Nearly $250 billion in federal contracts given out in the last fiscal year went to contractors operating in states where the companies could fire a worker solely because the person is gay, lesbian or bisexual, a new report has found. A group of organizations that have been urging President Obama to sign an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT workers will be releasing the new report Tuesday as a step in increasing pressure on the president to act during tax time.While an executive order would only affect companies that do business with the federal government, it's a start. A start with $250B in federal money attached to it.
The report, a copy of which was provided to BuzzFeed Monday night, also has found that nearly $300 billion in federal contracts were given out in states that have no specific state-level protections against anti-transgender discrimination.
Although federal government employees are protected from anti-LGBT discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, there is currently no protection for employees of federal contractors against sexual orientation discrimination and protections against gender identity discrimination are unclear. And while most of the top federal contractors have policies against LGBT discrimination, the report aims to draw attention to the limits employees would have in states without legal protections.
To
be truly and wholly present even for the briefest moment is to be
vulnerable, for we have arrived at the point where the obstacle that
fear constructs between ourselves and others dissolves. It is here that
the heart is drawn out of hiding and the inherent sympathetic response
called compassion arises.
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“We are not expecting LGBT families to be included in the Gang of 8 bill,” she told the Washington Blade during a conference call ahead of a rally in support of comprehensive immigration reform on Wednesday that is expected to draw tens of thousands of people to the U.S. Capitol. “That in our minds means that of course the bill is incomplete.” Tiven’s comments come roughly three months after President Obama publicly unveiled an immigration reform proposal that includes bi-national gay couples.Rep. Jerrold Nadler confirmed to the Blade that "LGBT-specific language will likely not appear in the bill. Nadler: "This is disappointing but not particularly surprising."
The attorney general's office on Friday announced its final wording on a ballot title -- and it rejected the legal argument from an attorney for the Oregon Family Council that the title should reflect the notion that the initiative would require every governmental agency in Oregon to issue marriage licenses. Basic Rights Oregon, the gay-rights group sponsoring the initiative, has rejected that argument as absurd. It says county clerks would continue to be the only ones issuing marriage licenses if this initiative is approved by voters.Here is the ballot language approved by the state: "Amends Constitution: Recognizes marriage between couples of same gender; protects clergy/religious institutions' refusal to perform marriages." Basic Rights Oregon has until July 2014 to collect 116,000 petition signatures.
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What
should you do to put your body to good use? Most people have no idea. A
craftsman who borrows some tools will try to make the best possible use
of them while they are available. Your body, too, is actually on loan
to you for the time being, for the brief period left before it is taken
back from you by death. Had you better not use it to practice the dharma
while you can?
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According to a count by the office of Rep. Jean Wyllys, Brazil's first openly gay lawmaker, ten states out of twenty-seven now automatically convert such unions into marriage, they include: Alagoas, Bahia, Ceara, Sergipe, Espiritu Santo, Piaui, Sao Paulo, Parana, Mato Grosso do Sul and the Federal District.Marriages conducted in those ten states are recognized nationwide. (Via Zack Ford)
Love
and compassion make us feel safe because they express the safety of
their source—the deep buddhanature within us, the unchanging inner space
of primal awareness that cannot be harmed. By receiving unconditional
love and compassion from those who’ve awakened before us, we sense that
we too can relax into the very source of such love in the unconditioned
nature of our minds, our buddhanature.
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Being
intolerant of suffering, in the Buddhist sense, does not mean that we
reject it or fight against it. It means that we stop and look at it, not
morbidly, but with faith in the possibility of living a joyful and
peaceful life.
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Consider
the possibility, and I am only saying consider the possibility, that
maybe nothing is unforgivable. Maybe there is a way to find forgiveness
even for what we have believed for so long to be unforgivable. Explore
this mindfully.
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Maybe
we think that nirvana is a place where there are no problems, no more
delusions. Maybe we think nirvana is something very beautiful, something
unattainable. We always think nirvana is something very different from
our own life. But we must really understand that it is right here, right
now.
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“Freedom to Marry applauds the people of Uruguay and their government for moving forward into a future in which all loving and committed couples can share in the freedom to marry and the meaning and protections marriage brings to families. Uruguay’s vote today to move past civil union to marriage itself, Argentina’s enactment of the freedom to marry in 2010 and the Mexico Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling last month in favor of the freedom to marry -- citing the U.S Supreme Court cases of Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia -- all are inspirations and examples decision-makers here in the United States, including our Supreme Court justices, should swiftly follow to get the U.S. where it needs to be.”
