Chris Geidner explains at Metro Weekly:The long anticipated ruling is expected to address three issues: (1) whether former U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker should have recused himself from hearing the case because he is gay and had a long-time partner with whom he was not married; (2) whether the proponents of Proposition 8 have the right to appeal Walker's decision striking down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional when none of the state defendants chose to do so; and (3) whether, if Walker did not need to recuse himself and the proponents do have the right to appeal, Walker was correct that Proposition 8 violates Californians' due process and equal protection rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
Mental noting takes us in a very different direction from getting lost in a story: “Oh, this anger is so miserable; I am such a terrible person because I’m always angry; this is just how I will always be,” and so on. Instead, we simply say to ourselves, “anger, anger”—and cut through all of that elaboration, the story, the judgment, the interpretation. |
"This isn't something you kid about, Brittany," her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. "Honey, I'm so sorry. We're too late," she said tonelessly as Brittany's knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming. No one saw the rest of them coming, either.Go read the rest.
We are not called upon as Buddhists to deny the world, and certainly not to escape from it. We are called to live with it, and to make our peace with all that is. The world of worries we wish to escape from in the beginning of Buddhist practice is found to be enlightenment itself in the end. |
Anger, annoyance, and impatience deplete energy. Patient effort strengthens our resources. We need to practice cooling emotional fires and alleviating fierce disruptions from our lives. The benefits of developing greater patience will be felt in all our relationships: intimate, casual, professional, as well as that all-important relationship, the one we have with ourselves. |
When gay marriage finally becomes widespread, how quickly (if at all) will we act to correct each other when we identify someone's significant other?It took almost seven years, but this very thing happened to me last night as I was rather archly informed that the couple I'd referred to as "husbands" were not married. They've just lived together for 22 years.
"There goes David and his husband."
"Oh, they aren't married, just living together."
Will we do that? Will we give those who choose not to marry a verbal downgrade to "just living together", to "just boyfriends"? Gay people have traditionally operated fast and loose with the rules of defining and naming our relationships.
Will there be a sense of relief then, as we convert to straight society's hierarchy of relationships and start identifying couples as: dating, living together, or married? I think that the implied legitimacy of a legal marriage will tempt many of our people to begin resorting relationships into those separate categories. And I don't know how I feel about that.
Whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, gross or subtle, every sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it. |
