This past weekend my wife and I attended the Dorchester conference held annually in Seaside. We don't always make it every year, but decided to live it up this year. The conference is still the same, except for a new feature during the Saturday session where delegates were allowed to "sound off" on any topic they like for one minute.
For those of you not familiar with Dorchester, it is a political conference started by Senator Bob Packwood in 1965. The normal conference starts Friday night with introductions of the current Republican leadership in the House and Senate. On Saturday the attendees are broken up in tables of ten and have topics of discussion and range from moderate issues to controversial. By Sunday most people are hung over or on their way back home and usually a straw poll to finish things off.
So this year Representative Bill Post, a former radio talk show host, ran a session that allowed anyone the opportunity to go up to one of the microphones on the floor and take one minute to speak on any topic they like. The rules were pretty simple, you couldn't speak in favor or against a candidate, proper rules of speaking decorum, and you had one minute when a hotel lobby bell would ring.
I decided that I would use this as an opportunity to talk about how we need to move past pro-life and pro-choice and unite together under the cause of pro-adoption. I jotted down a few notes and went up to one of the floor microphones. As I waited I ran through what I would say in my head. But as I realized that I will be speaking in about a minute, I felt a wave of nervousness come over me. This was very strange since I almost always have no problem speaking in front of people at any time.
I started by explaining that this is an issue that is very important to me and told everyone that they may know that my wife and I are in the process of adopting a child. I told the convention that I am pro-adoption and explained how the pro-life and pro-choice sides can agree with me.
As for pro-choice, adoption is a choice too and should always be the first choice. It won't make abortion illegal so if you are pro-choice you can support this. And for those who are pro-life, you need to realize that just telling the birth-mother not to abort the child is not enough. That child will need a loving family to raise it and the pro-choice side is right to call us out on that.
Then I lost my place and the emotion took over.
I froze up. I felt my voice crack. I felt like I was going to cry. I looked over to my left to see my wife running towards me. She put her arms around me to comfort me and gave me the courage to go on.
I explained that at this very moment there are tens of thousands of families ready to take a child into their homes. I finished with stating that it has been over forty years now and we have gotten nowhere but continuous fighting. We need to move past pro-life and pro-choice and find common ground and promote pro-adoption. Because we need to do what's best for the children.
I remember hearing applause. I also remember looking at the stage and thinking I know I had to have gone over one minute, but I think because I had so much emotion in my voice (translation: cracking voice) I guess they were going to let me finish. I sat down and drank some water and after a few minutes I felt calm again.
Later on people started to come up to me and thank me for what I said. Others were interested in what being pro-adoption is about and asked me questions. Everyone I talked with was positive and encouraging.
I truly believe that I helped change some people's minds about adoption. But this is only a start, I plan to write more about this. The only way we will find solutions is to find common ground that all sides can agree to. This is why I am pro-adoption.
