Oklahoma HB 2634: Geographically Limited Action Alert

Oklahoma: HB 2634--Geographically limited Action Alert

Important:  please read the guidelines before you write . This is a limited action alert for those born in Oklahoma or current residents.

From Pat Marler:

Great news! HB2634 was placed on the House of Representatives Floor Calendar today! It will be heard between the 12th and the last day to be heard, the 15th.

This is a clean bill with no restrictions; only a contact Preference Form which does not affect the release of the OBC. 

 

The following are e-mail addresses for the Representatives and we want all those who were born or live in Oklahoma to please write these Representatives and tell them why passing this legislation is important to all adult adoptees born before 1997. It is a sensitive way to let a birth parent to let the adoptee know how or if she/hewants to be contacted. Also, if there is no contact wanted, the birth parent will be asked to fill out a medical and social history to be given along with the Contact Preference form to the original birth certificate.

IMPORTANT:   HB 2634 sponsor Rep. Ben Scherrer  requests that  emails not be sent until  Monday morning March 12.  He wants them to be fresh in the legislators' minds. He also wants them short and to the point.

Read the bill here and then write:

Representative	Email
Armes, Don	donarmes@okhouse.gov
Banz, Gary W.	garybanz@okhouse.gov
Bennett, John	john.bennett@okhouse.gov
Billy, Lisa J.	lisajbilly@okhouse.gov
Blackwell, Gus	gusblackwell@okhouse.gov
Brown, Mike	mikebrown@okhouse.gov
Brumbaugh, David	david.brumbaugh@okhouse.gov
Cannaday, Ed	ed.cannaday@okhouse.gov
Casey, Dennis	dennis.casey@okhouse.gov
Christian, Mike	mike.christian@okhouse.gov
Cockroft, Josh	josh.cockroft@okhouse.gov
Condit, Donnie	donnie.condit@okhouse.gov
Coody, Ann	anncoody@okhouse.gov
Cooksey, Marian	mariancooksey@okhouse.gov
Cox, Doug	dougcox@okhouse.gov
Dank, David	david.dank@okhouse.gov
Denney, Lee	leedenney@okhouse.gov
Derby, David	david.derby@okhouse.gov
DeWitt, Dale	daledewitt@okhouse.gov
Dorman, Joe	joedorman@okhouse.gov
Enns, John	john.enns@okhouse.gov
Faught, George	george.faught@okhouse.gov
Fourkiller, William	will.fourkiller@okhouse.gov
Glenn, Larry	larryglenn@okhouse.gov
Grau, Randy	randy.grau@okhouse.gov
Hall, Elise	elise.hall@okhouse.gov
Hamilton, Rebecca	rebeccahamilton@okhouse.gov
Hardin, Tommy	tommy.hardin@okhouse.gov
Hickman, Jeffrey W.	jwhickman@okhouse.gov
Hilliard, Wes	weshilliard@okhouse.gov
Holland, Corey	corey.holland@okhouse.gov
Hoskin, Chuck	chuck.hoskin@okhouse.gov
House District 71	district71@okhouse.gov
House District 88	district88@okhouse.gov
Inman, Scott	scott.inman@okhouse.gov
Jackson, Mike	mikejackson@okhouse.gov
Johnson, Dennis	dennis.johnson@okhouse.gov
Jordan, Fred	fred.jordan@okhouse.gov
Joyner, Charlie	charlie.joyner@okhouse.gov
Kern, Sally	sallykern@okhouse.gov
Key, Charles	charles.key@okhouse.gov
Kirby, Dan	dan.kirby@okhouse.gov
Kouplen, Steve	steve.kouplen@okhouse.gov
Liebmann, Guy	guyliebmann@okhouse.gov
Lockhart, James	james.lockhart@okhouse.gov
Martin, Scott	scott.martin@okhouse.gov
Martin, Steve	stevemartin@okhouse.gov
McCullough, Mark	mark.mccullough@okhouse.gov
McDaniel, Curtis	curtis.mcdaniel@okhouse.gov
McDaniel, Jeannie	jeanniemcdaniel@okhouse.gov
McDaniel, Randy	randy.mcdaniel@okhouse.gov
McNiel, Skye	skye.mcniel@okhouse.gov
McPeak, Jerry	jerrymcpeak@okhouse.gov
Moore, Lewis H.	lewis.moore@okhouse.gov
Morgan, Danny	dannymorgan@okhouse.gov
Morrissette, Richard	richardmorrissette@okhouse.gov
Mulready, Glen	glen.mulready@okhouse.gov
Murphey, Jason	jason.murphey@okhouse.gov
Nelson, Jason	jason.nelson@okhouse.gov
Newell, Tom	tom.newell@okhouse.gov
Nollan, Jadine	jadine.nollan@okhouse.gov
Ortega, Charles	charles.ortega@okhouse.gov
Osborn, Leslie	leslie.osborn@okhouse.gov
Ownbey, Pat	pat.ownbey@okhouse.gov
Peters, Ron	ronpeters@okhouse.gov
Peterson, Pam	pampeterson@okhouse.gov
Pittman, Anastasia	anastasia.pittman@okhouse.gov
Proctor, Eric	eric.proctor@okhouse.gov
Pruett, R. C.	rcpruett@okhouse.gov
Quinn, Marty	marty.quinn@okhouse.gov
Renegar, Brian	brian.renegar@okhouse.gov
Reynolds, Mike	mikereynolds@okhouse.gov
Richardson, Phil	philrichardson@okhouse.gov
Ritze, Mike	mike.ritze@okhouse.gov
Roan, Paul D.	paulroan@okhouse.gov
Roberts, Dustin	dustin.roberts@okhouse.gov
Roberts, Sean	sean.roberts@okhouse.gov
Rousselot, Wade	waderousselot@okhouse.gov
Russ, Todd	todd.russ@okhouse.gov
Sanders, Mike	mike.sanders@okhouse.gov
Schwartz, Colby	colby.schwartz@okhouse.gov
Scott, Seneca	seneca.scott@okhouse.gov
Sears, Earl	earl.sears@okhouse.gov
Shannon, T. W.	tw.shannon@okhouse.gov
Shelton, Mike	mikeshelton@okhouse.gov
Sherrer, Ben	bensherrer@okhouse.gov
Shoemake, Jerry	jerryshoemake@okhouse.gov
Shumate, Jabar	jabarshumate@okhouse.gov
Steele, Kris	krissteele@okhouse.gov
Stiles, Aaron	aaron.stiles@okhouse.gov
Terrill, Randy	randyterrill@okhouse.gov
Thomsen, Todd	todd.thomsen@okhouse.gov
Tibbs, Sue	suetibbs@okhouse.gov
Trebilcock, John	johntrebilcock@okhouse.gov
Vaughan, Steve	steve.vaughan@okhouse.gov
Virgin, Emily	emily.virgin@okhouse.gov
Walker, Purcy D.	purcywalker@okhouse.gov
Watson, Weldon	weldon.watson@okhouse.gov
Wesselhoft, Paul	paulwesselhoft@okhouse.gov
Williams, Cory T.	cory.williams@okhouse.gov
Wright, Harold	harold.wright@okhouse.gov

Bastard Nation's Letter to Kathleen Strottman, CAAI: Your message is "we don't count."

Below is the email I just sent to Kathleen Strottman, executive director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, regarding the organization's neglect to include adoptees and first parents in the international adoption roundtable it is co-sponsoring with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, scheduled for February 16. (see blog entry directly below this for details.) .  If we get a response, I'll post it here.

******

Dear Ms. Strottman:

Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is extremely disappointed  to learn that the Congressional Coalition's roundtable on international adoption scheduled for February 16 has ignored the input of adoptees and our first parents. The list of roundtable invitees is packed with representatives of adoption agencies, policy makers, and adoptive parents, all of who make their living from adoption or otherwise benefit from current adoption practice. They do not represent the political and personal interests of adoptees or first parents either domestically or internationally.

Unfortunately, the absence of adoptee and first parent voices at the roundtable is the continuation of a long pattern of neglect by the CCAI, federal, state, and local legislators, policy makers, and public and private agencies who dismiss the producers and products of adoption as stakeholders, when in fact, these commercial cohorts and their recipients would not exist with out us.

I can assure you, Ms. Strottman, that adoptee and first parent rights organizations and individual advocates would be  happy to participate in CAAI functions  either in person or through Skype or conference call. I hope this neglect of adoptees and first parents now and in the future is reversed, and that CAAI will take the interests of adoptees and first parents seriously and invite us to the table.  Otherwise, your message to us is that we don't count. 

Yours truly,

Marley E. Greiner
Exe. Chair
Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization
www.bastards.org

Bastard Nation is dedicated to the recognition of the full human and civil rights of adult Adoptees. Toward that end, we advocate the opening to Adoptees, upon request at age of majority, of those government documents which pertain to the Adoptee's historical, genetic, and legal identity, including the unaltered original birth certificate and adoption decree. Bastard Nation asserts that it is the right of people everywhere to have their official original birth records unaltered and free from falsification, and that the adoptive status of any person should not prohibit him or her from choosing to exercise that right. We have reclaimed the badge of bastardy placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us; we see nothing shameful in having been born out of wedlock or in being adopted. Bastard Nation does not support mandated mutual consent registries or intermediary systems in place of unconditional open records, nor any other system that is less than access on demand to the adult Adoptee, without condition, and without qualification.

BULLETIN: Land of a Gazillion Adoptees--Contact Congressional Coalition on Internation Adoption Today! Adoptees and First Parents Shut Out of "Roundtable"

 Just received this  bulletin  from Kevin Ost-Vollmers, the Land of a Thousand Adoptees, regarding the bureaucratic silencing of of adoptees and first parents by the US Senate Foreign Relations/Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute.

Of course, none of this should be surprising.  Adopted people and their first parents--the alleged beneficiaries of adoption policy, laws, and international agreements-- don't count. From past experience it takes a crowbar to break into federal and state) adoption roundtables, hearings,  and inquiries unless you are an adoption agency or represent an adoptive parent organization--and usually the latter aren't even welcome.  

I am shooting off a short email to Kathleen Strottman right now and will post it later today. 

In the meantime, read Kevin's alert and send Strottman an email. Adoptees are not silent pawns. We won't shut up. 

 

Thursday, February 16th the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and CCAI will host a roundtable on intercountry adoption. The voices of adoptees and first parents will not be at the table or solicited.

Update: The initial post said February 14th.  The roundtable will be help on February 16th.

It has come to the attention of Land of Gazillion Adoptees that the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), along with the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will be hosting a roundtable discussion on intercountry adoption on Thursday, February 16th at 5:00 pm.  In attendance will be individuals from a variety of organizations, such as JCICS, UNICEF, The Hague, PEAR, Ethica, and Holt International.  

Two surveys, the results of which will be used at the roundtable, are currently being circulated.  

.  .  .  .  .

Dear reader, please take note whom CCAI and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee HAVE NOT invited to the table.  On top of that, where are the surveys for adoptees and first parents?  Aren’t adoptees and first parents stakeholders in the process?

Want to voice your opinion?  Please contact Kathleen Strottman (kathleen@ccainstitute.org) of CCAI and let her know how disappointed you are.

Action Alert: Write Rhode Island House Today. Support S478 SubAA

PLEASE FORWARD FREELY

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT

RHODE ISLAND S 478 Sub AA

Rhode Island Adoptees Need Your Help Today!

House HEW vote scheduled for 4:00 PM Monday, June 27, 2011

Tell House Committee to support HB S478 Sub AA--

already supported similar bill a few weeks ago

Make Rhode Island #7

H478 Sub A, amended and re-numbered to H478 AA, a bill to allow any adoptee 25 years or older to obtain a copy of that person’s original birth certificate with no conditions or restrictions passed the Rhode Island Senate unamously last week. Friday the bill, now re-numbered S478 Sub AA, was assigned to the House Health and Human Services Committee. A hearing is scheduled for Monday June 27, 2011

IMPORTANT NOTE: a similar House bill H 5443 Sub AA passed the House 66-0 two weeks ago, but will not be heard in the Senate. H478 Sub AA is the LIVE BILL.

Despite the age qualificaiton (orignally 30, but reduced to 25 last week), which Bastard Nation does not agree with, we believe that since the House and Senate are already in agreement that the state's adoptees have a right to their original birth certificates without restriction upon request, that the Senate bill needs passed and working now.

Read the bill here.

Read Bastard Nation's letter to the Rhode Island House here.

Members of both houses have voiced support for a reduction in the age of access. Bastard Nation and activists on the ground in Rhode Island believe this change can and will take place within in a reasonable amount of time--and won't go away until it is. It is clear, unfortunately, that this reduction will not happen with this bill.

TALKING POINTS
Since the Rhode Island House just weeks ago voiced unamous support for the restoration of OBC access for all the state's adoptees without restriction at the age of 18, there is no reason for members will drop support now.

S478 Sub AA:

***acknowledges a legally, morally, and ethically correct one-size-fits all standard of identity and records rights for all adopted persons. It treats the adopted the same as the non-adopted.

***does not open original birth certificates and other records to the public.

***does not change adoption procedures

***is about rights not reunions. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state.

Please write the House HEW committee today today and urge them to support S478 Sub AA


Please write the House HEW committee today today and urge them to support S478 Sub A

CONTACT INFORMATION

Go to the House HEW Committee page here

or

Cut and paste

rep-azzinaro@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-bennett@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-cimini@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-corvese@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-diaz@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-gordon@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-handy@rilin.state.ri.us,
repmclaughlin@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-mcnamara@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-morgan@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-ruggiero@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-serpa@rilin.state.ri.us,
rep-tomasso@rilin.state.ri.us

S 478 Sup AA is supported by Access Rhode Island, Bastard Nation, and the American Adoption Congress.

For more information go to
Access Rhode Island's webpage
Access Rhode Island's Facebook page

PLEASE FORWARD FREELY

BASTARD NATION ACTION ALERT

RHODE ISLAND S 478 Sub A

Rhode Island Adoptees Need Your Help Today!

Vote scheduled for Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Tell the Rhode Island Senate to support HB S478 Sub A

Make Rhode Island #7

HB 478 Sub A, a bill to allow any adoptee 30 years or older to obtain a copy of that person’s original birth certificate with no conditions or restrictions is scheduled for a Senate Floor vote Wednesday June 22. Also scheduled, is the introduction of amendment to lower the age from 30.

Read bill here.

HISTORY
HB 478 Sub A is an amended version of the earlier S 478, which included a disclosure veto. That bill also had provisions that limited original birth certificate (OBC) access to adult adoptees born after Jan. 1, 2012, or to those who are 40 years or older after the effective date of the bill. None of those provisions restored the right of OBC access guaranteed until 1944, for all Rhode Island adoptees. Senate Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin supported this bad bill, and took a lot of heat after she told the Providence Journal she wanted to limit OBC access to older adoptees because "I want them to be able to find their records in an appropriate and meaningful kind of way, not because they want to get back at their adoptive parents."

After heavy public and private criticism from the Rhode Island adoption community and reformers, Goodwin backtracked, the prospective provision and vetoes were removed, and the age limit reduced to 30.

Last week the bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously with a Do Pass recommendation to the full Senate. Committee members also showed unanimous support for a floor amendment to lower the age of access. (Earlier the Rhode Island House passed a similar clean bill, 66-0, (which not scheduled for Senate hearing) that would let all adoptees 18 or older to apply for their OBC. Sen. Rhoda Perry says she will introduce an amendment to sunset the age qualification and lower the age . At this time we do not know the text of her amendment. The floor vote is scheduled for Wednesday, June 22.

TALKING POINTS
S 378 Sub A:

***acknowledges a legally, morally, and ethically correct one-size-fits all standard of identity and records rights for all adopted persons. It treats the adopted the same as the non-adopted.

***does not open original birth certificates and other records to the public.

***does not change adoption procedures

***is about rights not reunions. It is about the relation of adoptees to the state.

URGE SENATORS TO LOWER AGE QUALIFICATION FROM 30 TO AGE OF MAJORITY

***The age of majority: "adulthood in the eyes of the law." After reaching majority, a person is permitted to vote, make a valid will, enter into binding contracts, marry, enlist in the military, and purchase alcohol. In most states, including Rhode Island, the age of majority is 18, but this varies depending on the activity. In no state does age of majority exceed the age of 21.

***Rhode Island Code: § 15-12-1: Persons of full age. – (a) Notwithstanding any general or public law or provision of the common law to the contrary, all persons who have attained the age of eighteen (18) years shall be deemed to be persons of full legal age.

***The non-adopted of Rhode Island (or any other state) are not required by statute to be 30 years of age to access their own birth certificates. Likewise, in states where adoptee rights are in force, the age of majority holds.

Please write the Rhode Island Senate today and urge them to support the (1) bill as written and (2) lower age of access to the age of majority.

Bastard Nation's letter to the Senate is here.

CONTACT INFORMATION
Go to the Senate Contact page for contact information

or

Cut and paste

sen-goodwin@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-pichardo@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-perry@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-ruggerio@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-jabour@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-metts@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-ciccone@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-doyle@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-pinga@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-felag@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-ottiano@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-dipalma@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-paivaweed@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-daponte@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-nesselbush@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-crowley@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-oneill@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-devall@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-moura@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-picard@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-kettle@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-tassoni@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-fogarty@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-cote@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-lombardo@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-lanzi@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-gallo@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-miller@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-mccaffrey@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-walaska@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-lynch@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-bates@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-lynch@rilin.state.ri.us,
en-shibley@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-maher@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-hodgson@rilin.state.ri.us
sen-sheehan@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-sosnowski@rilin.state.ri.us,
sen-algiere@rilin.state.ri.us

S 478 Sub A has an excellent chance of passing. The bill is supported by Access Rhode Island, Bastard Nation, and the American Adoption Congress.

For more information go to
Access Rhode Island's webpage
Facebook page

Also post your comments on the bill, particularly this article, on the ProJo site. (registration required) Senators are reading them! (There are other articles on the bill, but this is the latest.)

As soon as the bill passes the Senate we will send out an action alert for the House.