God's Will?

This article, from the NSW Origins site, is one of the very best I have read, to date, that totally and scripturally debunks this asinine assumption that adoption is "God's Will" and, somehow, meant to be. The title is "God's Will or God's Swill?" and is written by a natural father. I advise everyone to click on the link and read this. It is now one of my favorite pieces for the following reasons.

The will of the Almighty is just one of the many arguments pro-adoptionists, church-affiliated agencies and pious PAP's use to justify the disruption of the sacred, mother-child bond. Having been raised in the Bible Belt, in church every Sunday whether I liked it or not, and being well-versed in scripture, it has amazed me how the Christian adoption contingent has twisted and turned the words to benefit their aims. Remember, it says, in the Bible, that, "even Satan can quote scripture" to his own benefit. Take anything out of context and you can make it mean whatever you want it to mean.

This isn't an new thing, here. In the middle ages, clergy used the myth of Eve to challenge the existence of souls in women. Paul, obviously misogynistic, was a part of a paternalistic era that, obviously, saw women as more "originally sinful" than man and responsible for men's lust. When the Puritans began their colony in North America, that idea and misrepresentation of scripture, disdain for human sexuality and the rights of the patriarchs came with them. It taints our culture to this day. The Catholic priesthood still will not allow women into their ranks.

The Baby Scoop Era is a perfect example of that attitude of the "sins of the mothers" being chastised while the sins of the daddies were ignored. Because we are the ones who gestate and give birth, we were the ones who got the stinky end of the stick. We were the ones who were supposed to control the hormone-driven ardor of these young bucks and we were held solely responsible for the results if we failed to do so.

Among those who wanted to give us the hardest possible time when we had the audacity to love, not wisely, but too well, were the established churches. My judges were Protestant, but the horror stories I have heard about the Catholic Charities "homes" and processes are chillingly similar. We were wayward women, sluts, fallen angels, used goods and needed to be punished. There are still quite a few hateful people in this society that feel that way. Maybe we have evolved, in science and technology, towards species adulthood, but socially and spiritually, we are still in junior high school!

My mother, a product of the Bible Belt South, told me, when I became engaged, that, due to my lack of a hymen, I could not wear white or have a church wedding. It is a sad commentary on the nature of religion and society that a minute membrane would rob a young woman of the right to experience what all girls, back then, dreamed of. When I married, the second time, at age 43, I wore white, carried flowers and was married by an ordained minister. So frickin' THERE!

I no longer attend church or call myself a "Christian." I have been too battered by that bunch as have many of my sisters. I am not a non-believer. I do know that there is a power greater than us and I pray and I practice spiritual values. But, until we get past the patriarchal, oppressive and intolerant structures of organized religion, we are doomed to being controlled and coerced and goaded by fear into judging and despising and living with hypocrisy. The God/dess in whom I believe is not so small, narrow, spiteful and hateful. That arrogance is the territory of Man.

AND, the God/dess in whom I believe didn't create adoption.