Via Gay Politics Report:

• Will Republicans spotlight Democrats' marriage plank?
  Republicans' muted reaction to news that the Democratic party platform will likely include a marriage equality plank doesn't necessarily mean the GOP is going to ignore the issue in the coming months, according to this article. Some party activists have urged Mitt Romney to highlight the marriage debate, although so far Romney has been reluctant to discuss hot-button social issues. “It would be rather unwise politically for the GOP to ignore the Chick-fil-A vote,” said one strategist for the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage. Politico (Washington, D.C.) (8/6)     

• Religious right plans multi-million dollar campaign: Social conservatives opposed to President Barack Obama's embrace of marriage equality are planning to spend millions to register voters in Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other key states, according to this article. The efforts are reportedly backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and others. One group, the Georgia-based Faith and Freedom Coalition, said it will spend $10 million to encourage socially conservative voters to go to the polls this November. The Huffington Post (8/7)     

JMG Petition Of The Day

The petition is here. Video explanation below.

Labels: "ex-gay", California, LGBT youth, religion, scams

Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Four Times Married Drug Addict Rush Limbaugh Defends Sanctity Of Marriage

"Now Christianity has to be banned, and that’s where this is all headed. All this stuff at Chick-fil-A, the target is Christianity, not Chick-fil-A. The target is freedom of religion. [With] Obama and Obamacare, the target is always freedom. When we’re talking about liberals, the target is always freedom. Dan Cathy, the head honcho of Chick-fil-A, he’s not making a political statement when he talks about the values the company believes in. It gets interpreted that way because the left has politicized gay marriage." - Rush Limbaugh.

RELATED: We're still waiting for Limbaugh to fulfill his 2010 promise to move to Costa Rica should the Affordable Healthcare Act pass. Not incidentally, Costa Rica provides universal health care. While Costa is ranked 50th in per capita health care expenditures, its medical system rates higher than the United States, which spends the most per person.

Labels: asshattery, drug addicts, drugs, fast food, hypocrisy, religion, Rush Limbaugh, sanctity of marriage

Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Gay And Proud In Uganda

It boggles the mind, but a small gay pride event was held in Uganda this weekend. Alexis Okeowo reports at New Yorker:

“Can you imagine that the worst place in the world to be gay is having Gay Pride?” Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera asked a crowd of cheering gay men, lesbians, transgendered men and women, and queers somewhere in between. It was Saturday afternoon, and we were on the shores of the giant, cloudy Lake Victoria in the Ugandan city of Entebbe, where L.G.B.T. activists had decided to stage the country’s first Pride Parade. Nabagesera, a lesbian activist covered, for the occasion, in glitter and neon spray paint, with homemade angel wings, was being half-sarcastic. A barrage of media coverage has painted the country as a hell for gays—a place where they are suffering and being attacked constantly—and, despite the need to combat such threats, L.G.B.T. Ugandans were tired of hearing a story that ignored their nuanced experiences of both joy and hardship.

Hit the link for a slideshow and the rest of Okeowo's fascinating article. (Tipped by JMG reader Joe)

Labels: Africa, bravery, gay Pride, LGBT culture, Uganda

Reposted from Joe

Via AmericaBlog Gay:

GOP silent on Dem gay marriage platform

Fascinating. NJ.com: When Democrats announced that their 2012 platform would include a historic first -- gay marriage written in as a plank -- the reaction from mainstream Republicans was near silence. There were no statements blasted out from Mitt Romney's campaign. The same was true for the Republican National Committee. Romney has yet to address the fact.Most Republican Party leaders seem...

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma August 7, 2012

Facing Difficulties

Do not become annoyed when faced with difficulties. To do so merely adds difficulty to difficulty and further disturbs your mind. By maintaining a mind of peace and nonopposition, difficulties will naturally fall away.

- Master Sheng-yen, "Nonopposition"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through August 9th, 2012
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma August 7, 2012

Facing Difficulties

Do not become annoyed when faced with difficulties. To do so merely adds difficulty to difficulty and further disturbs your mind. By maintaining a mind of peace and nonopposition, difficulties will naturally fall away.

- Master Sheng-yen, "Nonopposition"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through August 9th, 2012
For full access at any time, become a Tricycle Community Supporting or Sustaining Member

Via Feminist Apostasy / FB:

Via BeliefNet:

	Daily Buddhist Wisdom
	All the delightful things of the world--sweet sounds, lovely forms, all the pleasant tastes and touches and thoughts--these are all agreed to bring happiness if they are not grasped and possessed. But if you regard them merely as pleasures for your own use and satisfaction and do not see them as passing wonders, they will bring suffering. - Sutta Nipata More Buddhism Quotes >>

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma August 6, 2012

All-encompassing Mindfulness

If ‘mindfulness’ is to create genuine change in our society, it must involve being mindful of more than just our own need for comfort, good health, or serenity. It must entail being mindful of the social and economic forces that allow some to prosper while others struggle, forces that promote and perpetuate certain behaviors and thought patterns while discouraging or suppressing others.

- Richard Eskow, “Buying Wisdom"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through August 8th, 2012
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VIa FB:

Via FB:

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma August 5, 2012

The Refuge of Silence

Silence arrests flight, so that in its refuge, the need to flee the chaos of noise diminishes. We let the world creep closer, we drop to our knees, as if to let the heart, like a small animal, get its legs on the ground.

- Barbara Hurd, "On Silence"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through August 7th, 2012
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Via Luminous and Healthy's FB:

Via The Pragmatic Progressive Facebook Page:

Via Anne Hathaway / FB:

Acording to the Bible / FB:

Via JMG: Clinton Praises Ugandan Activists

During her stop in Uganda yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the brave LGBT activists who risk murder and rape merely by being open about who they are.

"It is critical for all Ugandans - the government and citizens alike - to speak out against discrimination, harassment, and intimidation of anyone. That's true no matter where they come from, what they believe, or whom they love," Clinton said. Clinton said she raised the issue in talks on Friday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, whose government has been accused of allowing political and religious leaders to drum up anti-gay feeling in the deeply conservative East African nation. "You are a model for others and an inspiration for the world," Clinton said to representatives of the group, formed in 2009 to combat draft legislation which proposed the death penalty for anyone convicted of "aggravated homosexuality".

Labels: activism, Africa, Hillary Clinton, Uganda

Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma August 4, 2012

Swimming in the Infinite

There is no point in being Buddhist! One does it for the sheer joy of swimming in the infinite!

- Robert Thurman, "Swimming in the Infinite"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through August 6th, 2012
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