Friday, November 4, 2016

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Via Huffington: When You’re LGBT And Your Family Is Voting For Trump Come November, my mother is voting for Donald Trump. So is my father.


November 8 is looming. It seems the closer we get to Election Day, the more heightened the emotions, thoughts, comments and stakes involved.

I’ve done my best to stay out of the fray. I’ll post funny little ditties about both candidates on Facebook, hoping to keep things light. But the reality is this election is far from light ― it’s incredibly dark. And as an LGBT individual, it’s downright scary.

We reached a milestone last summer when gay marriage became legal across the country. My mother called and left a message on my phone that nearly brought me to tears. “Congratulations!” she said in her heartwarming and adorable motherly voice. “That’s the way it should be.”

Come November, my mother is voting for Donald Trump. So is my father. Both of them love me unconditionally. Yet, both of them hate Hillary Clinton with a boiling passion that has been bubbling to the surface, across the country, for months ― even years.

This is hard to reconcile for me. On one hand, I respect their political views and right to vote for whom they choose. On the other hand, I don’t get how they can vote for someone who has threatened to appoint Supreme Court Justices that would overturn the marriage equality ruling. It directly affects me. It affects my family. It affects my daughter.

Straight people who have enjoyed the privilege of getting legally married, and all of the benefits that legal marriage provides, don’t think about things like this. Not even my parents. It’s not part of their world, one in which they’ve been able to blindly take these kinds of things for granted. And they aren’t the only ones.

The other night, a relative of my wife’s came over for a visit. He’s a genuinely nice guy. He loves our daughter and often brings her gifts and stuffed animals—mostly oversized cows, which she loves because, well, she loves cows.

It was a brisk yet pleasant October evening. We were sitting outside in front of my house. Glasses of wine were in hand. Naturally, election and real world chatter arose. I don’t mind engaging in this type of conversation, as long as its civil and constructive. Like my parents, this relative is voting for Trump. But I’d venture to say he’s more of an active fan. When he asked why we weren’t going to get on the “Trump Train” and cast our vote for him, I said simply: “As gay individuals, we can’t afford to. We have to take that into consideration.”

(Sure, there are a billion other reasons why I am not voting for Trump. But being an LGBT individual is at the top of the list.)

This particular relative decided at that moment, that it was a good time to tell my wife and I ― and our four-year-old with perky ears who was busily playing at our feet ― that he believed marriage was only between a man and a woman. I stopped him right there. I got up and hurried my daughter inside for a bath.

I like to think I’m an understanding person. I respect all people and their political opinions, no matter how drastically I disagree with them. I’m fine with family members of mine voting for Trump. But to question the validity of my marriage in front of my daughter, that’s where I draw the damn line. My wife and I took the same vows as every other married couple on the planet. We work hard to live a decent life, raise our family in peace, and be good human beings. Our marriage is no less or greater than anyone else’s, and we go through the same exact trials and tribulations. The only thing that makes our marriage different is an ignorant and outdated point of view.

I rather enjoy being married. I’ve been in one for seven years now. And I hope to enjoy my legal marriage to my wife for the rest of my life, with our daughter a witness to our love and appreciation for one another ― sexuality aside. But as the election nears, I’m beginning to wonder if that’s possible. Trump has a decent shot at winning. And people, even those in my own family circle, don’t seem to care about how that outcome could possibly affect the LGBT community.

All they seem to care about is beating Hillary.

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Occupy Democrats / FB:


Choir Chants "Divine OM Mantra" [INCREDIBLE]



Choir Chants "The OM Mantra"

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Chant along or let it run in the background as you do your normal chores. If you want to study, OM will help you increase the focus also.

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Via Sri Prem Baba


Via Daily Dharma / November 3, 2016: Outer Pleasure vs. Inner Freedom

If we had to make a choice between outer pleasure, comfort and peace, and inner freedom and ultimate happiness, we should choose inner peace. If we could find that within, then the outer would take care of itself.

—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, "Invisible Realities"

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Via Equality House / FB:


Via Ram Dass



 
One day in India on my second stay, Maharaji said to me, “You don’t have to change anybody; you just have to love them.” In relationships, when the other person doesn’t fit into your model of how heaven would be, you don’t have to play God. You just have to love individual differences and appreciate them the way they are. Because love is the most powerful medicine.

Senate Republicans Want to Sabotage our Supreme Court


Via Sri Prem Baba


Via Daily Dharma / November 2, 2016: No Thought Lasts for Long

Spending time with your own mind is humbling and broadening. One finds that there’s no one in charge, and is reminded that no thought lasts for long.

—Gary Snyder, "Just One Breath"

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Before the Flood - Full Movie | National Geographic


Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh

LXI: The world is in travail, and its agitation…

The world is in travail, and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then, and only then, will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its melody.

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Via Daily Dharma / November 1, 2016: Can You Accept Suffering?

I had thought the point was to pursue happiness and flee misery, and this attitude extended to Zen practice. But now I saw a new way of looking at things. What if the point was to start by accepting suffering?

—Henry Shukman, "Beautiful Storm"

Monday, October 31, 2016

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Via LBGTQ Report / Bilerico Report: Remembering the gay man who saved 17 million lives

Alan Turing
Alan Turing

“[Alan Turing] was and is a hero of all time…a man who is a gay icon, who didn’t deny his nature, his being, and for that he suffered. … This is a story that celebrates him, that celebrates outsiders; it celebrates anybody who’s ever felt different and ostracized and ever suffered prejudice.”
—Benedict Cumberbatch

I usually find movie award shows to project primarily fluff and silliness, and they rarely stir deep emotions in me. But listening to Benedict Cumberbatch accept the award for Best Actor at the American Film Awards for his portrayal of Alan Turing in the film The Imitation Game two years ago brought me to tears.

This stemmed from a sense of deep pride and an endless abyss of sadness. Cumberbatch’s commitment and passion shined through on stage as he talked about transforming Turing’s story, his brilliance, and his humanity to the silver screen, helping to give Turing the long-overdue wide-scale recognition he rightly deserves.

Alan Mathison Turing was a pioneering computer scientist, and he served as a mid-20th century British mathematician, logician, and cryptanalyst who, working during World War II at England’s Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, succeeded with his team of scientists and linguists in cracking the “Enigma code” used by the Nazi command to conduct covert communication operations.

Because of Turing and his colleagues’ efforts, Cumberbatch said, there is now general agreement that they shortened the war by at least two years, saving an estimated 17 million lives. Prime Minister Winston Churchill singled out Turning as the person whose work contributed the most to defeating the Germans.

The Imitation Game also highlights the enormous obstacles placed in the way of women entering the sciences, especially mid-century. In this regard, Keira Knightley made an equally moving speech at the American Film Awards in accepting theBest Supporting Actress award for her portrayal of Joan Clarke, who worked with Turing in deciphering the code.

“Particularly now, when women are such a minority in all fields, her story and the fact that she really perseveres, and she had space and time and grace, is really inspiring,” she said.

Though initially considered a national hero in Britain, in 1952, government officials arrested and prosecuted Turing on the antiquated charge of “gross indecency” when he “admitted” to maintaining a same-sex relationship. Rather than serving time in prison, Turing chose to undergo estrogen injections then considered in men a form of “chemical castration” eliminating sex drive. Turing took his life two years later by swallowing cyanide just two weeks short of his 42nd birthday.

I find it deeply ironic that while Turing and his team helped defeat the Nazi war machine, a nation intolerant of any form of difference including same-sex relations (especially between men), the primary “allied” nations fighting Nazi Germany – United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union – all maintained laws criminalizing homosexuality.

Under King Henry VIII in 1533, England passed a “buggery” (or sodomy) law, doling out the penalty of death for “the detestable and abominable Vice of Buggery committed with mankind or beast.”

Under the rule of Elizabeth I in 1564, death for same-sex acts between men became a permanent part of English law until the 1880s. British courts at the time concluded that sex between two women was impossible and, therefore, exempted women from the statute. By 1885, English Criminal Law punished homosexuality with imprisonment up to two years. This remained in effect until homosexuality was decriminalized in 1967.

In addition, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin criminalized homosexuality with eight years imprisonment or exile to Siberia. And in the United States, consensual same-sex relations were against the law at one time in all states, and remained illegal in some states as late as 2003, when the Supreme Court finally overturned such bans in its Lawrence v. Texas decision.

In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown officially apologized to Alan Turing on behalf of the people of his nation for “the appalling way he was treated.” Parliament finally brought up a bill of “pardon” in 2013, and on 24 December, 2013, Queen Elizabeth granted Turing a posthumous pardon.

Though the English government never actually forced a physical stigma onto Turing’s body, they branded the symbol of the outsider, the pervert, the enemy deeply into his soul. This branding seriously deprived the British nation and the larger world community of his continued genius, his generosity, and the many additional gifts he could have imparted.

I agree with Benedict Cumberbatch that Turing’s wide-scale recognition is long overdue.

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