established in 1935 (the sealing of adoptee birth records) so as to be able to provide adult adoptees with information about their origins so that they will have the ability to know their ethnicity, their nationality, their exact date and time of birth, and their original name as a protection against potential incest.'”

If CARE isn’t going to argue that California’s adult adoptees have some sort of right to access their original birth certificates, and instead argues that they have a “need” to access an assortment of data points contained in their OBC, then they shouldn’t be surprised if the legislature simply amends the existing statutes regarding the provision of non-indentifying information to specifically state that data. Occam's Razor, and all that... But then CARE slips in that they're asking for the original name “as a protection against potential incest”, which is neither empirically nor statistically significant, and is instead a transparent ruse to get at OBCs. One thing California legislators are not is dumb. If I can see it, so can they. The difference is that I don’t have a privacy fetish…

“The difference in language (and emotion) will be necessary within the confines of the legislative process. The results will be what we want to achieve - even though we're not using the 'language' we're used to using to express our needs.”

Needs, wishes and desires… This is the “non-emotional” lexicon of CARE. Waving the bloody shirt of potential incest isn’t “emotional”, nope… What I need are my rights, the rest of this stuff is nobody's business.

“This is not an easy thing to ask of all of you, and yet it will be an important contribution of each of you to this effort if you are able to master it. I realize the italicized text above doesn't verbally capture the emotional impact that sealed records have had upon adoptees who've faced a lifetime of secrets, nor does this language relay how those secrets have often eroded self esteem and contributed to a the feeling of 'second class citizenry'. I know many of you are interested in being involved in access legislation because you believe access to your original information (all of it) is your constitutional right, and the constitutional right of your children. I am with you. Yet I believe we must use tools that will help us get the job done. The language of 'constitutional and civil rights' commonly used in access legislation appeals stands in direct opposition to the California Constitution. If we use this approach, we will, I have become convinced, fail.”

If an individual believes that it’s their civil right to be able to be able to access their government held documents of identity, why would they support CARE, which has a different vision entirely? If an individual believes that it’s their human right to know their identity, why would they support CARE, which pays lip service to the concept in one sentence and then proclaims that they are ready to toss those rights out a window as soon as they can find one open?

“Many might say that this 'quieter' and very precise language and strategy was not needed in other states which have achieved openness, and many may wonder why Oregon, our neighbor, could succeed without having to play this 'game'. In Oregon, a single donor helped fund a statewide measure which was voted upon by citizens. To do that in California would cost between $3 and $30 million - and the result would most likely be the same as Oregon's: a lawsuit would be brought that the proposition is unenforcable because it would be unconstitutional. Oregon was able to prevail in their lawsuit, and much of the legal debate was elegant and helps our cause. But it does not address the very real difference between our two states constitutions. A similar legal battle in California would be far less likely to end in a positive outcome.”

“The first amendment of California's Constitution is all about privacy. Privacy is so important in our state that there are even privacy committees. We may be the only state in the Union with such a strict and overriding concern regarding privacy. To pass our bill, we will have to address the privacy obstacles that will be in our path.”

Well here’s the deal. The case law regarding the California constitution’s privacy amendment actually looks pretty good for us. I don’t know where CARE is getting their advise on constitutional issues, but I offered the California working group at the AAC National Conference last year in Portland a binder of historical material and case law on Open Records and the California constitution compiled in 2000 by 16 lawyers from Heller Ehrman LLC (RIP), no slouches at the time when it came to government relations and constitutional law, with a brief arguing that California’s constitutional privacy amendment was no impediment to Open Records (yeah, I'm calling a spade a spade. We are talking about Open Records for Adult Adoptees here. Go ahead and arrest me, Language Police Division of CARE, I dare you...), but no one in the working group wanted to take it from me. Since this ten-pound document was doing me no good sitting in a box in my Oregon garage, I donated it to Bastard Nation. Last November, I heard through a surrogate that CARE really, truly, wanted it after all, and I told the surrogate that they’d have to ask BN. I guess they can go piss up a rope for it now, since they’ve thrown BN, and anybody else that believes that adoptees actually have rights, under the bus.


Now, if you talk to legislators they’re going to tell you differently. They view things through a political prism, and their polls and focus groups tell them it never hurts for them to be seen on the side of privacy, it’s like putting photos of themselves with kids and a golden lab on their campaign brochures. Privacy = Good. It’s axiomatic. For politicians privacy is a loaded term that can mean everything from underpinning Roe v Wade to keeping damaging corporate secrets safe from whistleblowers and a curious public. If you can massage their apprehensions enough to get a clean bill passed, which means getting sign-offs from constituencies that have privacy-based concerns, then you’ll have far fewer problems if it gets to the courts. But CARE is using the flat-earth model, with a map with a lot of hazy marginal areas that say, “Here there be monsters”…


“We have submitted a clean bill (this means it has no amendments or compromises attached to it). We are asking for one thing and one thing only: that every adult adoptee over the age of 18 be allowed to have a non-certified copy of their original record of birth. It is a simple bill - but it is not an easy challenge. I know there are some for whom compromise represents a 'sellout'. You probably should not join C.A.R.E. We welcome your support, and we want a clean bill, but we are already facing very complicated maneuverings which will probably mean we are facing some compromise. There is going to be little room for debate on this if the time comes - we are being represented by a legislator who is in this to pass the legislation, not to make a statement.”


I have to stop right here, mid-paragraph. Let’s get real. CARE has a lobbyist who has convinced Fiona Ma to carry their bill. Assemblywoman Ma is committed to passing some legislation, so she will do what it takes, make compromises and she’s been given the green light by CARE. At this point there are only two ways this has been negotiated between CARE and MA; either CARE knows exactly which fall-back positions Assemblywoman Ma will take as the bill moves forward and has signed off on them, or CARE doesn’t know and doesn't care. If it’s the first scenario, what compromises have been discussed? Which compromises are acceptable to CARE and which would not be acceptable? Are there any compromises that would be unacceptable? And if it’s the second scenario, if CARE has simply put themselves at the discretion of their author, then they are just pathetic.

A quote occurs to me (I can’t attribute it, dammit), “Now that we’ve determined that you’re a prostitute, the only thing left to discuss is your price…”

So let’s get down to business. Will CARE accept disclosure or white-out vetoes? Will CARE accept contact vetoes? Will CARE accept tiered-access, with adoptees born in some eras allowed access and others born later or earlier locked out? Or will CARE accept whatever comes along? Which states does CARE want to use as a model; Illinois? Massachusetts? These are answers CARE owes every California adoptee.

“I say this after only one day of walking the halls. Privacy has already come up. It is not the concern of just one legislator, it's the concern of every legislator we've encountered.
I say all this not to be discouraging but to be honest and clear. Our author and lobbyist need our support for the path they see to success. They are interested in helping our group provide access to original birth records to as many adult adoptees as possible, and I believe we have a good shot at succeeding if we can achieve a broad understanding among triad members and friends for the need for this strategy, and for the nuances of language that will be necessary to succeed at our goal.”

The reason that CARE has to walk this path is because they are as weak as a kitten. A strong wind would knock CARE off its feet and send it rolling down the street like a fajita wrapper from Taco Bell. Why is CARE negotiating from a position of such weakness?

“I know that many of you have taken the time to submit new language for our website and organization. Know we've been reviewing all of it and running it by the people who will be working this bill through the tricky seas ahead. What ends up on the website and in postings is going to be the result of legislative vetting.
I have often cited a quote of Thoreau's when trying to help people understand that triad members are the voices which should be listened to as adoption policy is revised. To highly paraphrase Thoreau,

To navigate an ocean we should seek the counsel of shipwrecked mariners rather than find our way based on the advice of those who've never been out of sight of land.”

This is really too much. In the paragraph above Strauss tells potential CARE supporters that they have to learn a brand new dance step and lexicon that has no foundation in their existential realities and then she says that their voices should be listened to. And then she says that we need to trust the professionals! Since when have professionals cut a good deal for adoptees?

“Our lobbyist and author are the mariners who must chart this course. They know, much better than any of us, how to navigate these waters. Only through their wise counsel and honesty will we arrive at our destination.”


CARE has a wild 20 MPH underhand slo-pitch and a bench that couldn’t hit its way through a Jr. T-Ball tournament but because they have an experienced manager and coach they think they belong in the Big Leagues.

Back in 2000 I had lunch with Joe Cerrell and Hal Dash from Cerrell and Associates, they pitched me a three-month lobbying campaign they thought would get what Cal Open wanted over rack of lamb at the Esquire Grill. They said it would cost 35K, plus an additional 35K for incidentals (print, media, et al). Cerrell, a lion in Cali politics, asked who our base was, and when I told him he said, "Ah, do-gooders". At the time of our lunch we already had a bill in play, and I swiftly came to the conclusion that Cerrell's strategy would have worked but we didn't have the time window necessary to raise the money. I got a good lunch out of it, and a chance to sit with a couple of the Great Ones. If CARE had done their homework, and had taken time to build their organization and fundraised ahead of time, they might have positioned themselves favorably. As it stands, they are headed to the plate with a cracked bat and a bad contact lens prescription...

Later boners…

The plot thickens: CARE's email to its supporters...

I am posting the content of an email, in its entirety, sent by Jean Strauss to a couple dozen of folks who had attended a meeting in Sacramento to discuss a legislative initiative on the issue of adoption records access. This message articulates CARE's mission far better than their website, and I thought it was best to post it first without commentary. That will follow tomorrow in a separate blog.


Dear Everyone,

First off, thank you to all of you who were able to attend the Sacramento meeting this past Saturday. My apologies for taking so long to correspond to the entire group about what transpired at that meeting, and in the time since, but this is the first day I have had any free time.

The meeting was highly productive and positive. As we were able to inform those in attendance, in the last three weeks of January, the California Adoption Reform Effort grew from a concept to a reality. We are now a licensed professional organization with bylaws, an executive board and council, and a general membership. As of February 1st, CARE became a dues paying membership organization. We now have the structure in place to actively welcome full members, seek funding and support, and move forward with our legislative work. I'll be sending out a general invitation to join via our website in just a few days (probably this weekend). Your support (and the support of many others) will be the only way to achieve our goal of providing access to original birth records for as many California adult adoptees 18 and older as possible.

Our bill was submitted the third week of January, and we have an enthusiastic and very distinguished author in Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, the Majority Whip of the Assembly. In the next two days, a co-author who will be announced. We are currently involved in daily work in preparation of our first hearing sometime in March. We have been pursuing endorsements, and have begun district meetings.

Our effort is a professional one, not a grassroots one. We are being guided through the labyrinth of the California legislature by Stephanie Williams, a lobbyist with over two decades of experience walking the halls in Sacramento. Our strategy, language, and any ultimate success, will be largely due to her expertise and hard work. We would not be where we are without her, and supporting her is an important aspect of our membership.

One of the first hurdles we have to overcome as a group is how to educate others within the adoption reform movement about the strategy we are undertaking in California. It will be crucial to our success that people understand that our strategy in the California Adoption Reform Effort is solely based upon the legislative process that exists and what will work within that process. Hence, this is not an effort to 'right a wrong' or a 'fight for our Constitutional rights'. Our approach is a non-emotional one based upon statistical and empirical data. Thus, ours is 'an effort to update an antiquated and outdated policy established in 1935 (the sealing of adoptee birth records) so as to be able to provide adult adoptees with information about their origins so that they will have the ability to know their ethnicity, their nationality, their exact date and time of birth, and their original name as a protection against potential incest.'

The difference in language (and emotion) will be necessary within the confines of the legislative process. The results will be what we want to achieve - even though we're not using the 'language' we're used to using to express our needs. This is not an easy thing to ask of all of you, and yet it will be an important contribution of each of you to this effort if you are able to master it. I realize the italicized text above doesn't verbally capture the emotional impact that sealed records have had upon adoptees who've faced a lifetime of secrets, nor does this language relay how those secrets have often eroded self esteem and contributed to a the feeling of 'second class citizenry'. I know many of you are interested in being involved in access legislation because you believe access to your original information (all of it) is your constitutional right, and the constitutional right of your children. I am with you. Yet I believe we must use tools that will help us get the job done. The language of 'constitutional and civil rights' commonly used in access legislation appeals stands in direct opposition to the California Constitution. If we use this approach, we will, I have become convinced, fail.

There are other, equally compelling reasons for adoptee access and they can be made from data and 'unintended outcomes' of the original code which sealed the records. It's less emotional, less sexy, less what we're all used to saying and feeling - but it's language that will work with legislators and their staff. After walking the halls of the Capital this week I am convinced of two things: we have a highly competent lobbyist representing our effort and her strategy for getting this legislation through this maze has the best potential for achieving legislative change to sealed records policy.

Many might say that this 'quieter' and very precise language and strategy was not needed in other states which have achieved openness, and many may wonder why Oregon, our neighbor, could succeed without having to play this 'game'. In Oregon, a single donor helped fund a statewide measure which was voted upon by citizens. To do that in California would cost between $3 and $30 million - and the result would most likely be the same as Oregon's: a lawsuit would be brought that the proposition is unenforcable because it would be unconstitutional. Oregon was able to prevail in their lawsuit, and much of the legal debate was elegant and helps our cause. But it does not address the very real difference between our two states constitutions. A similar legal battle in California would be far less likely to end in a positive outcome.

The first amendment of California's Constitution is all about privacy. Privacy is so important in our state that there are even privacy committees. We may be the only state in the Union with such a strict and overriding concern regarding privacy. To pass our bill, we will have to address the privacy obstacles that will be in our path.

We have submitted a clean bill (this means it has no amendments or compromises attached to it). We are asking for one thing and one thing only: that every adult adoptee over the age of 18 be allowed to have a non-certified copy of their original record of birth. It is a simple bill - but it is not an easy challenge. I know there are some for whom compromise represents a 'sellout'. You probably should not join C.A.R.E. We welcome your support, and we want a clean bill, but we are already facing very complicated maneuverings which will probably mean we are facing some compromise. There is going to be little room for debate on this if the time comes - we are being represented by a legislator who is in this to pass the legislation, not to make a statement. I say this after only one day of walking the halls. Privacy has already come up. It is not the concern of just one legislator, it's the concern of every legislator we've encountered.
I say all this not to be discouraging but to be honest and clear. Our author and lobbyist need our support for the path they see to success. They are interested in helping our group provide access to original birth records to as many adult adoptees as possible, and I believe we have a good shot at succeeding if we can achieve a broad understanding among triad members and friends for the need for this strategy, and for the nuances of language that will be necessary to succeed at our goal.

I know that many of you have taken the time to submit new language for our website and organization. Know we've been reviewing all of it and running it by the people who will be working this bill through the tricky seas ahead. What ends up on the website and in postings is going to be the result of legislative vetting.
I have often cited a quote of Thoreau's when trying to help people understand that triad members are the voices which should be listened to as adoption policy is revised. To highly paraphrase Thoreau,

To navigate an ocean we should seek the counsel of shipwrecked mariners rather than find our way based on the advice of those who've never been out of sight of land.

Our lobbyist and author are the mariners who must chart this course. They know, much better than any of us, how to navigate these waters. Only through their wise counsel and honesty will we arrive at our destination.

All that said, we also won't arrive there without the support of all of you, and many other friends. Please consider joining our effort and encouraging others to as well. We have an opportunity to do much good here. My apologies if much of this has sounded didactic and rather heavy. I'm just trying to relay what I have learned about the situation we face. I'm thrilled to be involved and honored to know each of you. I want us to succeed...

Many thanks to all of you for your time and patience and good wishes!

Sincerely,

Jean Strauss

If You're a California Adoptee, C.A.R.E. Has Plans For YOU!

(Update: February 14, 2009. C.A.R.E. has updated its website and much of the text mentioned in this blog entry no longer exists. That being said, an awareness of what CARE was saying beofer they became aware of criticism will be crucial to understanding what they plan to do. For updated analysis go to my main page.)

I haven't posted here since I announced my retirement from adoption politics, but something's come over my transom that's alarming enough to rouse me from my torpor... Ok, I haven't been asleep, I've been busy as hell working to get Obama elected and growing the Democratic Party here in suburban Oregon. But I haven't been thinking much about adoption records... I've sure haven't been motivated to write about them... until a few days ago.

Starting last spring there's been some buzz about a new group gonna do some legislative lobbying work on adoption records in California. Now, I'm a California adoptee with an interest in acquiring my records from the Golden State and with some experience in both Adoption World and reality-based California politics. I met with some of these folks at the AAC National Conference in Portland and shared my experience and opinions. I heard around the end of the year that this group was gearing up to introduce a bill this year. Oh well, I thought, fools rush in...

The group is calling itself C.A.R.E. and they have a website: www.ca-care.org. The first thing you'll notice is the header with the photo of the Brooklyn Bridge. I've worked with organizations that depend on volunteer web designers so I know these things can happen, but still... There are stock photos of California poppies and Graumann's Chinese in the public domain... But that's just window dressing, C.A.R.E. gets to the point in the verbiage below. Note there is not one mention of rights, i.e. like adoptees have them. According to C.A.R.E. adoptees have "wishes", i.e. if wishes were horses, beggars would ride...

On to the About Us page, which lists the worthies involved under what I assume is the C.A.R.E. mission statement. C.A.R.E. is dedicated to getting the "maximum number of original birth certificates to California adoptees." This is a queer statement on its face, I mean, I only need access to one original birth certificate, then I'm maxed out. I think that's the case with the rest of California adoptees too. What on earth are they talking about? They then go on to proclaim about the authentic desires of all adult parties to the government record. This is a stretch, it always is when you talk about everybody's desires, desire being a throbbing bundle of contradictory impulses mixed with will and opportunity... but I digress... They end by proclaiming that, oops, adoptees actually do have rights to medical information, place of birth and national origin... which sounds suspiciously like the status quo. I got my place of birth on my amended BC, and my non-identifying information has medical information (my first mother had "good hygeine", sheesh) and her ethnic heritage (Norwegian). The C.A.R.E mission closes with a plea for the California legislature to protect us from "unscrupulous businesses that profit from the unconsented representation of adults"... Who dat?

But really, all this fol de rol pseudo pontificating is secondary to the list of names, actually the name at the bottom of the list. Stephanie Williams, listed as Executive Director. She's the engine, and here's why. The rest of C.A.R.E.'s officers are Adoption World habitues with no political experience. Ms. Williams has a history of legislative lobbying in Sacramento, 16 years as a representative for the California Truckers Association... It's no accident that she's ED, she's running the show.

Next is the Join page. After your name you may enter your "triad" position; "Adoptee", "Birth Parent", "Adoptive Parent", "Birth Sibling", "Support Person/Spouse", and then six categories of adoption professionals. Six. If you wanted to see a graphic of why the "triad" is a trick on the natives, just let your gaze linger on that for a while... But then go to the meat, the "ask" as we like to say in polite politesse. To become a member you've got to pony up 85 clams. 40 if you're a senior. Considering the times and the following-trend that are our unemployment figures they might want to consider a donor category for hobos... Agencies and the like are expected to give 200... This isn't an "ask" designed to generate a lot a support, only the serious donors will feel welcome. Well, not that serious, if they were serious they'd have a category for $10K and over... I suppose at this point it's fair to inquire if C.A.R.E cares about the support of California's adoptees... They don't have a portal for information gathering other than the Join page, for those uncounted unwashed masses who have time or energy to donate in-kind, so what C.A.R.E. really wants is cash.

At any rate, here's the site in a nutshell. C.A.R.E has a hazy notion of what they want to do, or they have a brilliantly focused idea of what they want to do but they aren't putting it on their website. C.A.R.E has engaged an individual with a political history and deep relationships in the California legislature. C.A.R.E wants money, but not grassroots support.

Some of my friends in Adoption World asked me my opinion about C.A.R.E and I gave it, based on what I could observe from picking through their website. They asked for advice, I gave it, and then asked to be taken off the CC: list. I am still retired from Adoption Politics. But then I was forwarded an email distributed to the larger group of folks in California from whence C.A.R.E. came. I am going to post that email, in its entirety, in a later post, along with commentary. It goes a long way at exposing what C.A.R.E. is up to.

Right now it's late and I'm going to bed. As they say in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia",
later bitches!