Wing Nuts and Lunatic Fringers

I am certain that there are those who would see these terms as applicable to moi, but I am fast learning that there are those under the broad umbrella of adoption activism that make me look like a model of moderation. I have always thought of myself as an iconoclast and a liberal, but I don't believe in people bringing their dysfunction, paranoia and unrelated, pet movements to this arena.

We have to work with tolerance for our differences if we are to accomplish anything. We are fortunate, in SMAAC, that everyone seems to be more or less on the same page. There might be Democrats and Republicans, Pro and Anti-Choicers, Pagans, Baptists, Jews and Catholics, but we know what we are about in relation to adoption and that is where we are united.

What really makes us look bad and can hit us in our credibility are the few, the disturbed, the ego maniacal, the queen and king bees, the people who are so way out there that they make Timothy Leary look like a preppy. I am talking about people who have hate and/or fear on their agenda, who cannot disagree agreeably and who expect everyone to think just like them. I am talking about the ones who sneak into our spaces with several different, online identities and try to take people down. I am referring to those with actual "hit lists," more concerned about getting the jump on people they don't like or who don't say what they want to hear than making a difference in adoption.

These wing nuts make threats, tell lies, send constant barrages of harassing emails, privately and on lists, blogs and forums. They say hateful and hurtful things to those who choose not to see things their way, they jockey for control, they emote so dramatically that you can hear the blood and tears run and psychotically claim that everyone else is at fault and that they have done nothing wrong. They place themselves out there as superior to all others, either in intelligence, knowledge or pain. They obsess about things and depress all around them.

As it says in the Bible, "Ye shall know them for their works." Those works are all about them. Some of them haunt the Internet and jump from group to group until they have nowhere else to go and then they come back with a new identity and do the same thing all over again. They insert themselves into a topic and start trying to lead everyone through a maze of nonsense. They come from every corner of our globe and tend to use adoption damage, which is a real and painful thing, as an excuse to refrain from behaving as a reasonable adult. There comes a time when we all have to grow up.

As of today, I am declaring myself and my blog off limits to one more nut bar. But Lordy, they keep a-coming, don't they?