“I found my father on Facebook before Catholic Charities did.”

Thomas Diepenbrock decided at age 40 to try to find his birth parents.

He was testifying on House Bill 22, which, according to its supporters, would “expand the rights of adopted adults to know their original identities, as well as their medical and ancestral histories.”

He continued, “I desperately wanted to know what my birth name was on the original birth certificate.  I am legally barred from knowing my own name.

“It was shocking and revealing to learn that my children have ice blue eyes because my birth father does.

“I just wanted to know where I came from.”

I always try to have a witness who personalizes the issue my bill addresses.  You can’t do it  better than this one did.

In this instance, the technology outran the law, as Facebook rendered obsolete the statute, the product of a compromise in 1999.