Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Via Nalanda LGBT Buddhist Cultural and Resource Center:

Even saying the short mantra of Vajrasattva OM BEZRA SATTVA HUM is effective for purifying negative karma. Cut someone off in traffic, or loose your patience, say it to yourself 21 times - Scott

Wall Photos

Vajrasattva (tib. Dorje Sempa)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrasattva

This began as a post on a Baha’i Facebook group

This began as a post on a Baha’i Facebook group in reply to a post from my buddy R who said:

So deeply ingrained is this prejudice. This essay should have national task forces spearheading community discussion and deepenings like lives depended on it.

My buddy R wrote in another place in regards to Sonja fine work:
So deeply ingrained is this prejudice. This essay should have national task forces spearheading community discussion and deepenings like lives depended on it.

I replied:

Well, if this was a serious, real religion… it would… this is all a demonstration to me that there is something inherently not right in the Bahaí Faith… and it breaks my heart, and to be honest it is why I have left it behind me.

There seems an unreal need to not want GLBT people… the need to hold the line against GLBT people, to shun, to ignore us… it so really sad.

At best people make excuses, we are a young religion, etc… but to me, the way in which the vast, overwhelming majority of Baha’is will not stand up for their glbt children, friends and colleagues, but so passively accepts this homophobia tells me, at least, that this may not be what I had thought when I enrolled so many years ago…

This Faith was once about tolerance, justice, love… where has it gone? Why this silence from the vast heterosexual majority? Why this need to condescendingly tell gay/lesbians over and over again what the “rules” state, without any compassion… thanks ever to Sonja… but to me, it all seems lost… it is so obvious to the greater non-Baha’i progressive community that the Baha’is are a very conservative and homophobic lot.

Any of us on this forum know of and see other religious communities who are doing a far better job at inclusiveness than any Baha’i community. Where as they all have the same sad teachings on homosexuality… they seem to enable places for GLBTs to feel welcomed, and do not treat them as diseased.

The Catholic gay folks I know do not live in fear of any removal of rights when you get married. The Buddhists I know do not exclude you, indeed do not care at all, they just enjoy your prescence. There are dozens of examples of communities in a diversity of spiritual beliefs that are far more advanced… what gives?

Really… there are, what, 6 million Bahaís in the world, and all we have are a very small handful of safe, progressive, tolerant postings on blogs?

This religion is so small, so insignificant; it makes me wonder why they even care if I am gay or not. Yet they use what little energy and meager resources to hound out GLBT’s… Where I ask, where are the soldiers of light in this fight?

This religion offers no hope or refuge for anything or anyone if it can’t do a better job with its GLBT friends, children and colleagues… this to me and many, many others is the canary in the mineshaft… no LSA’s or NSA’s or administrators OPENLY saying that enough is enough to the the world to our communities?

I see really nothing that we can be hopeful about here… sorry… just a few feeble hopes… but nothing from the leadership, telling the entire world that this homophobia must stop… Not even one community standing up for GLBT people! Nada!

I just read replies on various sites and it’s depressing – the homophobia tolerated – and the gays asked to leave. Meanwhile the rest of spiritual humanity has moved along… and the Baha’is remain insignificant and backward.

Shame!

a version of this is posted at: http://justabahai.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/on-the-psychopathology-of-homosexuality/

Via Gay Politics Report:

Bill seeks to end Social Security discrimination against same-sex couples

Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., has introduced legislation that would grant same-sex couples the same Social Security benefits now available to opposite-sex couples. A rally in support of the measure at the U.S. Capitol last week drew support from celebrities, including actor George Takei, who played “Mr. Sulu” in the original “Star Trek” television series. Washington Blade (4/27)

Via Gay Politics Report:

“It Gets Better” founder apologizes for remarks to teen journalists
Openly gay sex columnist Dan Savage apologized for using profanity in characterizing a walkout by some high school journalists who were upset by a speech in which Savage criticized Bible-based justifications for hatred and bullying of LGBT people. Savage later said he shouldn’t have called the protesters names, but rejected charges that he engaged in an anti-Christian tirade. “I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don't believe,” Savage wrote. Advocate.com (4/29), The Stranger (Seattle) (4/29)

JMG Quote Of The Day - Maureen Dowd

"Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns. Who thinks it’s cool to bully nuns? While continuing to heal and educate, the community of sisters is aging and dying out because few younger women are willing to make such sacrifices for a church determined to bring women to heel. Yet the nuns must be yanked into line by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the Catholic Church. How can the church hierarchy be more offended by the nuns’ impassioned advocacy for the poor than by priests’ sordid pedophilia? How do you take spiritual direction from a church that seems to be losing its soul?" - Maureen Dowd, on the Vatican's order to punish nuns that don't publicly oppose gay marriage.

Labels: Catholic Church, Timothy Dolan, Vatican

Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma May 1, 2012

Finding Your Place

When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others’. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past, and it is not merely arising now.

- Eihei Dogen Zenji, "Finding Your Place"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Via AmericaBlog Gay:

Dan Savage's words were harsh, but he's right

Dan Savage has apologized for using some harsh language when referring to the Bible's provisions calling for the murder of gay people and the endorsement of slavery. Understandable since Dan has been pro-gay and anti-slavery all his life.

The question remains, is it ever okay to say that the Bible's provisions endorsing the murder of gays and the enslaving of blacks (and others) to be "bullsh*t""? And if not, why not?

Surely no one thinks the Bible got it right on slavery? Nor on its admonition to stone gays to death. What other word to use for anything, even a holy book, that endorses slavery and the murder of an entire people? Let me walk you through what 15 different English language versions of the Bible have to say, supposedly, about homosexuality:

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

"If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

When a man has sexual intercourse with another man as with a woman, both men are doing something disgusting and must be put to death. They deserve to die.

King James Bible

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them.

American King James Version

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be on them.

American Standard Version

And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Bible in Basic English

And if a man has sex relations with a man, the two of them have done a disgusting thing: let them be put to death; their blood will be on them.

Douay-Rheims Bible

If any one lie with a man se with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them.

Darby Bible Translation

And if a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall certainly be put to death; their blood is upon them.

English Revised Version

And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Webster's Bible Translation

If a man also shall lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

World English Bible

"'If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Young's Literal Translation

And a man who lieth with a male as one lieth with a woman; abomination both of them have done; they are certainly put to death; their blood is on them.

Via AmericaBlog Gay:

Homophobic NYT story on England's spy agency

There's a story in today's New York Times about Britain's spy agency, MI6, and how a top young spy recently died under unusual circumstances. The article, "Theories and an inquest after a spy's death," is behind the pay firewall, and it seems like some awfully thinly veiled homophobia. Let me walk you through it.

The Times refers to the agents possibly "sexual misadventure" - meaning, one theory is that he died during a somewhat unusual sex act that involved stuffing him in a small duffel bag. Now here's some of the proof from the Times that the guy might have been sexual misadventurous:

1. He was a bachelor. (i.e., he was gay?).

2. He went to transvestite performances (uh, otherwise known as drag).

3. Visited sites on the Internet dedicated to bondage. (ooh, crazy).

But here's my "favorite" part of the story.

"MI6 and other spy agencies in Britain... are no strangers to scandals that have involved the sex lives of some of their greatest talent."

The article then goes on to list several men who were gay. The first, Alan Turing, was basically pushed into suicide by British intelligence simply because he was gay. How exactly is that a "sex scandal"? A bigoted homophobic witch hunt, yes. Sex scandal, uh not really.

The next example they give is just as weird. Several English spies fled to the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and a number of them, according to the Times, "had homosexual liaisons as young men."

Again, yeah - who didn't have homosexual liaisons as young men?

The entire article strikes me badly. If you dare risk one of your ten articles a month, take a look. I think it's poorly written and poorly edited. Being gay isn't a scandal, and it most certainly is not a sex scandal. And someone needs to get out more if they think going to a drag show is evidence of sexual misadventure.