Ron Morgan - Executive Committee, Bastard Nation
Well, here we are. This is Ground Zero. This is the beating living
heart of Bastard Nation. 
Again, let me welcome you, Bastards, birth mothers, adoptive parents,brothers, sisters, friends, supporters and the merely curious. When I
look at you all, I see lawyers, doctors, ranchers, carpenters, students, fathers and mothers; a cross section of adult citizenship.
But the governments of forty-seven of the fifty states see us asperpetual
children, and have defined us with special laws to keep us that way. The governments of forty-eight states see fit to enwrap us in secrecy, to bind
us in restraining orders without cause, to tie our rights to permission slips signed by our parents, to violate our rights with seeming impunity. When I
look out at you, though, I am thinking it's time for a change...
What do we want?
When do we want them?
I thought so.
It's time.
It's past time for the secrecy.
It's past time for the lies.
It's past time for anti-adoptee mercenaries, like Joel Tannenbaum and Bill
Pierce, to cut legislative deals cloaked in secrecy, to site spurious and unchallenged statistics to an uneducated public, to pretend to audacious
authority, to claim that WE are anti-adoption, when we are the embodiment of adoption. It is way past time for them.
It's past time for compromise.
Let me read from our Mission Statement:
"Bastard Nation has as its primary goal the opening of all adoption records, uncensored and unaltered, to an adoptee upon request, at age of majority."
"Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to
have their official original birth record unaltered and free from
falsification and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit them from exercising such a right."
It's past time when we grovel for access, and accept anything less than
what is ours; Our Records, Our Rights, for all. It's past time for anything less, whether it's Contact Vetoes, CI's or White-Out provisions. It's past time for all of that.
Because,
Today is OUR TIME,
Today is OUR DAY,
And we intend to seize it.
What do we want?
When do we want it?
Today we have gathered
some of the people who are working toward that change, in statehouse hearing rooms and legislative offices across the nation. We have folks from Illinois, New Jersey, New York, (more states).
We have activists from Delaware, who last week forcefully and successfully thwarted the sponsors of the dreaded Uniform Adoption Act. And, I will be proud to introduce Helen Hill, from
the state of Oregon, who has written, and is now gathering signatures for, the first true Open Records Ballot Initiative. Make no mistake; we are in it to win it.
What do we want?
When to we want them?
We will also going to do a little document shredding today. Those of you who brought your amended birth certificates are invited to join us for our Ceremonial Shredding at the conclusion of the Rally.
Let's get started.
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