Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Via JMG: SERBIA: Riot Police Clash With Violent Anti-Gay Protesters At Belgrade Pride
Serbian riot battled hundreds of neo-Nazi anti-gay rioters at Belgrade Pride today, fighting back against hurled Molotov cocktails with stun grenades. Over 100 injuries were reported and almost 200 rioters were arrested. The president of Serbia denounced the attacks, saying, "Serbia will guarantee human rights for all its citizens, regardless of the differences among them, and no attempts to revoke these freedoms with violence will be allowed." Serbia's Minister of Justice said that those arrested face up to eight years in prison. Early reports don't indicate whether any of Belgrade Pride's attendees were injured. Last year's pride parade was canceled over the threat of violence.Thousands of police officers sealed off the streets in the capital where the march took place, repeatedly clashing at several locations with rioters who were trying to burst through security cordons. Several parked cars were set on fire or damaged, shop windows were broken, garbage containers were overturned and streets signs destroyed. Several shops were looted before police restored peace late afternoon. The anti-gay rioters also fired shots and threw Molotov cocktails at the headquarters of the ruling pro-Western Democratic Party, setting the garage of the building on fire. The state TV building and other political parties headquarters were also attacked, with many of the house windows shattered by stones. The protesters, chanting "death to homosexuals!" hurled bricks, stones, glass bottles and stun grenades at riot police. Police responded by firing tear gas and deploying armored vehicles to disperse the charging protesters in the heart of the capital even after the brief pride march ended.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Quote of the day Via the Coffee Party Movement:
"Um sonho que você sonha sozinho é apenas um sonho. Um sonho que você sonha junto é realidade".
"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."
-- John Winston Ono Lennon (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980)
Lennon would have been 70 today
Socially Engaged Buddhism
What is socially engaged Buddhism?
Socially engaged Buddhism is a dharma practice that flows from the understanding of the complete yet complicated interdependence of all life. It is the practice of the bodhisattva vow to save all beings. It is to know that the liberations of ourselves and the liberation of others are inseparable. It is to transform ourselves as we transform all our relationships and our larger society. It is work at times from the inside out and at times from the outside in, depending on the needs and conditions. It is to see the world through the eye of the Dharma and to respond emphatically and actively with compassion.
----Donald Rothberg and Hozan Alan Senauke
Turning Wheel/Summer-Fall - 2008
Socially engaged Buddhism is a dharma practice that flows from the understanding of the complete yet complicated interdependence of all life. It is the practice of the bodhisattva vow to save all beings. It is to know that the liberations of ourselves and the liberation of others are inseparable. It is to transform ourselves as we transform all our relationships and our larger society. It is work at times from the inside out and at times from the outside in, depending on the needs and conditions. It is to see the world through the eye of the Dharma and to respond emphatically and actively with compassion.
----Donald Rothberg and Hozan Alan Senauke
Turning Wheel/Summer-Fall - 2008
Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE)
Thank you for your interest in BASE! Below, we’ve answered some common questions about the program. If you are interested in participating in an upcoming BASE group or if you have another question not addressed here, please contact Tyson at base@bpf.org.
Read More Thanks to Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Friday, October 8, 2010
Via Belirico:
"Practically, we shouldn't be teaching children to accept homosexuality as normal, we should be teaching them to accept people who are not normal."
-- Bilerico contributor Yasmin Nair in an interview with Time Out Chicago about the Against Equality book tour.
Via 365gay: Corvino: Bullying, the blame game
All Culture & Ideas
By John Corvino, columnist, 365gay.com 10.08.2010
Tragedies like Tyler Clementi's suicide should lead each of us to ask: What have we done to contribute to such a world? To allow it? To repair it? Read more...
Corvino: Bullying, the blame game
By John Corvino, columnist, 365gay.com 10.08.2010
Tragedies like Tyler Clementi's suicide should lead each of us to ask: What have we done to contribute to such a world? To allow it? To repair it? Read more...
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| Dear Daniel, Today, across this country, there are millions of kids struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity. They are literally under attack, often by the very people they look up to, people in positions of authority or power, who think little of the consequences of their words and actions. The danger of these hateful, hurtful and false messages are amplified when they come from a leader of faith. And nothing has made me more angry than the recent demagoguery by the second highest official in the Mormon Church. Elder Boyd K. Packer, the president of the Mormon Church's Quorum of Twelve Apostles, delivered a message to Mormons worldwide that called same-sex attraction "impure and unnatural" – an affliction that can be overcome with prayer. Elder Packer went on to tell Mormons everywhere that same-sex unions are morally wrong and go "against God's law and nature." Certainly, we must — and do — call out religious bigotry wherever it is. Still, what was particularly horrifying about Elder Packer's irresponsible missive is that it literally came on the heels of the suicides of a number of teenagers over the past month, each of them victims of anti-gay bullying. Just today, in an astonishing turn of events, something I'm told never happens, the Mormon Church attempted to rewrite history by making a slight alteration to Elder Packer's remarks on its website. The Church actually changed one set of words and eliminated an entire passage from Elder Packer's sermon online. The problem is, it didn't go nearly far enough. People still need to hear from Elder Packer that he was wrong and that his statements are dangerous. Trying to massage history in some minor way doesn't begin to address the far-ranging consequences of his words. Elder Packer and the Church must immediately and fully correct the factual record: sexual orientation and gender identity are immutable characteristics of being human and praying won't change that in me or you or anyone else. That's why on Tuesday, I'm going to Salt Lake City. There, I'll join the good people from Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons, Equality Utah and the Utah Pride Center. Together, we will again call on Elder Packer to retract his statements. We will then walk to the headquarters of the Mormon Church and deliver over 100,000 petition signatures calling on the Church to correct the record. When we all meet in Salt Lake City and head to the Mormon Church headquarters, I'm sure Elder Packer won't be there to greet us. So be it. But what I hope is conveyed is that we will no longer sit by while our young people are at risk. We must send the message to LGBT youth through this action that they are loved and needed. We will not give Elder Packer, or any other leader, religious or not, the space or the authority to tear our young people down any longer. It has to stop. And if you haven't signed our petition, please take a moment on this long holiday weekend and add your name and pass it onto your friends and family. Elder Packer needs to hear our roar and the Mormon Church needs to leave us and our kids out of their pastoral fulminations. Thanks so much.  Joe Solmonese President, Human Rights Campaign  | ||||
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Via Truthout: William Rivers Pitt | Thank God for Fred Phelps
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "It is amazing that Fred Phelps is still alive. That he has not yet been beaten, stomped, clubbed, stabbed, shot or run down by a car is either a testament to the restraint of his fellow Americans, or is a straight-up miracle right out of his twisted scripture.... Fred Phelps is a toilet bug, but in his infinite miserableness, he gives to us the opportunity to reaffirm our most closely held national ideal. The First Amendment gives us all the right to say as we please, to espouse our views in the public sphere at whatever volume we wish."
Read the Article
Read the Article
Daily Quote via HimalayaCrafts
Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.
Via JMG: UTAH: Thousands Protest Anti-Gay Remarks By LDS Leader Boyd Packer
Thousands of protesters gathered in Salt Lake City's Temple Square last night to denounce remarks by LDS Apostle Boyd Packer, who called gay people "impure and unnatural." Packer’s speech, delivered during the LDS Church’s 180th Semiannual General Conference, hit a nerve, protesters say, because it came after a string of gay teen suicides in the national news. Boys as young as 13 took their own lives after reportedly being bullied by their peers for being gay. On Thursday, protest organizers estimated that 4,500 people ringed the two downtown blocks that make up the LDS Church’s headquarters. Participants wore black, and some carried signs. Lying head to toe or sitting shoulder to shoulder, they encircled Temple Square two times. “Tonight, we are symbolic of all the children who have been killed by messages like Boyd K. Packer’s,” said organizer and Salt Lake City blogger Eric Ethington. “When you hear nothing from [church leaders] but that you are nothing but evil and you need to change the unchangeable nature of yourself, that is only a message kids can take for so long.”LDS officials shrugged off the protest, merely noting that those thousands of angry people had a right to be there. No apology or retraction is expected from Packer.
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