LZ Granderson: The myth of the gay agenda

Via JMG: UGANDA: Police Raid LGBT Meeting

Ugandan police today raided an international LGBT rights meeting and questioned the attendees. In addition to local activists, the meeting was attended by representatives of Canada, Kenya, and Rwanda. The event was organized by the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project. (Website)

The police forced their way into some of the activists' hotel rooms, the group said. The training workshop was intended to bolster the local gay community's abilities to report rights abuses. Activists condemned the police action and said it represented a growing trend. "This ludicrous and senseless harassment of human rights activists has no basis in law whatsoever and has to stop," Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International's deputy director for Africa, said. "We are seeing a worrying pattern emerging whereby the Ugandan authorities engage in arbitrary activities deliberately designed to intimidate and threaten legitimate human rights work," Ms Kagari said.

RELATED: In February Uganda's Minister of Ethics had police raid and shut down a secretly organized LGBT rights meeting. The event's organizer narrowly escaped arrest.

Labels: Africa, LGBT rights, Uganda

Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 18, 2012

Divine People

People are mysterious, unfathomable—like divinities: natural objects for reverence. But our habits of thought turn the people around us into objects, the means for our self-protection.

- Lama John Makransky, "Family Practice"

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RomneyAide

 http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/06/16/admit/

Via JMG: Dad Of Prop 8 Plaintiff Pens Essay

The New York Times has published a Father's Day essay by Dominick Zarrillo, the dad of one the men challenging Prop 8 in Perry v Brown.

None of us could believe something like that would pass in California. When it did, I wondered if Jeff and Paul would move from the place they loved and had called home for so long. They didn’t, though. Nor did they accept the new law and try to blend in as I told Jeff to do all those years ago. Instead, they did something that’s made me as proud as I’ve ever been: they fought back. Jeff and Paul and two women challenged the law in court, and in a landmark decision two years later, they won: Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional by a judge in San Francisco. The proponents of Proposition 8 appealed, and Jeff and Paul won that, too.

The United States Court of Appeals recently declined to take up the case before a larger panel, which opened the door for it to head to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Jeff and Paul still can’t legally marry. As this Father’s Day approached, all I could think about was how much I want my son to experience the joys of being a father, how much I want him to marry the person he loves and to raise a family. For now, he is still waiting, and fighting. I see how much the struggle costs him, how discouraging it is that despite his strength and patience and faith in the system, the ultimate decision rests in the hands of those who have yet to act.

One day soon, though, the powers that be are going to do the right thing. I’m his father, and it’s Father’s Day, so let me believe it. One day soon they’re going to let my brave, beautiful boy walk the same path we all get to take home.

Read the full essay.

Labels: LGBT rights, New York Times, Proposition 8

Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 17, 2012

Father's Day Metta

The Buddha encouraged us to think of the good things done for us by our parents, by our teachers, friends, whomever; and to do this intentionally, to cultivate it, rather than just letting it happen accidentally.

- Ajahn Sumedho, "The Gift of Gratitude"

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Via FB:

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 16, 2012

Attending to the Small Things

The subtle suffering in our lives may seem unimportant. But if we attend to the small ways that we suffer, we create a context of greater ease, peace, and responsibility, which can make it easier to deal with the bigger difficulties when they arise.

- Gil Fronsdal, "Living Two Traditions"

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Via American Foundation for Equal Rights

Dear Daniel,

My dad is my hero. He regularly worked two jobs to ensure food was on the table and clothes were on my back. He’s the one who fought off the bullies growing up. He’s the one who told me I should take that job in California even though he didn’t want me to leave home. He’s the one who said, “So…?” when I told him I was gay. He’s the one who continues to speak out and support my endeavor to fight for equal rights.

And when I am finally able to walk down the aisle to marry the love of my life, Paul, he’s the one I want standing beside me.

This weekend, we celebrate Father’s Day and I give thanks to the hero in my life who has been there every step of the way.

Sincerely,

Jeff Zarrillo Prop. 8 Plaintiff

P.S. Check out this great piece my dad wrote in The New York Times. I’m so proud of him.

________________________________


________________________________ 

A Father, a Son and a Fighting Chance
By DOMINICK ZARRILLO

“As this Father’s Day approached, all I could think about was how much I want my son to experience the joys of being a father, how much I want him to marry the person he loves and to raise a family.
“For now, he is still waiting, and fighting. I see how much the struggle costs him, how discouraging it is that despite his strength and patience and faith in the system, the ultimate decision rests in the hands of those who have yet to act.
“One day soon, though, the powers that be are going to do the right thing. I’m his father, and it’s Father’s Day, so let me believe it. One day soon they’re going to let my brave, beautiful boy walk the same path we all get to take home.”

Read the article at nytimes.com >

Via Gay Poltics Report

Analysis: 21 things Romney could do to reverse LGBT progress
 
The Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson identifies five regulatory and 16 sub-regulatory pro-LGBT actions taken by President Barack Obama that could be reversed in a Mitt Romney administration. One gay Republican activist said it's unlikely Romney would seek to roll back many of the federal LGBT initiatives of the Obama administration, but Democrats counter that he will owe something to anti-LGBT supporters. Romney, who also opposes civil unions, has signed a pledge vowing to support a constitutional ban on legal marriage for same-sex couples. Washington Blade (6/14)     

Via JMG: Pride Magazine 2012 Is Online

Pride Magazine 2012 is online in its entirety. Click on the link and hit full-screen to click through the title page by page. And keep an eye out for a piece (page 77) from our own Father Tony!

Labels: Father Tony, gay press, LGBT culture, Pride Magazine

Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 15, 2012

The Mind of No-Clinging

There’s no school that says, 'Cling.' Liberation is about cutting, or dissolving, or letting go of, or seeing through the attachment to anything. The description of the mind of no-clinging may be different in the different schools, but the experience of the mind of no-clinging is the same. How could it be different?

- Joseph Goldstein, "How Amazing!"

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Via Christian Left FB:

Via AmericaBlog Gay:

Damning report on new religious right gay parenting "study"

The family-values researcher who did the "study" - paid for by the anti-gay far right, of course - claims he enjoys controversy.  Hopefully he enjoys controversy more than his reputation, which is quickly heading south now that his "studies" are finally get the attention they deserve.  Though it's not the attention he was expecting. It really appears quite duplicitous.

Via America BLog Gay

On Mormons and the hypocrisy of "religious freedom"

By John Aravosis 

Excellent commentary from a reader, named "A reader in Colorado," in response to my earlier post about whether it's okay for liberals not to want to vote for a Mormon Republican.

You didn't get the memo John.

Liberals and the non-religious don't get religious freedom. Such freedoms are only for conservative Christians and occasionally certain kinds of conservatives practitioners of Judaism.

Christian conservatives, for example, object to gays getting married, so gays can't get married. That's their religious freedom.

Christian conservatives demand they don't have to follow the rules others have to follow and to be allowed to deny their employees birth control, question them about their private sexual practices as employees, and fire them. They're conservative, so that's their religious freedom.

Many liberals both desire and demand that states and the Federal government recognize same sex marriage and sign same sex marriage licenses out of their religious convictions concerning equality.

They're liberals, though - so they have no religious freedom and no say in the matter.

The problem with Romney is that Mormonism, no matter how out of the mainstream, is conservative.

That means he gets every freedom about his religion, including how to impose it on other people, and as a non-conservative, or non-religious person, you just, uh, DON'T.

It's not that mormons get to do things against other people and they get to hide if you have a problem with what they do, the problem is that you aren't a right wing religious conservative so you just get to shut up about it. Another right wing religionist would have, and has had, every power to question Romney's religion.

That is the true double standard here. Not about Romney's religion versus Obama's ethnic heritage. It's about only right wing religionists in this country having any kind of religious privileges whatsoever.

Until we recognize and have a national outcry against only conservatives having religious freedom while no one else does and actually having liberals loudly demanding their own religious freedom, nothing about this will change. Because it's only with lopsided religious freedom - with some having it all, others having none of it - that these lopsided power structures exist.

Right wing religionists have special rights, including rights in the media to tell you what you must do to observe their religion, even if you aren't part of it at all. 

The true question that needs to be asked is why do only conservative religionists get any religious freedom or political or media consideration in this country?

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 14, 2012

Thriving with No-Self

People think 'no-self' means there's no one home. That's wrong. Free of fixed self, a living being thrives.

- Robert Thurman, "The Politics of Enlightenment"

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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 13, 2012

Balanced Compassion

Compassion doesn’t always mean being nice to people. Sometimes the best thing you can do in a situation is to be rough with someone. We have to be balanced in accord with each situation.

- Gerry Shishin Wick Sensei, "Zen in the Workplace: Approaches to Mindful Management"

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ViaTricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 11, 2012

 

Maintaining Authentic Presence

In lovingkindness, our minds are open and expansive—spacious enough to contain all the pleasures and pains of a life fully lived. Pain, in this context, doesn’t feel like betrayal or an overwhelming force. It is part of the reality of human experience, and an opportunity for us to practice maintaining our authentic presence.

- Sharon Salzberg, "Working with Metta"

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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 10, 2012

Mysterious Experience

People who are attached to sutras and a scriptural teaching of words can lack faith in the living, mysterious experience of meditation that leads to a sudden insight.

- So Sahn, "The Zen of Confidence"

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