You should check out the timeline
of when the bans went into place. In 2004 Ken Mehlman was the chair of
the Bush re-election campaign. From 2005-2007, he was the head of RNC.
During those two short time spans 23 of the bans were enacted. For the
past couple of years, Mehlman has been working to undo that damage or at
least prevent it from spreading further.Monday, May 7, 2012
Via JMG: Marriage Map
You should check out the timeline
of when the bans went into place. In 2004 Ken Mehlman was the chair of
the Bush re-election campaign. From 2005-2007, he was the head of RNC.
During those two short time spans 23 of the bans were enacted. For the
past couple of years, Mehlman has been working to undo that damage or at
least prevent it from spreading further.
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma May 7, 2012
The Wise Investigator
You
always need to check the quality of mind; only if the quality is good
are you practicing in the right way. This is how the quality of practice
should be measured; not by posture or by the number of hours of
sitting, walking, or standing meditation you do.
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- Sayadaw U Tejaniya, "The Wise Investigator"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Via JMG: UNSHOCKING: Prosperity Gospel Televangelists Are Ripoff Artists
Here's just a little of what the New York Times says about televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch. Mr. and Mrs. Crouch have his-and-her mansions one street apart in a gated community here, provided by the network using viewer donations and tax-free earnings. But Mrs. Crouch, 74, rarely sleeps in the $5.6 million house with tennis court and pool. She mostly lives in a large company house near Orlando, Fla., where she runs a side business, the Holy Land Experience theme park. Mr. Crouch, 78, has an adjacent home there too, but rarely visits.Here's the part you may find the most infuriating.Its occupant is often a security guard who doubles as Mrs. Crouch’s chauffeur. The lavish perquisites, corroborated by two other former TBN employees, include additional, often-vacant homes in Texas and on the former Conway Twitty estate in Tennessee, corporate jets valued at $8 million and $49 million each and thousand-dollar dinners with fine wines, paid with tax-exempt money.
Ms. Koper and the two other former TBN employees also said that dozens of staff members, including Ms. Koper, chauffeurs, sound engineers and others had been ordained as ministers by TBN. This allowed the network to avoid paying Social Security taxes on their salaries and made it easier to justify providing family members with rent-free houses, sometimes called “parsonages,” she said.In case you're wondering why Mr. and Mrs. Crouch maintain separate side-by-side luxury mansions in multiple cities, I remind you of this.
In September 2004 the Los Angeles Times reported that in 1998 Crouch paid Enoch Lonnie Ford, a former employee, a $425,000 formal settlement to end a wrongful termination lawsuit. At that time it was reported that Crouch had had a homosexual encounter with Ford. TBN officials acknowledge the settlement, but contested the credibility of Ford who is a convicted felon.
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma
Tricycle Daily Dharma May 6, 2012
Joyful Energy
We
can get greater energy out of love and joy than out of hatred. Hatred
is so off balance. You blow your adrenals in one minute, then you're
shaky and weak. But if you're joyful, you'll get an endless source of
energy.
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Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Via AmericaBlog Gay:
Finding acceptance of homosexuality in the Bible
Vines
is a Christian, a 22-year-old Harvard undergrad raised in a
conservative evangelical church in Kansas. He is also gay and says he
grew up being taught that the Bible condemns his sexual orientation. He
took two years off from school to research and study whether or not that
assertion is true.
The result is "The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality." It's a
video -- you can find it online with a simple Google search [see video
below] -- of a speech he gave in March at a church in Wichita that has
become a minor sensation. Small wonder. Vines' speech is a masterwork of
scriptural exegesis and a marvel of patient logic, slicing and dicing
with surgical precision the claim that homophobia is God ordained.
So effective is the video that after viewing it, Sandra Delemares, a
Christian blogger from the United Kingdom who had, for years, spoken in
staunch opposition to same-sex marriage, wrote that it "revolutionized"
her thinking.
Via Syrinx: We will always love her no matter what
Hey, sis, good to hear from you.
Have you seen Elyse lately? I wondered if she talked to you. Did you know what's been happening at our place? You will have to tell me you are surprised. Elyse came out as straight. So our household has been in a bit of an uproar.
Well, of course we are supportive. Debs and I are very conventional parents but we have always supported our daughter's choices and we will always love her no matter what. We may express concern, that's what mums do, but we will always support her. And she is a good kid, we just never saw this coming.
Click here to make the jump here to read the full article at Syrinx
Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:
Tricycle Daily Dharma May 5, 2012
How Do You Practice?
I
used to think that to become free you had to practice like a samurai
warrior, but now I understand that you have to practice like a devoted
mother of a newborn child. It takes the same energy but has a completely
different quality. It's compassion and presence rather than having to
defeat the enemy in battle.
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Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection
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