i hope i am not only a mutual to you all but also a semianonymous benevolent presence that wishes you well when you’re online and going thru it <3

Pharmercy, time between first and second OW. They can't spend it together this year because of work or some other reason. Maybe Angela wasn't too bothered by it until she talked to Winston or Lena. I would love a more melancholy feel to it, but you do what you want.

HI DO YOU WANT MORE THAN 2,000 WORDS ABOUT PHARAH AND MERCY’S FIRST VALENTINE’S YOU SURE DO. If you’re unfamiliar with my OW universe, it’s all here.  I may add this in, I may not, WE SHALL SEE

Mercy had spent a good many of her Valentine’s Days alone, and it had never much mattered. She was too busy for relationships, always too young for anyone in her classes to take notice of her, and spent so much time learning the in and outs of the human body when she was young that she did not quite begin to notice that she needed some instruction in human social skills until she was in her twenties, possessed of great empathy but little practical knowledge, feeling awkward and odd among her peers.

And so it should not have bothered her, who dated so little, to spend Valentine’s Day alone. It was no different from any other. And yet, as she crossed Harvard Yard, fresh from a special lecture, the red brick of the buildings seemed to reflect every beating cartoon heart she had seen on the cards lining the drugstore where she got her shampoo. She noticed every student’s hard that was clasped in another’s, noticed their smiles and giggles and the words that passed between them, even the most common of them peppered with the special lilt of a word from a lover’s lips.

And in instead of bringing her joy, it brought her an empty ache.

Because she was lying, of course, and this Valentine’s was very different from any other before it.

This Valentine’s Day, she was missing Fareeha Amari.

She chided herself. She was lucky, blessed even, to have a woman like Pharah in her life, someone who was handsome and intelligent and gallant, who listened so closely and carefully when Mercy talked that Mercy swore she was taking notes, who brought her flowers and held her coat over Mercy’s head in the rain, the kind of woman Mercy had never assumed was even real, but laid next to her in her tiny Cambridge apartment whenever Tracer flew over.

She hadn’t had the courage to tell Pharah she had given Tracer a not-insignificant amount of money for fuel.

“I am knowing that you do not have so much money, Lena, and I thought–”

Tracer waggled her eyebrows. “It me you’re so anxious to see then, love? Missing me something terrible, you are, can’t ‘ave anything to do with–”

Mercy blushed and shoved the check at her and mumbled uncomfortably, turning away from Tracer.

Tracer’s face softened. ‘I’s only ‘aving a go, Ang, you know ‘ow I am. I’ll say nothing more about it.”

And, to Tracer’s credit, she had not. Oh, Mercy was certain she’d told Winston the day it happened–Mercy wasn’t even sure she was capable of keeping a secret from him, but Winston was very kind, and would never mention such a thing.

With all these blessings in her life: A job where she was respected, a girlfriend who loved her, a rekindled relationship with her friends, it seemed very petty and selfish indeed to be sad that Pharah couldn’t be here.

And she had wanted to be, hadn’t she? Mercy considered as she sat on the train. Yes, she had to work for Helix, and she had been so apologetic, and besides any of that, Tracer wasn’t making a trip, so Pharah would have had to buy her own plane ticket, and that would have been very silly for one insignificant day on the calendar that said nothing about their love. She had told Pharah it meant nothing, that she would see her soon, and she understood how important Helix’s work was.

But it would have been their first, and Mercy looked over at the couple across from her, canoodling, and wished that she was here, wishing she could take Pharah to the restaurant she’d been saving for this day, the fine food and romantic low light.

She got off the train and wandered back to her apartment, stopping at her favorite Chinese place along the way for a giant carton of noodles and a bottle of wine, procured at the liquor store, trying to ignore the red cellophane wrapping of the champagne bottles.

Mercy had spent the bulk of her life alone, and yet she had rarely ever felt as lonely as she did right in this moment. Loneliness, she thought, was not so much in being alone but in knowing the shape of the hole inside you, and not being able to fill it.

She unlocked the small door at the back of the house, divided into an apartment  long ago. She had never thought of her apartment as sad, though it was a small afterthought to the rest of the house–one tiny bedroom, a scattered closet here and there, a little alcove that functioned as a kitchen, inasmuch as Mercy ever needed one. Windows that skirted the line of legality brought faint strains of rapidly fading light into the living room, with her mismatched furniture all purchased from Craigslist the week she moved in looking shabby in the long grey shadows.

Mercy shook her head. She was being childish. She was a grown woman, a doctor, a professor at Harvard Medical, for God’s sake, and here she was, pining over her girlfriend because of some words on a calendar. If she was lonely, she should do something to make herself less lonely. Mercy determined her own future, didn’t she? Winston would be alone, too, with Tracer not visiting, and maybe she would take her bottle of wine and her noodles and head over there, or they could order a pizza. She had a fascinating new journal to show him, and she had an idea for an article for them to collaborate on, the biological and technological effects of being unpinned from time. They’d have to ask Tracer’s permission, of course, there would be no way of keeping her anonymous, but Tracer was generally very good-natured about her condition–Yes, Mercy thought, I’ll do that.

She dialed Winston on the video phone, looking at the cool grey of the wait screen, the alert ringing again and again, until Winston’s face popped onscreen.

“Hello, this is Dr. Winston–”

“Winston! I think we are both fin–”

“I will be in London, England, from February 12th to February–”

Mercy shut off the phone. Of course he was in London. If Tracer didn’t come to him, he would go to her.

But if Helix had to work, why is Lena not working? Maybe it’s just that Fareeha was not interested in coming to be with you. That’s all.

The thought haunted Mercy. Maybe Pharah was tired of her, maybe she was tired of the distance, maybe being with Mercy was just too much work. Pharah was so wonderful, Mercy could only imagine that it would be nothing for her to find someone else, someone beautiful and witty and not the kind of person who sat alone in her apartment with a book and a box of noodles.

She changed in the living room, not even caring that she was just tossing her clothes to the side, and threw on her slouchy t-shirt from her staff orientation and a pair of flannel pants, sweeping her hair into a messy topknot as she plopped into her favorite chair, worn and ugly and terribly comfortable.

Pharah didn’t want to spend it with her. Why would she, Pharah was so collected and together and Valentine’s Day was so silly and so fake and Pharah was beyond all of that. It was foolish of her to have been dreaming of a candlelit dinner, of flowers and a box of chocolates and all those trappings that Pharah would have been much too practical for.

She burned with shame, remembering the flowery and goopy card she had sent Pharah, imagining how childish she would find it, how she would look at the scarf Mercy had knit while watching a lecture series from Zurich and wonder if she were dating a 12 year old.

“ANG!” Tracer’s voice burst through the living room as the video phone lit up, “ANGIIIIEEEEEEEE ZIEGLEEERRRRR!”

Tracer must be having a very festive Valentine’s Day.

She thought about rejecting the call, about sticking to her noodles and her book.

“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, LOVE!”

“Lena, you don’t know that.” Winston’s measured rumbling softness came over the speaker.

“I do, though. Where the bloody ‘ell else would she be, WIn, she doesn’t properly go anywh–oh God she can ‘ear me, I LOVE YOU ANG!”

Mercy laughed, in spite of herself, and for a moment she felt the gloom lift as she hit the accept button across the room.

Tracer scowled at Winston. “I TOLD you,” she grinned brightly and waved, nearly knocking over her drink in the process. “Hi Ang!!! ‘Appy Valentine’s Day!” She gave Winston a hug, and Mercy felt the sad melancholy of loneliness return.

Tracer and Winston would never, as long as the other was alive, truly know what it was to be lonely. They would always love each other, they would always have each other, they would always have a Valentine, even if it was a Palentine.

They would never know what it was to be her. She was lucky enough they thought to call.

Tracer rubbed the corduroy of her pants and smiled happily. “Been out and about tonight, a bit, though all we ended up coming ‘ome with was each other,” she laughed brightly and ran her hand through her hair, rocking back on the edge of the couch a little too far, Winston placing a hand behind her back and pushing her up, “Think I’m a bit pissed, truth be known.”

Winston chuckled. “It’s a possibility.”

Tracer laughed again, barreling into Winston’s shoulder and bouncing back just as quickly, delighted with the mere fact of her own existence in this moment.

It would be catching, if it didn’t remind Mercy of how quiet and still her own apartment was.

“Any’ow, just wanted to say, ‘ello, and wish you well, didn’t mean to bother you, I mean, I did, I rang you, but only for a bit, I don’t think that’s too much–”

“Lena.” Winston shook his head.

“Wait,” Mercy looked at the two of them, “Lena, if you would not mind…”

Tracer’s face grew serious. “What is it, love?”

“Why did you not have to work? For Helix? Fareeha…” She shrugged.

Tracer jumped forward, nearly shoving the camera in the process. “Oh Ang, I don’t properly work for ‘elix, I’m a…consultant, rather, is all, you must ‘ave a bit of faith in Fareeha, she’s a commander and all that, she gets all the bleeding knobs in ‘er office morning, noon and night, doesn’t she? Don’t feel as if, you know in fact—” she considered a moment. “Trust ‘er, is all. We ought to be off, Ang. Don’t fret about it.”

Mercy nodded. “Of course. Happy Valentine’s Day, to you both.”

They waved her goodbye, and the room was quiet once more, filled with the sounds of nothing and no one, and Mercy popped open the bottle of wine, pouring it into a mug declaring her to be ‘#1 Doctor’ and sipping it as her perched in her chair. She wasn’t even interested in the noodles anymore.Tracer was many things, but she was not given to lie, and if she thought Pharah was trustworthy on this, she must reasonably believe it was true.

But Tracer also had a tendency to believe the best of people, even if it wasn’t quite deserved.

She barely read her book, sitting and thinking and trying not to think, and she wasn’t sure how long it had been when the video phone rang again.

Pharah.

A sudden panic ran through her, as she looked down at her sloppy t-shirt, that she had also managed to get a spot of red wine on, and felt up at the unkempt topknot on her head. She thought about dashing to the bedroom, putting on something more attractive, but then she would miss Pharah’s call. She froze in panic, not knowing what to do, until, quite against her own will, she hit the accept button.

“Angela.” Pharah sat at a table, candles lit in front of her, a linen cloth and a bouquet out in front of her, and there was a knock at the door.

“I–”

“No, please. Go answer.” She motioned gently.

Mercy got up and walked to the door, not knowing what to expect, only to find a man holding a bag out in front of him.

“Dr. Angela Ziegler?” He looked at her as if he didn’t quite believe it.

She nodded wordlessly, and he put the bag into her hands. “It’s paid for. You have a nice night, ma’am.”

She closed the door behind her, and went back into the living room where Pharah waited on the screen. Mercy allowed herself a moment to really look at her. It must be 3 am in Egypt, but her hair was smooth and styled, a blue suit jacket on over a black button up shirt, looking for all the world as if she was not as tired as she must be.

And wearing Mercy’s handknit scarf. 

Pharah nodded. “I hope you will excuse the presumption of ordering for you.” She fiddled with the napkin in her lap. “I wished for this to be a surprise. I wished–I wished to have dinner, with you, for Valentine’s Day.”

Mercy took the meal out of the bag, a lovely pasta dish very much like the things Mercy ordered every time they went out together, because of course she knew. Of course she paid attention.

She wiped a tear from her eye. “I am sorry I look such–”

“You are beautiful as you are. You are,” she nodded, looking at Mercy, “Always beautiful.”

“Fareeha…”

“I will give you a better Valentine’s, someday. This is my promise to you.” 

Mercy shook her head. “This is the best Valentine’s I will have ever had.” She gave a tearful laugh. “I have been wanting to tell you the silliest story, about Tracer, and how she is able to be coming over so often. You will laugh at me.” 

Pharah leaned in, listening intently, and Mercy felt the ghosts of loneliness dissipate into the night, the light of a streetlight piercing through the dark. 

Predictive Dialer

We are going to continue here, and also it seems that I forgot to add extortion to my resume. I do have a natural ability to make people lose their bets, people have certain mechanisms by which they gauge a personality and after that when you have a certain facility for it you can project, because these are projections all of it, different personalities. They are meant to achieve different goals, some of them might be to have fun with people that I usually do not know except for their personality types which have been well known for a while. Emotional or analytical and so forth. Or factual arguments to eliminate them physically such as verbal menaces. 

People except for psychopaths operate within a certain set of parameters, and even psychopaths have their own dysfunctional personalities and traits. My reputation is also due to my ability to manipulate people, often in advance and in prevention.  I do know how to preserve myself very well. All sentient good willing intelligent lifeforms have developed mechanisms and tactics to preserve themselves, even ants have societies. And then you have parasites, such as parasites of my time, the time they plan spending making me think who they are not. Playing in my hand.

I would like to get back to society as a mechanism to preserve oneself, let me tell you it’s still a difficult environment, and people high up can have bigger issues than your job as a dentist. Otherwise you have extremely dangerous creatures, poison pills too, and I am one of them. And some people have no luck with me. They for some reason underestimate my capacity to kill them which is mind boggling when you know how easy it is to die, there are statistics for that by cause of death, age, skin color, sex, even weight. I am also a statistician and out of respect for statistics I stay within them.

Also as in trauma physician, the body is mindbogglingly resilient but in other aspects very frail. We fear heights because of the trauma and possible death associated with falling from a certain height, which increases with the height and you lack of training. The lift cage of your high rise as a corporation has been sabotaged previously to your Presidential visit and your corporation is not going to be liable to the government for that. Employee life insurances will kick in so nothing to worry about except a few fatalities, titles in the press and some employees leaving.

Employees will leave your corporation if it represents a high fatality risk, my job is also to keep people assured that my services will not wrong them in any way. How when, secret services checked the lift, so far it is absolutely safe, what they didn’t check however because always pressed for staff and time is the C4 disposed somewhere between the 190th and 170th floor, that’s 30 floors of lift casing and you have to be thorough which people nowadays are well less. I know I work there late at night and I am leaving out of falling on the lift fear, which I have been questioned by secret services giving them my usual blank look. I know that they know that I am an assassin with the government, dozens of them and high up too.

I know that they know that I am a poison pill of the worst kind because I represent too many interests to meddle with, one of which is the safety of operations on this planet. I could easily pass for one of those golden poison dart frogs if it was the trend here. One of them can kill some 10 000 people. I can get more killed much more if my safety is threatened in any kind, I tell Generals what to do. After that I don’t tell people my rank because it is ridiculous at my age, but you can guess by my uniform which I wear every now and then, and its different ones too. I avoid people trying to piece it all together like the plague, and its only so many that I let into knowing when and where I will be present.

Those frogs are really something marvel at, you can see what tactics and mechanisms they developed and they have all my respects for not depending on social security of any kind. Rather the opposite and I too is one of the most dangerous life forms I know of, I use those frogs too, killed whole buildings with them by poisoning the water supply. I synthesize that stuff into aerosols and sprays as well. Its ill advised to say that those frogs are killing machines, they are just preserving themselves and the same goes for me.

People think that I am some form of AI that they can steal, it is upsetting and funny. Actually I feel empty headed every morning, I am like I said amnesic. Its irreversible too, I wake up everyday with no souvenirs of the stuff that I discarded, which I think the discarding phase takes place at night, I can also instantly forget and mark you for killed. I will forget after a time I killed too many to bother, and always for good reasons. 

No I don’t remember the good times either sorry to disappoint again. Its often good times with people that I see once in my life. Near some airport somewhere in Japan or elsewhere, I almost live aboard my private jets, because I have several of them. I meet in complete anonymity too many people to bother having seen you and those good times, I smile when people say good times I know that they were good and remember their faces so that I don’t see them again anytime soon. They can go have good times somewhere else and leave me alone.

“We won’t make an opinion before he answers for kidnapping”, its not a charge honey its my job when the government wants to talk to you, when I want to talk to you anywhere and anytime, global too. I can’t tell you who or where I kidnapped people, they’re many thousands and a lot of them owe me for being still alive because I told them that they could get killed going on like that. The rest died after being questioned on a variety of things ranging from terrorism to human trafficking, narcotics, counterfeiting, all kinds of swindlers I killed like that. I made street gangs disappear for playing people funny.

I completely forgot what the rest of the resume said, counterfeiting maybe, such as that IBM building somewhere, these are all secret agents under first tier id’s, they will check out right each and every time, I know I got them printed by different governments and delivered them hands on. I don’t even know if I can be charged for counterfeiting because I have secret services create whole identity sets or I do it myself for agents, operations, and people who need a new start in life so there, call it counterfeiting if you want. If you’re not killed for finding out.

How are we so far, you probably bought the book because you are interested in me, and in espionage. GITS is an espionage flick go watch it again everywhere people are getting played including Aramaki in front of the cyborg. Do sentiments exist, we would be dull without them there is a whole palette of sentiments, words, phrases and behaviors in GITS. Some of them are induced. Motoko is manipulated, and she’s the main protagonist. 

Why did we have a call center room, because we had no other contact with the outside world, I still take calls, inasmuch as I am remote from your everyday life I can become an everyday presence in your life for a variety of reasons and corporations. Of which Amazon, Ebay, Fedex, Microsoft, Oracle and Sun we said that. I will unfailingly provoke an issue with your services or account in order to have you on the phone, AMEX lets add that. And I will take your different calls for different things with voice virtualization technology, call it a synthesizer. I can be any famous actor you can name, and also lip sync Guns and Roses.

Do I listen to your domestic calls, yes even professional, do I need an injunction for that never, my mandate is not to leave anything in writing. Like we said the government maybe has reasons to get rid of you and is not too keen on you knowing it. What you suspected always existed, the government will even hire hardened criminals to kill you make it like you got stolen for your Rollie at a NY street corner. Its not any different in that regard to various criminal organizations.

My story with law enforcement is a complicated matter where the government that employs me doesn’t want his law enforcement to find out what its doing. Abroad doesn’t really exist for me but for the sake of the word it gets worst abroad because now its two governments that don’t want their law enforcement branches to know about any of it. And it can be related to people in different countries with different citizenships. 

Expert: The media has focused on gay adoption for quite a while, perhaps because it is controversial and controversy – like sex – sells. So, it is little wonder the attention being given to gay rights advocates who are up in arms about laws they see as discriminating against them in the adoption arena based on religious beliefs of adoption agencies such as the law recently passed in  Kansas granting legal protections for faith-based adoption agencies that refuse to place children in LGBTQ homes. LGBTQ activists have now been joined by “tech giants” Google and Apple lobbying against such laws that prevent the state from denying grants and contracts to faith-based agencies for refusing to place children into homes that don’t align with their religious beliefs. A similar bill passed the house in Oklahoma and heads for the Senate. South Dakota, Michigan, Alabama, and Texas have all passed similar legislation. It amazes [and offends] me that, of all the pressing issues in child adoption today, this is the one these mega corporations chose to take on and stand up for.  Is this really the most pressing current wrong in adoption? What about child trafficking for adoption? What about pressure, coercion, exploitation to meet a demand for babies? What about rehoming? What about establishing a national child abuse registry so people cannot move state to state like the Hart family did to avoid detection of their abuses to the vulnerable children entrusted to them, and may possibly have prevented the murder of six adopted children? What about denial of adoptees right to access their own birth certificates? None of that matters? It is shocking that Apple and Google find the alleged rights of the LGBTQ community more important to take a stand on than all of these other issues facing adoption. Sadly, none of these issues which cause harm and suffering to innocent children ever garnered the attention that the issue of gay adoption has. They are just not popular or sexy. Sad realities don’t sell like warm fuzzy happily-ever-after – or even indignant – stories do. Let me be perfectly clear. Despite the recently freorted horrific abuse and murder of six children adopted by Jennifer and Sarah Hart, as a lifelong friend, ally, and supporter of LGBTQ rights to equality, to live free of harassment and violence perpetrated out of hate and discrimination and to marry whomever they choose, I know that same sex couples and gay individuals can and do make excellent care-takers and parents of children, of that I have no doubt or concern and plenty of hetero adopters have brutally abused, abandoned, and murdered children in their care (as have natural parents). At Issue The argument is that adoption agencies should not have the right to discriminate against same sex couples and gay individuals and that to do so causes suffering to children who need adopting by reducing their options for a loving home, a preposterous claim when demand for children to adopt greatly outweighs the “supply.” It’s also a deceptive argument inasmuch as neither state adoptions from foster care nor secular private adoptions are being challenged. These avenues remain open to people of all persuasions. No one is screening out potential families for these children based on religious beliefs or sexual preferences.  Thus, it is patently untrue that LGBT people are discriminated against when it comes to adoption. Gay adoption – like international adoption – is masqueraded as being in the best interest of “unwanted” children who are “languishing” in foster care.  It is true that there are approximately half a million children in state care in the United States. Many are awaiting reunification with their families. Others who can be adopted are, for the most part, ignored by those seeking to adopt because of the children’s age, because of their physical, emotional and educational abilities and limitations, or they are sibling groups. But there are still other paths to adoption open to same sex couples. As noted in The Nation’s recent article “The Left’s Assault on Adoption”: Same-sex couples have abundant options to foster and adopt. Every state in the country allows fostering or adoption by same-sex couples. As one LGBT advocacy group has documented, there are no states where same-sex couples face legal restrictions when petitioning for fostering, joint adoption, or stepparent or second-parent adoption. Most private adoption agencies, as well as all public agencies in America, are willing to place children in same-sex households. The number of adoptions by same-sex couples has more than tripled from 6,500 couples in 2000, to 22,000 in 2010. And almost 40 percent of all adoption agencies, and 83 percent of public agencies, report that they have made at least one adoption placement with an LGBT person. Same-sex couples adopt and foster and are not prevented from doing so by the continued existence of adoption agencies that prefer to place kids with married moms and dads. Anyone – regardless of their gender, marital status, or sexual preference  – is perfectly able to adopt a child needing a family. The only restriction in question is one that pits the non-existent right to adopt against the right of faith-based adoption agencies – often funded by religious institutions  – to operate in keeping with their religious beliefs and to provide services to specific communities that choices such religious based services. The Nation also recognizes: Faith-based adoption agencies that follow their religious beliefs have a high level of success in placing older and disabled children. They also provide services for vulnerable women seeking help with unplanned pregnancies. Moreover, some women facing an unplanned pregnancy want their child to be raised by a married man and woman. A birth mother should have the freedom to work with an agency that honors her preferences and shares her values. In general, I am opposed to businesses refusing to serve LGBTQ customers which can result in health professionals refusing to serve clients based on their religious beliefs.  However, when it comes to adoption agencies, there are multiple clients served – those seeking to adopt , the families seeking placement, and the child. Adoption is not, or should not be, merely a business transaction.  And herein lies the difference between adoption agencies and wedding photographers or bakeries who are serving a single client. This is nothing new. There have long been specifically Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Evangelical adoption agencies that serve their communities, providing families the option of selecting who might or might not want to raise their child based on religious values and practices. Should that right be taken from families in need of finding alternative, extra-familial care for their child? It is, after all their child up until they relinquish their parental rights or have those rights terminated by the state.  Families in crisis considering adoption have the same right to ensure their child is raised in the tradition of his or her family of birth and kin just as every parent does and thus have the right to choose a placing agency to act on their wishes and preferences. Religious and secular adoption agencies have many criteria such as age of those seeking to adopt, standards some may object to or call discriminatory. The alternative, however, is a society in which children are treated like cars that are sold to whomever has the ability to pay. Adoption agencies act on behalf of and represent families in need. We hope they are acting on good faith and using good judgment to do the best not for the paying client – those adopting – but for the silent client, the child. In that capacity, representing the most vulnerable among us, it is their duty to be selective and have criteria. As a society, we want potential adopters subjected to criminal background checks and home studies though many object to being scrutinized in ways that people who become parents naturally are not. But should the safety net for children in need be any less cautious? The powerful LGBTQ lobby I have long avoided writing about this aspect adoption knowing that unless I am totally in favor and supportive of the rights of the LGBTQ community to adopt, I would be seen as biased against gays and deemed homophobic. The rights of LGBTQ people to create anonymous offspring via genetic “donations”, to exploit women as surrogates, and their alleged right to adopt – a right no one has – become hands off, sacrosanct. Speak out against any of these practices that provide children for LGBTQs and you are labeled prejudiced against their sexual preferences, and silenced, despite speaking out against such practices for all. Out of more than 100 blog posts I wrote for Huffington Post, only two were rejected. One was this one, opposing the sale of anonymous genetic material because it stepped on the toes of the gay community, despite my objections being the practices themselves when utilized by anyone, gay or straight. No adoption policy should be formed without hearing and respecting the input of the lived experiences of adoptees.  Anything less treats adopted persons as commodities. Yet, the voices of adult children of same-sex parents who dare to write or speak out about their personal experience in anything but glowing terms, are silenced, discounted as “ungrateful,” bitter, angry by powerful LGBTQ lobby. Those who are less than thrilled at having been raised by same-sex parents report having have great difficulty getting published despite glowing credentials, are labeled homophobes, and are harassed to the point that at least one woman known as Rivka Edelman had to go underground and write under a pseudonym. Gay men and women, like any group of people, are unique individuals and cannot be grouped together based on that one aspect of their lives. Not all women or even all feminists agree on everything any more than all left-handed people, or all Ohioans share similar opinions, or beliefs.  Thus, not all members of the LGBTQ community are incensed or feel discriminated against by religious adoption agencies upholding their criteria. Bryan C. is a gay male adoptee and an adoptee rights advocate. He brings a unique perspective to  this issue: My issue with same sex couples adopting a child is not dissimilar to my issue with any couple or individual legally and ethically adopt[ing], that being the primacy of the child’s well-being above and beyond any real or imagined “need” to parent where biological ability is absent. It is my sincere belief as an adoptee who struggled over years with my own sexuality (self-concept) issues, that a child at all cost, be allowed to thrive in the most stable environment possible. In some instances, single mothers and fathers . . . if assisted by family and professional help would be [able] to maintain an original nuclear family.  In the absence of that possibility, a child placed for adoption for whatever reason, is immediately in a destabilized environment by the very nature of the process. When one compounds that destabilized situation, it is not, in my opinion, ameliorated by adding further to a [child] placement [with] a same sex couple by nature of it not being a societal ‘norm’ (tolerance or lack thereof ) is not itself necessarily a stable environment. A child already struggling with issues of adoption is then faced with the struggle of being raised in a created non-traditional family. There may be instances of success, but in light of what I have experienced as both a ‘successful adoptee’ who grew up and became an experienced gay man, I believe what I have written to be true from my experience. I do not think same sex parents ‘deserve’ to be parents more than stable single parents, it simply adds another potential layer of instability to a child of whom instability, in my honest opinion, is already a large portion of their lives. This is my opinion with the interest of all adopted or potentially adopted children, including those conceived in vitro as primary. My position on adoption As a lifetime advocate for children and families, I too view adoption through one narrow lens: the best interest of children, above and beyond the alleged “rights” of any of the adults involved (birth or adoptive parents) over those of the child, though I recognize the powerful bond created by the mother/child dyad and believe it detrimental to both mother and child to severe that without good cause. As such I do not give primacy for the needs, wants, desires or wishes of anyone seeking to create or enlarge their family through adoption. I believe adoption should always be about finding the best care for children not about filling longing arms. (I am equally disliked for this position in the infertility community which has accused me of being heartless and lacking compassion as in the LGBT community.) Apple and Google and any others who support adoption need to educate themselves and learn the facts. Adoption is glamorized, applauded, encouraged, and promoted as a win-win. It is not. Every adoption, in fact, begins with a loss that creates a lifetime trauma. Many – perhaps even most – adoptees cope well with the separation, loss, lies, and secrecy of the relinquishment at the foundation of every adoption. Their resilience and coping skills do not, however, eliminate struggles such as cultural identity and lack of medical history. Stranger adoption – by any non-related person or persons –  should be a last resort turned to only when there are no extended family able or willing to parent. It should not be encouraged and fought for as a right. Viewing adoption from a child-centric perspective, we need to be less inclined to jump on the band-wagon of anything that increases the enormously high demand for sought-after babies – currently about 36 to 1. It is this demand and the tens of thousands of dollars those seeking children to adopt are willing and allowed to pay, that creates pressure, coercion, exploitation, corruption, and child trafficking. Thus, if one agency turns down one couple there are many other agencies and many others vying to adopt! No child has suffered. No adult’s “rights,” needs, desires, or feelings of entitlement should take precedent over the rights of children in need. http://clubof.info/