The FOX Network's new reality show, Who's Your Daddy?, which premiers January 3, 2005, has sent the adoption world into a tizzy. Bastard Nation directs its outrage against the sealed records system, which makes such a show possible in the first place.

Tremendous thanks to adoptee rights activists from Cal Open, Arizona Open, and Nevada Open, who are participating in the "Honk if You're My Daddy" Rally on Sunday, January 2nd!!

BASTARD NATION makes the news over Who's Your Daddy? Bastard Nation Executive Chair, Marley Greiner, was interviewed by E! Online News for their article, Fox Adopts Daddy, published December 15, 2004. Bastard Nation is mentioned in Newsday's December 30, 2004 article entitled, 'Daddy' Debate. Bastard Nation Executive Committee member and Legislative Co-Chair, Anita Field, had a letter to the editor about Who's Your Daddy? published in The Chicago Tribune: CHANGE THE LAW The hoopla is beginning over the upcoming show, 'Who's Your Daddy?'" I am an adoption expert too. My credentials: I am an adopted woman. I ask myself why any adoptee would subject herself to finding her birth father in front of millions of viewers on TV. But I know the answer. In 45 states, including Illinois,adopted adults cannot get their original birth certificates without permission from parents or the courts. All adopted adults must be able to unconditionally request and receive their original birth certificates in the same manner as all other citizens. Then I'd wager that the list of contestants for reality shows such as Who's Your Daddy? would dry up.

Bastard Nationals Voice Opinion on Who's Your Daddy? BASTARD NATION'S OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON WHO'S YOUR DADDY? PLEASE DISTRIBUTE FREELY! GET WITH IT: THE REAL PROBLEM IS SEALED RECORDS - NOT FOX!! BASTARD NATION, THE LARGEST ADOPTEE CIVIL RIGHTS ORGANIZATION IN NORTH AMERICA SPEAKS OUT ON WHO'S YOUR DADDY? "Fox not only gored the adoption community's sacred cow, but barbequed it." "Put Who's Your Daddy? in the crosshair of adoptee rights!" CONTACT: Marley Greiner, Exec. Chair, Bastard Nation 614-571-2999 (direct) 415-704-3166 (BN Voice mail) maddogmarley@worldnet.att.net http://www.bastards.org Bastard Nation: the Adoptee Rights Organization is one adoption organization that has NO interest in joining the coalition to shut down Who's Your Daddy? the new Fox reality series in which an adopted woman will win $100,000 by picking out her birthfather from an 8-man line-up. We totally understand the spate of BLARGH responses to the show--we have some of those ourselves--but the preachy, self-righteous reaction of the so-called "adoption community" BLARGHS Bastard Nation even more. The doom and gloomists declare WYD "dangerous," "exploitive," "sickening," "revolting," "manipulative," "cheap," "traumatic," "voyeuristic," "callous," "abusive," and "perverse" with dire warnings that the show will create new "isms" and phobias (as in race, sex, and homo). To the best of Bastard Nation's knowledge, the producers of WYD haven't staged midnight raids on the homes of adult adoptees and their birthfathers forcing them to participate under threat to life limb, and the pursuit of happiness. Nor have they suggested that adoptees be lynched, beaten up in nightclub parking lots, denied jobs, legacy admissions to Yale, gated communities, equal pay, or the right to marry someone of their own sex. Get with it: the real problem is sealed records-not Fox!" We wouldn't mind the hand wringing so much if these politically correct spokespersons at least brought up something instructive, for instance pointing out that 45 states hold the birth records of about 6 million American adoptees hostage under archaic "privacy" laws which legally wipe out the identity, biology, and genealogy of adopted persons. Instead, these "experts" (some of whom have done little or nothing to open records, and in some cases actually obstruct open records progress), flog their insecurities about "forever families. " Typically, they revert to sentimentalisms about "private moments" and "real parents," which not only do nothing to forward the civil rights of adoptees, but actually blow-off those rights through their emphasis on emotional issues and personal relationships. The collective WYD meltdown simply reflects the inability of the "adoption community," especially "reformers" to reflect upon their own complicity in this secret system that ultimately creates the conditions in which Who's Your Daddy? is produced. The truth is that "experts" and "reformers" are mad that Fox didn't consult them before producing WYD. They're mad because they can't control the content. They're mad because Fox has turned adoption into a tacky reality show rather than a PBS lecture. Fox not only gored the adoption community's sacred cow but barbequed it just in time to ruin the holidays for them. That a ""reform" movement which ostensibly supports openness in adoption, free association and free speech thinks it's OK to demand the removal of a television show because it might hurt somebody's feelings and doesn't meet its warm and fuzzy "educated" standards is troubling. Protest the show by all means. Protest is fun! But pre-emptive for-your-own-good "censorship" reeks of the very secret system that" reformers" claim to deplore. And that's not fun! Put Who's Your Daddy in the crosshair of adoptee rights! Who's Your Daddy? ain't nothin' next to the ultimate reality show: Adoption: Secrets and Lies. Every day adoptees face down the corrupt adoption system, negotiating a gauntlet of paternalistic and "protective" laws, hypocritical adoption agencies, do-good adoption "experts," bored judges, insensitive bureaucrats, sell-out politicians, adoption trade lobbyists, religious zealots, and snotty records clerks that even the brightest program developers and Fox producers couldn't dream up. Who's Your Daddy? --maybe the greatest send-up of adoption since the film Reno Finds Her Mom--simply commercially exploits and exposes, in a way that no open records Bastard can, the absurd in-place government-enforced sealed records system that infects contemporary US adoption policy. Why cry over it when you can coat-tail it! Use Who's Your Daddy? to protest identity erasure and sealed records, not to support the status quo! Texas Bastard National, Marlena Villers, spoke out in response to an Op/Ed article on Who's Your Daddy? entitled, Fox Finds New Way to Stoop Ever Lower, authored by Virginia Rohan and published by the North Jersey Media Group on December 20, 2004. If adoptees are vulnerable and exploitable, as Virginia Rohan suggests in Fox finds new way to stoop ever lower, it is because most states (and apparently Ms. Rohan) see us as perpetual children, not because a network is shamelessly looking for ratings. The Who's Your Daddy? participants are all adults. If they choose to make a game out of their reunion, that's their business. The premise of this show is no more offensive than eating pig anus for money or undergoing massive quantities of plastic surgery to improve one's image. There were no boycotts or moral outrage over the exploitation of those reality show contestants. Try looking a little deeper into your soul, Ms. Rohan. Perhaps you'll find that you've bought into the state-sanctioned discrimination and infantilization of adoptees. We don't remain the tiny "Desperate Orphans" that were left on your doorstep. We grow up. We are able to manage our own affairs and make our own decisions - both wise and foolish - just like everyone else. We don't need the outrage of you or even the Evan B. Donaldson Institute. We need equality. Treat adoptees like every other law-abiding citizen. Restore our right to access our original birth certificates upon reaching the age of majority. If the secrets and lies were removed from the adoption system, Fox would have to look elsewhere for a cheap ratings grabber. Marlena Villers, adult adoptee