Today I heard this artfully crafted piece of tripe on my answering machine:
Okay, Ms. Phillips. The state Attorney General is enforcing current statutes, which state that a parent gives up all legal rights to their child once that child is adopted, and you call that an agenda? (IANAL, but that’s what the statute appears to say. If I am incorrect, I do apologize.)
Now let’s deal with the underlying issue here – you think that a home is unfit because the couple is homosexual? So what are they doing to your child that is so awful? Caring for, providing for and loving the child?
The complete disdain for current laws shown by Ms. Phillips and the utter stupidity of the message make me want to vomit.
I don’t suppose that caller ID caught this person’s phone number - I’d be hitting the roof over receiving such a call.
It’s certainly worth forwarding this information to the AG and making her campaign managers aware of the dirty tactics being used against her.
There’s no way this is an individual calling - it’s got the hallmarks of a political campaign. I wonder if you can be put on their “do not call” list, as you would be able to if a telemarketer was calling.
reprise, I get enough phone spam to drive me absolutely insane. I don’t have caller ID, so I didn’t get the number. It’s probably blocked anyway. I know it is some campaign, but I wonder if it’s a group of individuals or if it comes from the opponent’s campaign itself. I thought about calling the state newspaper’s adwatch column and seeing if they were familiar with it.
Sorry to sidetrack the thread a little, but the impression I get from the media is that many adoptions in the US are handled by private adoption agencies which allow the relinquishing mother considerable say about the kind of family in which the surrendered child is ultimately placed. Is that the case in your state lel?
It’s really obvious that this is a concerted political campaign being run on behalf of one of the other gubernatorial candidates. If they cold-call enough people, they’ll eventually locate a few who believe that gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to adopt and who will vote against the current AG based on her purported stance on this issue.
I can’t help wondering whether “Sarah Phillips” even exists, let alone relinquished her child and has somehow found out with whom the child was placed.
This has got to be total bullshit. Like reprise pointed out, if the biological mother adopted the baby out through a private agency, she probably would have met the adoptive parents, or at least known a great deal about them. If she went through the state, chances are slim that she’d suddenly, two years later “find out that her baby was adopted by a gay couple.” This makes me want to hurl too. This hypothetical woman deemed herself unable to care for a baby, and, appropriately, put it up for adoption. Though the adoptive parents are fit in every other way, they don’t meet her standards for sexual orientation. What if she found out the child was placed in a home with parents who practiced a religion she didn’t agree with? Same difference. She gave the baby up, and it’s no longer any of her damn’ business.* Vomit indeed.
reprise, I’m not overly familiar with the private adoption process in this state. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m in Arizona, so if anyone is familiar with the adoption process here, please jump in. (I’ve worked a little bit with paperwork for within-family adoptions, but those are totally different.)
Yes, this is very likely being done on behalf of the other major party candidate, but I’m curious to know whether or not it is being done on his behalf or by his campaign. Also, if it’s being targeted by legislative district, it could do some major damage here, as I’m living in one of the more socially conservative districts in the state. It’s a one-party district, at any rate, and conservatives rule from the top on down.
Complete and utter bs or no, the question is, is it effective?
Sadly, I suspect it will be effective in persuading some homophobic people who might otherwise not haul their ass to the polls to go and vote against the current AG.
The sooner this dirty tricks campaign is exposed (if it isn’t endorsed by the other major candidate, he’ll be thankful for having it drawn to his attention and be able to distance himself from it), the less damage it can do.
I am completely, totally, 100% behind the idea one’s sexual orientation is irrelevant when qualifying for an adoption.
This line still bugs me because it seems to suggest that paerents who give up their babies are doing so becasue they have a deficit of caring towards that child–that if you give up your baby, you didn’t want it, don’t care what happens to it. That is manifestly untrue–adoption is an extremely difficult decision, and every single person i know of who has decided to put a baby up for adoption did so because they decided that the reasons for keeping the baby were their own selfish love, and that the reasons for giving them up was the acknowledgment that the child would be happier, healthier, and better cared for with someone else.
One of the things that makes this decision even harder is facing the censure of people who respond to your selfless act by accusing you of not caring about your baby.