Sheldon Silver: A blockage to unsealing OBCs in New York is convicted

Sheldon Silver convicted of corruption

One of the main blockages to freeing up sealed birth certificates in New York has been convicted of federal corruption charges. Sheldon Silver, who held a viselike grip on the New York Assembly, was found guilty this afternoon of seven counts of federal corruption charges, ending a trial "that was the capstone of the government's efforts to expose the seamy culture of influence-peddling in Albany," according to The New York Times.

Silver, 71, was elected to his seat in Albany from lower Manhattan nearly 40 years ago. While we had enough votes to get a clean bill (or so we thought) to unseal birth certificates

Do adoptees have a right to their birth certificates? VOTE NOW.

UPDATE: LINK TO VIDEO

Bill of Rights for adoptees pushed in Albany

Lorraine at public hearing on adoptee bill

Do you believe adopted individuals should have the right to access their original birth certificates at age 18? A controversial bill in New York would allow just that.  (Several other states are trying to also do the right thing.) Vote here!

The question 160 years ago would have been: Do you believe that people brought here from Africa should be freed from slavery? A controversial bill in Washington would allow just that. Vote here!

The battle is on again in New York to allow adopted people the same rights as the rest of us who are not adopted--the right to know who we were when we were born, who our real* parents are.

How are gay marriage and adoptee rights connected?

Daniel O'Donnell

Today in the New York Times one can read about the marriage of Daniel O'Donnell and John Banta, who, under New York's newly passed legislation allowing gays to marry, tied the knot on January 19.

O'Donnell, Rosie O'Donnell's brother, is described as a Democrat "whose impassioned pleas in the Assembly chambers and Albany's private corridors were considered instrumental in humanizing the push to legalize same-sex marriage, as New York Lawmakers did last June."Later one reads: "Mr. O'Donnell's speeches on same-sex marriage were both comic and profound. 'I don't want a seat in your synagogue. I don't want a church pew,' one of them went. 'I want a license that all of your have....'"

The Year 2011 in Adoption: some good news, some setbacks

Jane and Lorraine, 1983

Some gains, some frustrations...that's the year in adoption news.

• Adoption was in the news this year starting in January with Oprah's revelation that she had a sister who had been adopted. This being about Oprah, her sister's lengthy search was documented everywhere, providing a spotlight on the fact that individuals who are adopted are still denied free access to their original birth records in the vast majority of states, though many have half-way measures in place.

• The best news of the year was the Rhode Island--the smallest state in the Union--passed a bill that will allow anyone 25 and over full access to their original birth records come July 2012.  The age of 25 was a compromise after Senate Majority Whip Maryellen Goodwin, a Democrat from Providence, wanted to raise the age to 30 so adoptees wouldn't ask for their birth certificates out of spite. Goodwin's sister has two adopted children. “I think 18 is too young,” said Goodwin. “It’s a tender age. I want them to be able to find their records in an appropriate and meaningful kind of way,

NYC Press Conference for Open Records for Adoptees

Press Conference for the Bill of Adoptee Rights from Flower City Media on Vimeo.
If you can get through this without getting a tear in your eye, you're a stronger person than I am. If you are in any state that has a bill in the works get involved!

I'm going to email both David Weprin and Richard Gottfried and thank them for their support. And by the way, Unsealed Initiative is collecting money (and size donation welcome, and we mean any amount) for Weprin's election campaign. He is a staunch supporter and we need him in Albany. If you have any NY connection with your adoption, please contact Joyce Bahr at unsealedinitiative@nyc.rr.com. 

We have around $400 at this point; I'd love to see us get to a thousand.  And check out UI's page too: Unsealed Initiative.  

On another note, I just read a blog by an adopter looking for a second child and she writes she feels
incredibly "sad" for me. Argument going on under earlier blog: Why I'm not celebrating "Birth Mother's Day"

It was weird to read, I admit. --lorraine 

Memo to Gov. Cuomo: Repeal the 1935 law sealing original birth certificates

Lorraine

It's lobby time in New York again, and this year the prognosis looks good and members of Unsealed Initiative, under the guidance of Joyce Bahr, are scheduled to meet with the governor, Andrew Cuomo, or members of his staff, to discuss the Adoptee Bill of Rights giving adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.