There’s a chap I worked with many years ago at the Republican National Committee. A good guy and a great worker, in fact of all the good folks on my communications team, he was among the best.
Quiet, effective, smart, respected. Worked well independently, a key for a field guy, which he was.
We lost contact after we left the committee but, thanks to Facebook, we rediscovered each other, at least at the digital relationship level, some time ago. I still have not had an opportunity to speak with him over those nearly 30 years since we worked together until this morning when we exchanged Facebook messages.
He went on to a terrific career. He was a top staffer to a Republican governor and a Republican U.S. Senator. He led his local Humane Society. He is president of the National Association of Manufacturers, one of the largest trade associations in the country.
He and his spouse already had two beautiful daughters and they decided they would expand their family and adopt another child. That’s when the months-long nightmare began. Adopting and surrogacy, rightfully, isn’t always a simple process. For my former colleague it became a twisting, expensive nightmare that should never happen in this country.
It became that way because a judge, in opposition to existing law, began a process that turned into necessitating a court-appointed guardian for the child. Eventually, this resulted in one of the potential parents to quit a stable, long-term job to laser focus on winning adoption of the child. Eventually they did win but the process they were forced into was ridiculous and driven by personal political and religious views, not by existing law.
It’s all laid out in a piece written by my former colleague. I can’t do the story justice. But he does.
Here is a link to his piece. - http://opinion.ijr.com/2016/07/257550-prejudice-legal-system-still-haunts-lgbt-families/?_ga=1.41191842.1048918612.1467913102.
Thanks to Facebook I see the huge smiles on the faces of this very happy family on a nearly daily basis as he posts pictures quite often.
Two gorgeous little girls, one handsome little boy, and two very proud fathers.
Quiet, effective, smart, respected. Worked well independently, a key for a field guy, which he was.
We lost contact after we left the committee but, thanks to Facebook, we rediscovered each other, at least at the digital relationship level, some time ago. I still have not had an opportunity to speak with him over those nearly 30 years since we worked together until this morning when we exchanged Facebook messages.
He went on to a terrific career. He was a top staffer to a Republican governor and a Republican U.S. Senator. He led his local Humane Society. He is president of the National Association of Manufacturers, one of the largest trade associations in the country.
He and his spouse already had two beautiful daughters and they decided they would expand their family and adopt another child. That’s when the months-long nightmare began. Adopting and surrogacy, rightfully, isn’t always a simple process. For my former colleague it became a twisting, expensive nightmare that should never happen in this country.
It became that way because a judge, in opposition to existing law, began a process that turned into necessitating a court-appointed guardian for the child. Eventually, this resulted in one of the potential parents to quit a stable, long-term job to laser focus on winning adoption of the child. Eventually they did win but the process they were forced into was ridiculous and driven by personal political and religious views, not by existing law.
It’s all laid out in a piece written by my former colleague. I can’t do the story justice. But he does.
Here is a link to his piece. - http://opinion.ijr.com/2016/07/257550-prejudice-legal-system-still-haunts-lgbt-families/?_ga=1.41191842.1048918612.1467913102.
Thanks to Facebook I see the huge smiles on the faces of this very happy family on a nearly daily basis as he posts pictures quite often.
Two gorgeous little girls, one handsome little boy, and two very proud fathers.
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