Via AmericaBlogGay:

Marine spokesman on gay kiss: "It’s your typical homecoming photo." And it was their first kiss.

Great job from the Marine spokesman. Not to mention, this was their first kiss. Their four year friendship had turned into a romance by mail (or email) while the Marine was stationed in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Brandon Morgan returned Wednesday from a six-month deployment to Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan.

There to meet him was his friend of four years, Windward Oahu artist Dalan Wells -- a friendship that had turned to a long-distance love during the deployment. This was their first kiss.

"We couldn't talk, I can barely talk now, his hands went numb, my legs were shaking, our first kiss after just knowing how we felt about each other,” Morgan said.

“All my superiors, my staff sergeants, my gunnery sergeants, my lieutenants, my officers, my captains, they're all very ecstatic and very happy that I had somebody to come home to,” Morgan said. “Again, gay or straight, does not matter.”

A spokesperson for Marine Corps Base Hawaii said in a statement: "It's your typical homecoming photo."

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma February 29, 2012

Toppling the "I" Throne

The ego must be dethroned, its arrogance must be dismantled, and we must begin, before it is too late, to listen to the ensuing silence. All of this is about becoming who we are in the deepest sense and about surrendering to what creation is asking of us and needing from us just now.

- Reginald Ray, "Looking Inward, Seeing Outward"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Via JMG: On The Origins Of HIV

The Washington Post has published a fascinating history of the origins of HIV, based on the fairly widely-accepted theory that the virus sprang from chimp to human during the tumultuous colonial days of western Africa, possibly beginning in the 1880s.

Most of this colonial world didn’t have enough potential victims for such a fragile virus to start a major epidemic. HIV is harder to transmit than many other infections. People can have sex hundreds of times without passing the virus on. To spread widely, HIV requires a population large enough to sustain an outbreak and a sexual culture in which people often have more than one partner, creating networks of interaction that propel the virus onward. To fulfill its grim destiny, HIV needed a kind of place never before seen in Central Africa but one that now was rising in the heart of the region: a big, thriving, hectic place jammed with people and energy, where old rules were cast aside amid the tumult of new commerce. It needed Kinshasa. It was here, hundreds of miles downriver from Cameroon, that HIV began to grow beyond a mere outbreak. It was here that AIDS grew into an epidemic.

Read the full article. (Tipped by JMG reader Greg)

Labels: Africa, Congo, HIV, HIV/AIDS

reposted from Joe

Via Gay Politics Report:

• Houston mayor won't back down from marriage stance
   
• Houston Mayor Annise Parker said this week she believes President Barack Obama “needs to evolve a little bit faster” on the issue of marriage for same-sex couples, and that she supports an effort to include marriage equality in the Democratic platform. Meanwhile, Parker rejected a local pastor's call for her to resign over her increasingly public stance on marriage. "I do my duty to uphold the state Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. I swore an oath to that. I take that oath very seriously, but I have my First Amendment rights to free speech. We all have the right to do that and I’m sorry [he doesn't] understand the Constitution," Parker said. The Huffington Post/Gay Voices (2/27), ThinkProgress.org (2/28)     

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma February 28, 2012

Who We Really Are

The life that flows through each of us and through everything around us is actually all connected. To say that, of course, means that who I really am cannot be separated from all the things that surround me. Or, to put it another way, all sentient beings have their existence and live within my life.

- Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, "The Bodhisattva Vow: Eight Views"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Via jMG: NYC's U.S. House Members: It Gets Better

Clip description:

Members of New York City's Congressional Delegation -- Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Ed Towns, Eliot Engel, Carolyn Maloney, Joe Crowley and Jose Serrano -- released a video to combat the scourge of suicide among LGBT American youths. They join thousands of others across the country working to help those who are at risk. The It Gets Better Project was created in 2010 to address the alarming increase of reported suicide among LGBT youths.

NYC House members except the Republicans.

Labels: bullying, Carolyn Maloney, Congress, Democrats, Jerry Nadler, LGBT youth, U.S. House

Reposted from Joe

Via Facebook:

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma February 27, 2012

Maintaining Skillful Intentions

We may be powerless to change the past, but we do have the power to shape the present and the future by what we do, moment to moment, right now. And in maintaining our intention to be as skillful as possible in thought, word, and deed, we’ll find the only true refuge there is.

- Thanissaro Bhikku, "What We've Been Practicing For"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Via JMG: Obituary Of The Day

From the Washington Post:

Bob Green, a onetime radio DJ who married pop singer and Miss Oklahoma Anita Bryant, was found dead Jan. 26 at his home in Miami Beach. He was 80. Mr. Green managed his wife’s rise to stardom as an entertainer and Florida citrus spokeswoman, then followed her into anti-gay activism, which ultimately destroyed their careers — and marriage in 1980. For more than 30 years, Mr. Green lived quietly, alone and resentful.

Never read an obit quite like that. Read the full thing.

Labels: Anita Bryant, obituary, WaPo

reposted from Joe

JMG Tweet Of The Day

Labels: GOP, Rick Santorum, Talking Points Memo

reposted from Joe