Welcome to the new Bastard Nation website!
We are also grateful for the very hard and tedious work that Mike Doughney put into building the new site. Other thanks also go to graphic designer Chaz Filius who has been with us from the beginning, Damsel Plum, co-founder of Bastard Nation who built the first site, Kevin McCarty, Donna Martz and KL Bjorn who have different times served as webmaster—and of course all of the wonderful Bastard Nationals and Friends who have donated their time and effort to make not only the page, but the organization, the leading adoptee rights voice in North America. Finally, a most special thanks to Shea Grimm without whose direction and vision nothing would have happened.
We are still in the process of updating, but for practical and technical reasons we are putting it up now. We have saved what we could from the original pages, but after the recent crash and burn, it has been impossible to retrieve some of the original work. Other material has been saved, but need “fixed.Our first goal is to finish the legislative pages, including the state pages. This should be completed within the next 10 days. As of this writing we have gotten as far as Kansas. These pages include links to various state governmental sources including as well as the text of each state’s access law. The texts, are in fact, time-eaters. What seemed simple in theory, is not in practice. Moreover, due to the constant stream of compromise bills, many state laws have been tinkered with creating an enormous number of tiered access laws, not only regarding birth certificate access but access of non-ID information, registry qualification, and any other pernicious fix adoption deform groups and their politicians promote and accept to “get something on the books” no matter how dangerous these fixes are to the adoptee rights movement they claim to represent.
Our new legislative pages will also include updated information on bills and statistic on open states. Once the legislative pages are updated, we will tackle media., which will need quite a bit of reconstruction. You may be able to help us with this project. We will also be working on updating domestic and international activist, search and support resources.
Membership: For a long time now we’ve noticed that people refer to themselves as members of Bastard Nation, .but we’ve never seen them on the roles. It’s flattering. As of May 1, 2012, membership is free. Anyone can join. Just click on the big membership button on each page and fill out the membership form. Membership will include a copy of the Bastard Quarterly delivered to your email box, a slot on our BEST mail list, a freebie or two from us. (If you do not want to be on BEST, let us know). Bastard Nation does not share our mail list with other organizations.
Of course, we will always take donations, but membership is not contingent on your money. We are looking for an alternative to PayPal, so for the time being, all donations should be sent to us directly: Bastard Nation, PO Box 9959, Spokane, WA 99209
While money is always important, so is support. We want members who put their mouth where their mouth is: work to change the laws in your own state and the rest of the country. We ask only one thing: that you refuse to except less than 100% OBC access for all bastards. Leave no one behind . . .
Marley Greiner
Executive Chair, Bastard Nation
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
