Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast · Profs. Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst and Megan Goodwin

RELIGION & ADOPTION: Overview & Primary Sources

·1 hr 12 min·5 clips

Elise uses her 1982 and 1984 birth-certificate dates to show how the state assigned her identity.

1. Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion Podcast opens a four-episode series titled “Religion & Adoption.” 2. Megan Goodwin identifies herself as a scholar of American religions, race, gender, and politics and an adoptee, while Elise Morgenstein-First identifies herself as a historian of religion, Islam, race and racialization, and South Asia. 3. The episode asks how religion, imperialism, and legal systems shaped adoption and why adoptees are often absent from adoption debates. 4. The hosts define adoption broadly as placing children without capable guardians into the permanent legal care of adults who can serve as parents or guardians. 5. They include foster care within that broad adoption framework because temporary care systems contribute to the larger structure. 6. Goodwin argues that adoption is not a solution for infertility and says adoptees are legally treated as property or permanent minors. 7. Morgenstein-First connects adoption to Christian orphanages, residential schools, white Christian families, Catholic Charities, and Catholic adoption agencies. 8. The hosts preview later episodes on religious freedom, Indigenous child removal, reproductive justice, and Dr. Courtney Lewis's discussion of Dr. Ronald Lewis and ICWA. 9. Goodwin recounts Catholic parochial-school fundraising in which children could supposedly adopt and name “pagan babies” for a nickel or dime. 10. Her father named a certificate's supposed adopted child Lisa, the name of Goodwin's youngest aunt, who replied that she had not been adopted because she had red hair. 11. Goodwin says narratives often portray adoptive parents as saviors and parentless children as grateful obligations or refuse. 12. Morgenstein-First argues that adoption narratives make biological family appear essential even when that family may be abusive. 13. Goodwin describes her active birth certificate as a “Frankenstein document” containing adoptive-family information and separate dates. 14. She says New Jersey questioned why the document listed two birthdays, while North Carolina required a lawyer's notarized statement before issuing her driver's license. 15. Goodwin uses her birth certificate in classes on race because adoption makes identity's legal and social “squishiness” concrete. 16. She explains that a different state decision could have produced a different name, religion, ethnicity, or racialization. 17. The episode combines primary-source stories, personal testimony, dark humor, and warnings for adoptees, adoptive parents, and people struggling with infertility. 18. Goodwin and Morgenstein-First use rapid banter, profanity, cultural references to Star Wars and Harry Potter, and planned multi-episode framing. 19. Listeners studying adoption, religion, and racialization will appreciate this episode. 20. Listeners seeking light entertainment may skip its adoption-trauma analysis.

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