LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE CHAIR --Birth of Bastard Nation: A Personal Perspective

by Marley Greiner

(This article first appeared in the Summer 1997 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

One night about a year and a half ago, while writing a letter to the Internet newsgroup alt.adoption, I rather recklessly signed off with "Bastard Nation" in my signature. I don't remember why I did it precisely at that moment, but I remember feeling rather pleased with myself. Lately, I'd had this realization that our alt.adoption community--our dysfunctional little family as I often call it-- was an entity separated from the rest of Western Civilization. Though we adoptees had been washed clean and pure in the born-again adoption process, we were, in reality, bastardized by a system that refused to recognize our full humanity and citizenship simply because of the dirty little secret of our birth--or should I say, relinquishment. Our invisible, yet very real community, was bonded by the legal denial of our identities, our birth records, our heritage, and our genetic histories. Bastard Nation was our native land.

The reaction was swift. Steve Sellers had already gotten in all sorts of trouble earlier by referring to himself as "Ungrateful Bastard." Now I'd declared that there was a nation full of us! Several people were outraged. "I'M NO BASTARD!" became the battle cry of the offended. Nonetheless, I continued to use the phrase, probably just to annoy people. I developed a grand fantasy of a National Day of Adoptee Rage that included the burning of our amended birth certificates in front of the Bureau of Vital Statistics and the hanging in effigy of Bill Pierce and Pat Robertson,, a fantasy that I shared with people like Damsel Plum, (who was writing under the nom de plume of "Another Adoptee"), Steve Sellers, Deru McCannon, and AKA Smith. My personal battle cry became "Bastards just want to have fun."

Then something began to happen. Others, some of whom I had never heard of, began to declare citizenship in Bastard Nation. Strange titles began to appear: "Director of Paranoia," Native Bastard," "High Drudic Council." The locked filing cabinets were flung open and all the "dirty little secrets" flew out, like those pesky moths that ate up our mothers' sweaters.

Over the next couple months, Bastard Nation became mythic. Here we were, just a bunch of people making up funny titles, attacking the adoption industry, and having some fun, while others perceived us a "dangerous" political organization. I even remember telling people, "we aren't real."

Then in the spring of 1996, Damsel Plum wrote me. "I want to put up a BN web page." It went up in July. Soon after, Damzy, Shea, and Lainie asked me how I felt about starting a real Bastard National organization--a big umbrella for us all--with the sole political goal of open records, without compromise, for all adult adoptees. We weren't newbies. We each had activist experience and expertise. From the reaction we'd received from the webpage and through personal contact, we knew there were many out there who believed as we that our civil rights had been violated through the sealed records system, and were not happy with the lack of focus and adoptee input in mainstream triad organizations.

Shea began to spend hours at boring tax seminars, Damzy continued to add to our web page. We hashed out a Mission Statement, by-laws, memberships guidelines, wrote model legislation, position papers--and sometimes bickered all out of proportion to the problem. We looked for mascots, flags, and slogans, a t-shirt design. After all, what kind of credibility can one have without a t-shirt? Thus Bastard Nation was born.

Barely into the toddler stage, a writer from Self Magazine contacted us in late summer. She was doing a story on Internet activism. Would we talk to her? Would we!!! Chain of Life, a small feminist adoption journal wrote us up. BN began to show up in odd places, like genealogical articles in small town newspapers. In October we were incorporated and got our 501c4 nonprofit status, making us the first adoptee reform group that can lobby (though we don't get all the non-profit perks.) Our critics demanded to know if we were so smart how come only a month after our birth we weren't out pounding the pavement during the November elections. Huh? Well why weren't those full blown adult organizations with years of experience behind them out pounding the pavement? No reply.

In March of this year the B.E.S.T. (Bastards Email Special Training) list was created; a list where people could discuss real issues and not "offend" the delicate. TIES, the Terminal Illness Emergency Search program coordinated by Deb Schwarz, began to reunite terminally ill bastards with their original families. By mid 1997 local organizations had sprung up in Seattle (SOBS), the Bay Area (BABS), Texas (BAT), Philadelphia (PABs) and Ohio (MOB).

We were dancing along as fast as our little legs could carry us when serendipity struck. American Greeting Cards published an "even if you real parents didn't love you, I do" card for Valentines Day. The triad went nuts and BN gained credibility. BN and other adoption support groups on the 'Net went into action. BN called AGC. Individual Nationals went around to stores and complained abut the card. Store managers agreed: this card is awful, and pulled it at a cost of $10,000 to AGC. The campaign made the national news- -though BN didn't--yet.

Again serendipity struck. The British film Secrets and Lies was nominated for five Academy Awards. Let's start some positive pickets. On Groundhog Day Bastards throughout the country marched forth, passing out BN and open records flyers. In San Francisco, Berkeley, Pasadena, San Diego, Montclair, NJ, and Seattle they marched. In New York, Andy Katz and his son, Aaron, were out educating the public with author BJ Lifton. Author Carol Schaefer participated in San Ferancisco. A week prior to the Academy Awards presentations, Mike Leigh, Brenda Blythen and Karen Vedder (Eddie's mom) appeared with BN at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Later, when interviewed by MSNBC who was working on a BN segment for its show "The Site," Leigh explained his thoughts on BN's pickets and open records, " It isn't for us to do anything other than support them because obviously it's a human right that needs to be respected."

The weekend before the Oscars, BN camped out near the LA Shrine Auditorium where the awards ceremony took place. On Oscar night BN appeared en masse at the auditorium. Bastards from as far away as Florida flew in for the day. Nationals were interviewed by over 60 media outlets including the BBC,Variety, Reuters and many international venues. Ron Morgan appeared live on CNN (they made him turn his BN shirt around so as not to offend the delicate. ) and Shea and Diana Inch ended up on the front page of La Opinion. Fox even had us to open up their Oscar night show. Stay tune for a detailed report with photos in the Fall issue of the BQ.

In April Deb Schwarz appeared on "Rolanda": and debated NCFA poster girl Carol Sandusky, with the help of Jane Nast of the AAC. MSNBC's segment "Parent Search" on "The Site" appeared the same week, and was reportedly the most popular segment ever produced on the show. In a poll sponsored by MSNBC, 93% of those responding agreed that adult adoptees should have their records opened unconditionally.

Since Fall, letters from Nationals have appeared in newspapers across the nation, including USA Today and Newsday. Bastard Nationals are appearing in local and national publications, on radio and television, getting the word out about open records.

And in a perverse way, best of all, Bill Pierce and the NCFA has named us THE ENEMY in it's latest newsletter, with quotes Damsel Plum and Deb Schwarz (lifted from alt.adoption) to try and allege that we are part of an "anti-adoption movement." Bill says he doesn't know why we don't like him.

Recently Bastard Nation has been involved in legislative battles in Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania. Through our Internet activism campaign we were able to kill, through hundreds of emails and faxes to legislators, the section of HB 1091 in Texas which would have created a CI system that could hold up true open records for years. Unfortunately, when a true open records bill hit the Texas House, the majority chose emotional rhetoric over sound legal arguments, and the bill died. In Illinois we have spammed the Chicago Tribune and writer Bruce Dold with hundreds of emails and faxes after the Trib came out in favor of closed records--and referred to adult adopted persons 13 times as "children."

Although, I am writing for myself, I suspect that I am speaking for many other Nationals when I say that this year has been an educational year. While I believed that BN was a notion whose time had come, I had no idea that it would grow in such leaps and bounds. Sometimes I feel simply overwhelmed, and other days I've been known to even get teary-eyed about us. Though I'd been involved in political activities for years, they never belonged to me. This one does. When BN started I thought I knew a lot. I didn't. I am surprised at how my thinking has grown, and the sophisticated turn it has taken. Ran Shaw has "legitimized" my natural "fear and loathing" of politicians, and I may even get to like the legislative end of things. I find myself continually radicalizing and recreating myself as I argue BN's stand on vetoes and CIs and Open Records without compromise and frankly, I've never had such a good time in my life!

Each one of us is in BN is important. We have diverse experiences and ideas. Each one of us counts. Each one of us can make a difference. With every letter to the editor, every picket, every phone call, every television appearance, every talk with a legislator, every support group meeting, Bastard Nation is making its presence known. The voices of adopted persons are being heard. For the first time in history, adopted persons, as a class, are making the personal the political, and demanding our civil rights. Have no doubt. Open records will be ours in our lifetime.

Happy Birthday Bastard Nation! Happy Birthday to all of us!

Marley Elizabeth Greiner
Executive Chair, BN
Taking Bastardy into the 21st century.

Marley's Happy Bastard Book List: (Click on the link to purchase the book through the Bastard Nation Bookstore and Amazon.com)

The Activist's Handbook, by Randy Shaw
Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, by Susan J. Jeffers;
Queer in America, by Michelangelo Signorile

(This article first appeared in the Summer 1997 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.)

Copyright 1997 Bastard Nation
All Rights Reserved