Well, I see ARD has finally gotten around to updating their page and acknowledging BN’s withdrawal publicly- (sort of, but not, see below.) Other than that, to read the ARD page, you’d never know a thing happened.

We continue to await Ron’s/BB Church’s statement, which he said he’d try to get out later this week. This:

But I won’t work with people that sandbag me.

may help illuminate his position a bit.

The ARD page still has Ron’s call for Volunteers April 26th. And on the “Who we are” page still contains the name Ronald Morgan.

Time will tell.

Last night I posted two comments on this Bastardette thread dealing with the lack of ARD webpage update.

1. From the first of the two, this one posted June 4th 6:29pm:

Lets be clear, many of those of us who were part of ARD/DAR are gone now.

ARD/DAR is very different now from the way it was before prior to the changes. It is now being filled out with a different set of organizers.

I would advise people think long and hard before joining up with the likes of such.

I personally, am withholding my own full take on what has gone forward until at bare minimum the ARD-DAR webepage is updated to reflect those changes and some form of statement is put up the current organizers.

You will note that while BN has put out a statement, and some of us who were organizers have written, there remains no official word from the ARD/DAR itself that anything has even happened publicly.

Once the page changes, I will make my own decisions and do my own writing on my own blog about what I make of the current state of ARD/DAR.

2. And from my second post, June 4 at 8:31pm:

I suppose the official page COULD just sit there with an April 26th date as their latest until after July 22nd.

That said, considering how many of those of us who were involved before the change have left, I just thought they might want to let people still planning on coming that BN was out, and that other organizers, not just me have also left and new people are going to be taking it from here.

It seems the bare minimum they owe their donors at this point.

While it would certainly be nice of them to post something related to how they plan to go forward from here, (and deal with the issues raised by the Abrazo/Amy involvement,) to date, Gershom has only posted any notice of what she intends to do on the aforementioned private board.

Of course, if all that’s left, are only people who are already on Adult Adoptees, then the external public official webpage could be treated as a public relic, left as is, and all organizing could take place in their little sandbox. That would be stupid, but considering the “caliber” of some of the people working on it now… .

Fortunately, what to do with their outdated webpage is ultimately not my problem.

While I’m sure the current crop of organizers would just love it if everyone just went on ahead as if nothing had happened, the rest of us feel they have at minimum, an obligation to let people who provided their information to ARD/DAR under one set of circumstances know that those circumstances have now changed dramatically.

Thus giving people the information they need to make up their own minds about whether or not they wish to attend.

Otherwise, though, it’s apparently all sunshine, excessive smiley faces, and ponies from here on in!

So yes, to their credit they have at least mentioned BN is off. SORT OF, because if you look to the right hand column of the page, you will see Bastard Nation is STILL listed in the right hand column as a “Sponsor” as of 6:53am this morning.

(Other “sponsors” listed are a cafe press page, and “The Adoption Show”.)

The real questions at this point are simple:

They call this an “Adoptee Rights Committee.” Fine, what is that, and who are the these people?

Who are the current organizers?

One of the key problems with the pre-Bastard Nation withdrawal Adoptee Rights Demonstration was the lack of ever publicly listing who was making it happen. This led to all kinds of assumptions about who was an organizer and who wasn’t. As I pointed out on a private board, there was never any public listing of who was organizing it and what areas of responsibility they had taken on.

And secondly, since they now have the booth, what does a post-Bastard Nation withdrawal Adoptee Rights Demonstration intend to do with it? I.E. what ‘messaging’ are they going to be taking to legislators and aides, in the name of the broader adoptee rights ‘movement’.

When BN was involved, they were always extremely clear on how search, medical records, etc were not directly related to open records, as such are interpersonal issues that adoptees deal with AFTER they have their own information from the State and without State interference, just like any other person.

See this from BN’s FAQ:

While we support those adoptees who wish to search for birth relatives and offer resources on our website, http://www.bastards.org/search/, we do not help people search. Our mission relates only to unconditional adoptee access to birth and adoption records. Our concern is the relationship of the adopted person to the state, not to his or her birth or adoptive parents. We believe it is a personal decision whether one wishes to reconnect with birth relatives, one which adoptees should be able to make freely without state interference.

But now that BN is off, coupled with the recent death of Julia of Julia’s Jam and how the adoption community is dealing with that by conflating her death for lack of access to medical information into the fight for open records (medical records of parents remain confidential, even under open records. Yes, with open records she may have been able to connect with family and asked them to see if a match could be made, etc, but open records do not equate to access to ‘original’ parent’s medical information. Open records are merely about getting access to your own unaltered original birth certificate, or OBC- from the State, not a medical history) it raises concerns about whether or not the people who will be in that booth fully understand what open records are and are not, and whether they will have the skills needed to articulate such clearly.

This was why the Bastard Nation Bastard Boot camp teach-in that was supposed to take place over the events in New Orleans was so vital. The average adoptee simply has never learned the difference between restoring access to our OBCs from the State, and the need for medical information which must be obtained in a secondary step from family members themselves IF THEY CONSENT TO IT.

This is how you ended up with conflated, mismessaged, manglings of actual open records work like the Gladney 120th anniversary protest utilizing slogans such as “…Genetic secrecy kills adoptees.” If this becomes their version of “open records work” it means they don’t know.

And them not knowing is going to hurt all of us in the long run.

All of which is to say, the loss of BN on the ARD/DAR is going to have profound effects.

And it has the potential to really destroy some of the existing open records work that has been ongoing.

I, personally have grave concerns about what will and will not be said in said booth, now that many of the experienced political Bastards with a strong grounding in Bastard politic are out.