As an Adoptee, the "Birther's" Really Piss Me Off!
This story has already gotten old. This topic is so old in fact that I am annoyed that I am even drawn into it discussion at all. However, there is a subset of our population that I perceive to be very racist, mini-minds who are good at two things: conflating and confusing the reality of facts on a wide range of issues and preying upon people's fears who don't have enough sense to know any better.
The "Birther's" as they call themselves, the Republican conspiracy theorists who ccuse Barack Obama of not being a natural born citizen of the United States because the State of Hawaii will not issue his original birth certificate really piss me off. This is in spite of there being a range of supporting documentation in the historical records including two newspapers in Honolulu that published his birth announcement at the time of his birth.
So here is where I come in. I am an Adoptee born in the state of Ohio in 1970 during a period of some of the most bizarrely secretive laws were passed to ensure children who were relinquished by force or by choice were given away to other’s under what is called a "closed adoption". Parents who adopted these children were guaranteed that there would be no chance of either the original birth family could ever trace where the child ended up, nor would the adoptive child ever have any legal access or recourse be able to find their family of origin except under the most extraordinary of circumstances and legal wrangling.
I originally requested that my "original birth certificate" the non-amended one be released to me in 1995. I paid the Probate court fees. Called after 6 months as was indicated, asked to find out if my birth parents had died and waited. (I had learned that in Ohio, if a birth parent dies, the parent’s name would be released to the Adoptee.) I found out in 2005 that my birthfather did indeed die in 1987, but apparently this meant nothing to the Probate Court in 1995.
What they sent me was another exact duplicate copy of my original, "sealed" and amended birth certificate that kept my birthparents names hidden at the bottom with my adoptive parents names posted at the top. (Adoptee’s amended birth certificates look NOTHING like a 'normal' birth certificate (like President Barack Obama's for example.)
When my birthmother and I were reunited after a ten-year search in 2005, she also jumped through all of the legal hoops requesting a "release" of my original birth certificate and they will not do it! The Probate Court of Columbus Ohio, will not, will not, will not release this piece of paper to me that contains essential and vital information as to my exact origins to me, a thirty-nine year old mother of two. I did everything that was requested by both the Probate Court as well as the Ohio Board of Vital Records. Not only did we follow all of the rules and procedures exactly as directed and paid the necessary fees. When you call either the Probate Court desk of the Vital Records office they will tell you to call the other office and that they cannot help you. Nope, not gonna happen.
So what does that make me Birther's? Am I not a citizen either? Because I am in the same boat. To me this has felt like I have had my emancipation papers withheld from me. I am somehow less of a citizen than everyone else in this country because of the circumstances that my birth mother faced as a young woman and laws that sought to slice a person out of one existence and scotch tape them into another with no recourse, nor hint of ones genetics or familial history whatsoever.
So Birther's here is a cause for you to take up! How about all the people who are citizen's of this country be allowed full access to their original birth certificates, and if not please understand that I am very much in the same boat as our President, only he has had the State of Hawaii go on the public record twice(!) verifying the authenticity of his birth...
It must be nice, to ignore all that while insulting those of us who still live in our own purgatory hoping one day to the same access as everyone else in this country…
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Comments
This is not knocking adoptive parents or pitting one set of parents against the other. It's just that people have the right to have the legal documents verifying their existence reflect reality.
The "birther movement" also reminds me that if they question the legitimacy of Obama's eligibility to be president. We need only look at how Bush came into power; by stopping the recount in florida and holding enough political sway over the Supreme court so that he was appointed to the presidency.
Gracie, I remember our conversations from last year regarding your daughter's adoption. Just knowing that her birth certificate is there is such a piece of mind. It's the keeping it from me part, and my not having a right to even have access to it that makes my blood boil and heart heavy sometimes.
My husband and I are under a potential double whammy. Like findyourinnerrockstar, my husband was adopted in Ohio. Unlike "rock star" he was able to take advantage of a brief period in the late 70's when adoptees were allowed to view their original certificates. However, he was only allowed to look at it, not make any copies.
I don't have my original birth certificate because the original was lost in a robbery - literally gone with the wind. I got a copy from my city of birth and it seems to be the last copy that will ever exist. The hall of records or whatever you call it where I was born burned to the ground years later along with the microfiche copies of most of their documents.
Neither of us will ever run for President, but I'm really afraid of many people reading about this birther crap and thinking, "Damn straight, we really need more paperwork and official documents to identify the "real" Americans!
If that is causing you additional anger...cease to be angry, because you've linked two unrelated concepts together.
I do wish Ohio would treat you better, but thats all I can say, the rest of your post is quite a stretch.
sidenote: It would be great for you to have access to your Original, and I hope you get it. But my having mine didn't give me any recourse. My birth mother wanted nothing to do with me, and only now, verging on 50, am I going to go to her extended family and 'fess up, just so I can get some medical/historical information. The stigma for me was not being adopted - that was never an issue. My indelible mark is from having a bm who wouldn't acknowledge me and wouldn't even give me a modicum of information.
It's not always gravy.
The other side of this is the story of my life and how the I am the victim of my circumstances being born in the wrong state in the wrong year with no access to even view my "original" birth certificate in it's original state, unamended. Yet the state of Hawaii has done above and beyond what is necessary to verify the authenticity of our President's.
This is absolutely, wholly sufficient proof that you are a U.S. citizen, and I can't imagine even birthers trying to deny that. While I sympathize with your issues about adoption, really, it has absolutely no bearing on your citizenship. The only possible way you could not be a U.S. citizen is if one or both of your birth parents was a foreign national and deliberately chose to waive your U.S. citizenship, (which would otherwise be unconditionally granted to you), and made you solely a citizen of his/her own country, and then your adoptive parents, also one of whom is a foreign citizen, did the same thing, and then somehow the U.S. government has never been aware of all of this (which might be understandable, considering how unlikely it would be for any foreign national giving birth in the U.S. to deny U.S. citizenship to the child). Or else your Ohio birth certificate is fake and you were actually born outside the U.S., and all of your birth and adoptive parents are foreign nationals. What is the likelihood of any of that?
You are not even in the same ocean as Barack Obama. When birthers accuse Obama of not being a natural born citizen because Hawaii will not issue his birth certificate, they are not coming anywhere close to saying that anyone who cannot produce his birth certificate might not be a U.S. citizen. (Heck, that would probably include half the population of the country.) Rather they want to show that no such birth certificate was ever issued in the U.S., meaning he was not born in the U.S., which would be plausible given that his father was a foreign national. And even this in itself does not preclude him from being a U.S. citizen: even if he was born in Kenya, his mother's U.S. citizenship would be passed on to him. But being born abroad might, depending on how the term "natural born citizen" is interpreted, preclude him from being eligible to be president, as specifically stipulated in the Constitution.
I myself am a U.S. citizen, but I was not born in the U.S., and one of my parents has never been a citizen of the U.S.
I am exactly what birthers want to find in Obama - someone who under their interpretation is not a "natural born citizen" ("born in the U.S.A."). In fact I'd be even better; I cannot prove that I was born in the U.S. because I simply wasn't and have never claimed to be. I even have a genuine "Kenyan birth certificate" (OK, it's not really Kenya), issued in the country of my birth.
There has never in my life been any doubt as to my U.S. citizenship. On the other hand, one good thing for me that has come out the birthers is the learning that "natural born citizen" has been historically been held by courts to mean "born a U.S. citizen" rather than "born in the U.S.A.", and that what I had been led to believe my entire life -- that I could never become President of the United States because I was not born in the U.S. -- was not so.
Ever since the birthers were instructed to act outraged about the birth certificate of the Prez in order to obstruct progress and keep the corporate republican agenda alive in the face of sinking poll numbers, I've noticed exactly zero outrage over the second-class citizenship of adoptees who are denied their original birth certificates. Funny that, because the reich wing lurves to sentimentalize adoption and feeling entitled to claim other people's children!
The so-called sealed-records laws are designed to prioritize the desires and whims of adoptive parents and, to a far lesser extent, birth parents. Who pays the price? The adoptees, of course, who are forever forbidden to know who they are, where they came from, or just the truth of their own lives. Others are allowed to know, even strangers who work in public records administration are allowed to see these documents, but adoptees are kept in perpetual childhood without the same rights as other adults.
It's past time we corrected this and made it illegal to refuse adoptees their original, un-amended birth certificates in every state, no exceptions. This is a human rights and a civil rights issue. So of course birthers don't care about it! They're undereducated bots who do the bidding of their corporate masters. They're not exactly paid to think and don't understand or care that their argument would also render adoptees as non-citizens. The difference is that President Obama is entitled to and HAS an un-amended certificate, we've all seen it. Where's MY un-amended certificate??
As a result, had trouble obtaining a passport a few years ago. Someone at the State department balked at the difference between the date of issue and the date of birth, and sent my application back to me for further documentation. Ultimately, my passport was issued, but not after a small mountain of bureaucratic red tape, involving my original adoption records and even an affadavit signed by the director of Catholic Charities of New York. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to renewing my passport next year, especially with the "birther" controversy in people's minds.
What you are talking about is the THEORY of proof of citizenship or even valid identification. The practice of it is a whole different story. Did you note in the story that "rockstar" is entitled, by law, to her original birth certificate, but cannot obtain it?
The issuing of birth certificates, passports, drivers licenses, etc. are, admittedly, dictated by law. But these laws do little good when faced with a state- or federally sanctioned bureaucrat who either claims ignorance of such laws, or simply refuses to comply with them.
I actually don't worry too much about people running for president - they have the lawyers, money and means to fight for their identities. How does a person with no lawyer, no "friend" at city hall, or knowledge of bribery fight a clerk who simply yells "next" when you try to invoke your rights?
@swinglish: you wrote: The so-called sealed-records laws are designed to prioritize the desires and whims of adoptive parents and, to a far lesser extent, birth parents.
That was from the original intent. The sealed laws DID protect adopted children from having to present a birth certificate with words "father unknown" and/or the word BASTARD printed or stamped nice and big at the bottom. It also protected the birth mother, since any evidence that she had given birth "out of wedlock" was sealed and she could hope to live a semi-normal life. It might seem ridiculous to us in 2009, but in the early 1900's, when the first sealed birth certificates were issued, being born a bastard (their term, not mine), or identified as loose woman pretty much consigned to the ash heaps of life.
I agree that things have changed, and these considerations no longer apply, so the practice of "sealing" needs to change too. But the original intentions were, it seems, mostly good.
So, if it is in fact true that the State of Hawaii's hands are tied because he hasn't given them permission - then that puts a different spin on things.
I was also born in 1970 (at least that's what they tell me), in Massachusetts (from what I've been told), and all I got was this lousy "certified copy of record of birth" with the City Registrar's "hand and seal" dated over a year after my actual (supposed) birth date.
OMG! Maybe I am not a US citizen! Shit! I was allowed to vote in this country! Oh, the horror...
Don't get me started...
;-)
RATED!!!!
The current mania with proving identity and letting the government or business document every part of your life feels like slow strangulation. When people get down to ridiculous technicalities such as claiming that Obama, who was clearly raised in the US, isn't a citizen, it demonstrates how much we as a nation have lowered our eyes to a person's ID and fail to see the person.
I feel somewhat vindicated that I am not out of my mind. I really want to send this article to the Editor of the Columbus Dispatch as well as the Governor of Ohio that these arbitrary laws need to be written off the books for good.
I have always felt so badly for the children of international adoptions who may truly have zero chance of ever finding out their exact origins.
Also, for the record most of us adoptees are very thankful for the chances we have been given in life that we would otherwise not have had, it's the secrecy surrounding our origins that is the issue.
Some of the comments are interesting. To Blue in TX: Your amended birth certificate issued after your adoption was finalized is almost certainly not your only one. The original would have been issued shortly after your birth and was sealed when the amended one was issued. To the commenter who opines that amended birth certificates are "absolutely, wholly sufficient proof that you are a U.S. citizen", bzzzzt! In fact, many adoptees are refused passports when they apply for them and use their amended birth certificates as identification because even though in most states they don't look any different to the casual eye than an original, most of them, even for persons adopted as newborns, were issued more than a year after birth. This is a red flag to the state department. It signals a change of name or other irregularity and on that basis, passport applications are denied, and additional proof of birth is often requested, like hospital records! Ha! Good luck with that if you're adopted! I actually know adoptees who discovered they were adopted this way!
The reason this relates to the birther controversy is because the same conservatives who often oppose open records legislation, are now demanding all sorts of records related to Obama's birth that they've spent decades trying to keep from Americans related to their OWN BIRTH! The circular logic and ridiculous hypocrisy is infuriating. If they care so much about accurate, original birth records, stop opposing laws that would give me mine.
To the person who claims that
My adoptive parents and birth mother all read this today and could see my point of view. I feel so very blessed to have loving family around me that have embraced each other so warmly after 34+ years of none of us knowing each other.
The "Birthers" have really stumbled into a mine field here. Birth certificate's and knowing ones' true/real identity and origins is not a given right granted to all the citizen's of this country. Frankly, it is so not fair, plain and simple.
Also, Gerald Ford was adopted? Who Knew? :)
This does not explain why access to original birth certificates was denied to adoptees who were born to married parents, by the way. And that happens to be my category.
So, look closer and you'll see the fallacy of those claims of protection: rather than discontinuing the practice of stamping that slur onto certificates they instead just made it illegal for adoptees to get their certificates! And even when the practice of stamping "bastard" onto certificates ceased, the practice of denying birthright information to adoptees continued.
It's one thing to make adoption records private and unavailable to OUTSIDERS. It's quite another to refuse legal access to birth certificates to the ADOPTEES themselves, the very people directly affected, and it reveals the lie behind the practice. It was always intended to serve adoptive parents and shield them from the shame of a) being infertile, and/or b) having adopted "bastards." Some birthmothers benefited from the secrecy, although many were coerced and lied to about their actual rights – because their babies were a commodity. And despite many attempts to change the laws so that adoptees have equal rights to their own personal documentation, most states still refuse to allow it -- no matter how old they were at the time of adoption or how old they are now. Even if the parents are now dead. Even if the adoptee was born to married parents. So it hasn't changed. And the patchwork state-by-state nature of the laws are inconsistent and inhumane to deal with. It’s ridiculous that there’s this whole underclass of people who are viewed as property and forever treated as children.
And here's a reality check to those who think open adoption is a handy solution to claiming other people's children: visitation agreements reached between the original birthparents and the adoptive parents are generally NOT enforceable. It still depends on the whims of the adoptive parents, and they have powerful lobbyists in Congress who make sure it stays that way.
However your original post seemed to imply that the sealing of records was always for whimsical or selfish reasons, and I disagree. Social stigma was very powerful in 1912 when the first law sealing records was passed. It can be argued that caving in to the stigma was wrong-headed, but I don't think those intentions were malignant.
Today, it can certainly be argued that keeping records sealed is malignant.
I refuse to participate in this charade. I hope that someday I will be able to get my birth certificate, but I am not going to get anyone's permission in the process.
I was not born to the woman on my legal birth certificate. This is government-enforced fraud.
Well said, Findyourinnerrockstar. With respect to the Birther 'movement', unfortunately, people who are uncomfortable with truths will ALWAYS fight full acceptance and quite often make it a damned painful coeexistence for those who do. This of course has two main effects:
First, they get mad because they don't understand how the world could not be flat, and why you insist - contrary to what you and they can see with the naked eye - that it is in fact spherical.
Second, they piss you off by vigorously defending their position without the benefit of demonstrating measurable intellect(ual) vigor.
(These are the same people that implied if not explicitly stated that being an intellectual was a bad thing, and that an appetite for anything but iceburg or - dare I say it - Romaine lettuce marks one as an elitist.)
Whether or not they fight full acceptance of truths, pursue definitive yet elusive answers to tough questions, or one day 'see the light' is for better and worse, a matter of their individual free will. As is, of course, whether or not you choose to engage in debate with a telephone pole.
I do think that you owe it to yourself and others who share the planet with them to try to eliminate/limit waste and intellectual pollution on a case-by-case basis.
Just think of it as saving a tree.
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