James Hamilton: Rest in Peace

James M. Hamilton,passed away peacefully from lsmall cell lung cancer at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota on Tuesday, June 18. Jim was our friend and ally, a husband and father, a lawyer, a world traveler, and adoptee rights and adoption reform soldier. An honorary Bastard God. (Jim’s obituary is here.)

I don’t know exactly when I “met” Jim. One evening, about 30 years ago, he showed up on the old alt.adoption newsgroup. (before the internet was ruled by corpo billionaire sociopaths).  I have no idea how long Jim had  been on the “adoption” track, but  he probably never  imagined that he was signing on to the “meanest newsgroup on the internet.”  Or that he’d make so many lifelong friends from it.

How mean were we?  Current XTwitter can’t hold a candle to alt.adoption meanness. Over the years certain contributors reportedly lost their jobs and marriages due to alt.adoption “flame wars.”  I know for a fact that a conspiracy-prone pre-QAnon adoptive mother reported two posters to the cops: one she claimed was a serial killer of newborns and the other she said threatened her life by putting her in his kill file, She considered mouthy adoptees, birthparents, and adopters to be Satanically inclined and that Bastard Nation (born on alt adoption)  was prophesied in the Book of Revelation.  As far as I know, Jim was never reported to authorities for nefarious activities on or offline,

Also, not surprisingly, alt adoption gathered a number of solid, smart adoptive parents who saw the–ahem–“flaws” of the system and listened to and learned from the adoptee lived experience.  Jim was one of them. He posted sensible and thoughtful comments  and legal arguments, his frustration with the legislative process, along with tales of his own family’s adoption “journey,” but he did not suffer fools, Only melty snowflakes could view Jim as “mean.”

If I remember correctly, Jim often took on the late Bill Pierce, the founding president of the National Council for Adoption, the OBC Crypt Keeper. Bill argued that adoptive parents who supported the restoration of adoptee civil rights were simps, cucks, and patsies who failed to be “good parents” and had created a bunch of entitled ungrateful brats. In other words, they betrayed the “spirit and beauty of adoption.” (Pierce, in fact, included his “personal friend”  Ronald Reagan among the adoption traitors by reportedly assisting his adopted son Michael with his birthparent search, so you can imagine what he thought of Jim & Co)

Jim spent countless hours working in various campaigns to restore adopted people’s rights to their own information and state-held records. He worked especially to restore the rights of Minnesota’s adopted brats through annulment of the state’s convoluted and confusing “access” law.  Over the years, Jim worked independently and with the Minnesota  Alliance for Adoption Reform, Bastard Nation, The Adoptee Rights Law Center, and other groups. He advised on and lobbied numerous bills with personal visits to lawmakers and committee testimonies. He published letters and op-eds in local newspapers, appeared on local radio shows, made presentations, and attended conferences.

Here is how Jim began his testimony on  HF848,  a 2013 attempt to restore adoptee civil rights in the state:

As an adoptive father, I have spent a considerable amount of time over the past 20 years educating myself on the issues faced by adoptees and their families, biological and adoptive. It was early in that process that I first learned of the existence of sealed birth certificates. Frankly, it had never occurred to me when my son was adopted that his original records might be withheld from him by the state. As an attorney, the idea of sealed records appalled me. What possible justification could there be for treating adult adoptees any differently than the rest of society? I’ve not found an

In  2023  SF2995, an omnibus healthcare bill with provisions from an earlier stand-alone OBC access bill that had been dropped, passed. The bill rescinded all disclosure vetos on file and restored the right of all Minnesota-born adoptees, without condition or restriction, to obtain their own original birth certificates upon request.

On May 24, 2023, Jim wrote the following to me after passage. I’m not sure if this was published elsewhere.:

Fifteen years ago, then-Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would have made original birth certificates available to all but those whose records were subject to affidavits of non-disclosure. What was passed this year was the result of the efforts of a small group of dedicated adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents who spent those years submitting bill after bill, negotiating with opponents and interested parties, and finding legislators on both sides of the aisle willing to not only sponsor a clean bill but to take it all the way. Among them were Senator Erin Maye Quade and Representative Steve Elkins, Minnesota Coalition for Adoption Reform and Adoptee Rights Law Center

Ironically, SF2995 goes into effect on July 1, 2024, 2 weeks after Jim’s passing.

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Recently Jim wrote that the cancer he had suffered from several years ago, had returned and he was investigating options. On June 7, he wrote on Facebook that he had decided to forgo further treatment. and had made arrangements for hospice care,  “Can’t wait for my new bed!”  Less than two weeks later he was gone.,

Jim’s wife Jane Delage  wrote of  Jim’s passing:

Jim’s death leaves a huge hole in our hearts and forever changes the pattern of our daily lives. But we know he lives on in the memories of the many people whose lives he touched and the ripple effects of his words and deeds will continue on forever.

This is how I feel, and I believe that many others in this crazy world of adoptee activism feel. Jim was our friend. He always had time to talk to people.He learned from us and we learned from him. He opened his home and his heart to his extended adoption-related family and to us. He believed in us. His friendship, support, and work gives the lie to the “evil adopter” trope that a certain band of online adopted people carry. He loved us and we loved him. Hopefully, we are all a little smarter and even less mean.

Jim came from big family. He is survived by his wife Jane Delage, son William (Will) Charles Delage Hamilton, several siblings, scads of nieces and nephews, the large community he helped create, and a legacy of activism.

A Celebration of Jim’s life will be held on July 18, from 4:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at the Como Park picnic pavilion at 1199 Midway Parkway, St. Paul. Stories and songs to begin at 5:30, followed by a picnic dinner.

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I know there are more out there, but a few of Jim’s writings are archived on the Bastard Nation website. My favorite essay is his deconstruction of adoption tax credits. Jim was a lawyer, but he wrote like a normal person. And he never took advantage of the tax credits that the state so generously attempted to strong-arm him into taking.

• James Hamilton: An adoptive father speaks out in support of ICWA
• Minnesota Jim Hamilton Testimony 2013
• Minnesota: Jim Hamilton op-ed

Footnote:  After this memorial was posted Jane sent me a message explaining that Jim looked realistically at his cancer and its return  This is important and I am adding it below:

We tried throughout the process to accept the reality of his pending death and knew treatment would just give us a little more time, not approach the cancer treatment as a battle he could win. Having had a different form of lung cancer earlier that was curable, Jim was an advocate for lung cancer screenings. I think he would want people to know that he died of lung cancer as a result of years of heavy smoking and would caution them not to start, to quit if they were currently smoking, and to look into cancer screening if they ever were heavy smokers.

Photos: Courtesy of Jim Hamilton and Jane Delage