Friday, September 26, 2014

Via JMG: IOC: All Future Olympics Host Cities Must Agree To LGBT Discrimination Protections


The International Olympic Committee today announced that future Olympics host cities must sign a contract with an added clause vowing to protect LGBT participants and attendees from discrimination. Via press release from All Out:
“This is a significant step in ensuring the protection of both citizens and athletes around the world and sends a clear message to future host cities that human rights violations, including those against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, will not be tolerated,” said Andre Banks, co-founder and executive director of All Out, the global movement for love and equality. “This is a particularly important moment for the world’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens who face discrimination and persecution not only in Russia but in countries all over the world. We will continue working to make sure this change is powerfully enforced - these new rules must prevent a replay of Sochi.”

According to IOC Sports Director, Christopher Dubi, the new clause will include “the prohibition of any form of discrimination, using the wording of Fundamental Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter." This clause will ensure that future host cities must abide by international human rights standards in order to host the games, including the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens and athletes. “By adopting a non-discrimination clause into its host city contracts, the IOC is showcasing its own realization that we must protect the rights of every athlete to live free and openly,” said Hudson Taylor, Executive Director of Athlete Ally. “The Principle 6 campaign sought to shed light on the responsibility of host countries to uphold the olympic values, and this action validates all of the hard work by organizations and individuals across the world who’ve engaged in the fight for LGBT equality.”
RELATED: The 2016 Summer Games will be held in Rio De Janeiro, where robust LGBT protections already exist. The 2018 Winter Games will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where homosexuality is legal, but anti-discrimination laws do not exist.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: HRC Head Chad Griffin: Obama Should Consider LGBT Successor To Eric Holder


"Some Attorneys General wait for history, others make history happen. Attorney General Holder made history for the LGBT community. He was our Robert F. Kennedy, lightening the burden of every American who faces legal discrimination and social oppression. We owe him a profound debt of gratitude for his legacy of advocacy and service. President Obama faces a historic opportunity in light of Attorney General Holder's departure. The President has expressed a commitment to appointing a cabinet that reflects the full diversity of the American people, and there are many richly-qualified candidates available to serve as the first openly-LGBT cabinet secretary. It would be a natural extension of this administration's enduring commitment to equality to send a message of visibility and inclusion by nominating such a candidate to serve in this historic role." - Human Rights Campaign Chad Griffin, via email.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

JMG Headline Of The Day


The Daily Beast today published a lengthy accounting of the The Gathering, a secretive meeting of anti-gay right wing activists that starts in Orlando today. An excerpt:
The Gathering is an annual event at which many of the wealthiest conservative to hard-right evangelical philanthropists in America—representatives of the families DeVos, Coors, Prince, Green, Maclellan, Ahmanson, Friess, plus top leaders of the National Christian Foundation—meet with evangelical innovators with fresh ideas on how to evangelize the globe. The Gathering promotes “family values” agenda: opposition to gay rights and reproductive rights, for example, and also a global vision that involves the eventual eradication of all competing belief systems that might compete with The Gathering’s hard-right version of Christianity. Last year, for example, The Gathering 2013 brought together key funders, litigants, and plaintiffs of the Hobby Lobby case, including three generations of the Green family. The evangelical right financial dynasties and foundations that meet each year at The Gathering dispense upwards of $1 billion a year in grants. But even that is overshadowed by the bigger sums that The Family and The Gathering have managed to route from the federal and state government to fund their movement via the Faith-Based Initiative program, USAID, PEPFAR and other multibillion-dollar programs.
Many of the anti-gay hate groups involved will be familiar to you. Definitely hit that link.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Christian Group: Homosexuals And Gossips Both Deserve The Death Penalty


 
"We aren't just defending marriage - whether we call it natural marriage or traditional marriage or Biblical marriage - because it's the way we've always done things. We have a much more firm foundation than tradition. We affirm marriage in the way that God himself intended it. The church is not a Christian congress or Supreme Court. The laws of God cannot be overruled or deemed unconstitutional. Of course, we ALL break those laws and being a homosexual doesn't make a man a sinner any more or less than being a gossip. Both crimes deserve the death penalty, and only the one who relies on the righteousness of Christ can escape it." - Chris Johnson, writing for the American Decency Association, which notes on its Facebook page that it is the former Michigan chapter for the American Family Association.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: The American Decency Association declares that while they totally hate that homosexual Michael Sam, they are not the group by the same name that called for protesting Dallas Cowboys games. The American Decency Association calls for a boycott of Target and for Christians to mail their destroyed charge cards to company headquarters. The American Decency Association says the DOMA ruling was as bad as the attack on Pearl Harbor.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: Hate Groups Launch Joint Campaign: Don't Vote For Pro-Gay GOP Candidates


Posted yesterday on NOM's blog:
Three of the nation's top pro-family groups have announced an unprecedented campaign against three top Republican candidates for federal office because the candidates are supporters of same-sex 'marriage' and abortion. The National Organization for Marriage, Family Research Council Action and CitizenLink announced they will urge voters not to support Republican House candidates Carl DeMaio (CA-52) and Richard Tisei (MA-6), and will urge Oregon voters not to support US Senate candidate Monica Wehby. "The Republican Party platform is a 'statement of who we are and what we believe.' Thus, the platform supports the truth of marriage as the union of husband and wife, and recognizes the sanctity and dignity of human life. This is what Republicans believe," said Brian S. Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). "It is extremely disappointing to see Republican leaders in Washington help push the election of candidates who reject the party's principled positions on these and other core issues. We cannot sit by when people calling themselves Republicans seek high office while espousing positions that are antithetical to the overwhelming majority of Republicans."
CitizenLink is an arm of Focus On The Family.


Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: It's Time for the Freedom to Marry


Flower of the Day: 09/26/14

“Once we become independent, we may or may not end up helping to sustain our parents, but we need to observe who in us is doing this. Where does our sense of responsibility come from: guilt or love? Do we want to help because our heart is open, or because we feel guilty? Many people help their parents out of a sense of obligation, but they will later expect 'compensation,' even charging 'interest' and 'inflation adjustments.' Rather than being monetary, this compensation comes in the form of emotional pressure. One actually ends up subtly humiliating one’s parents, taking revenge for having been hurt in the past.”

Sri Prem Baba
 

Via Dialy Dharma


The Things That Matter | September 26, 2014

If you’re not really what you stand for, then the things that matter the most are always going to be at the mercy of the things that matter the least. 
 
- Cheri Maples, "She's Got the Beat"