Via JMG: Sen. Patrick Leahy Intro's LGBT Couples Amendment To Immigration Reform Bill

Shortly after the Senate voted to debate the immigration reform bill written by the so-called Gang Of Eight, late this afternoon Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) again introduced an amendment that would allow LGBT citizens to sponsors their spouses for permanent residency. Politico reports:

“Seeking equal protection under our laws for the LGBT community is the right thing to do,” Leahy said in a statement Tuesday. “I withheld my anti-discrimination amendment during the Senate Judiciary Committee markup. As the entire Senate turns to debate the immigration bill, the fight for equality must go on.” It is unclear whether Leahy’s proposal will get a vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have yet to reach an agreement on amendments. And the political dynamics for Leahy’s amendment are different on the floor. In the committee, the amendment would have required just a simple majority for it to pass. On the floor, it will almost certainly need 60 votes.

Republicans had previously threatened to torpedo the entire bill if LGBT spouses were attached. Late last month Democratic members of the Senate reluctantly agreed that such an imperfect bill was better than no immigration reform at all and Leahy withdrew his amendment. It's not yet clear why Leahy is now trying again.
DOMA Project founder Lavi Soloway reacts via press release:

With this bold move, Senator Leahy has carved out an exception to the Defense of Marriage Act for lesbian and gay binational couples that will provide access to existing marriage-related family unification provisions of our immigration law. The Leahy amendment does not actually amend any current provision of our immigration law, but simply removes the extrinsic barrier caused by DOMA that prevents lesbian and gay Americans from filing petitions for their spouses, fiance(e)s and stepchildren. The implication of Senator Leahy's focus on equality is that LGBT families are no different than any other American families comprised of citizens and non-citizens. We must have access to the same immigration law protections that ensure that no family is torn apart. No band aid solution will ever make us equal.  

Labels: DOMA, immigration, immigration reform, Lavi Soloway, LGBT rights, Patrick Leahy, Senate

Reposted from Joe

Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:

	Daily Buddhist Wisdom
	As a tree with strong uninjured roots, though cut down, grows up again, so, when deep craving is not rooted out, suffering arises again and again. - Dhammapada More Buddhism Quotes >>

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 12, 2013

Not About Being Good

Just as Buddhist shila [ethical conduct] refers not to some imaginary static state of virtue but to an ongoing test of volition, so too is this true of enlightenment. Since there is no abiding personhood in any of us, rather than speaking of an enlightened person, let’s speak of enlightened conduct.

- Bodhin Kjolhede, "Pain, Passion, and the Precepts"

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Via JMG: Pope: There ARE Gays In The Vatican

Pope Francis has confirmed the presence of a "gay lobby" in the Vatican.

Back in February Italian media claimed that a secret report by cardinals investigating the leaks included allegations of corruption and blackmail attempts against gay Vatican clergymen, and on the other hand, favouritism based on gay relationships."In the Curia, there are truly some saints, but there is also a current of corruption," the pope is quoted as having said during an audience last week with CLAR (the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women).

"There is talk of a 'gay lobby' and it's true, it exists. We have to see what can be done," the 76-year-old pontiff is quoted as saying on the Reflection and Liberation website, which was flagged up by religious news agencies on Tuesday. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP: "It was a private meeting, I have no comment to make." The secret report compiled by a committee of three cardinals for the pope's eyes only was the result of a broad inquiry into leaks of secret Vatican papers last year -- a scandal known as "Vatileaks".

Sounds like a witch hunt is coming.

 

Labels: Catholic Church, Pope Francis, religion, Vatican

Reposted from Joe

Via Gay Politics Report

Can same-sex couples save marriage?
Liza Mundy writes about same-sex couples' approach to marriage, and wonders whether it can be a model for opposite-sex couples, many of whom have struggled to adapt their marriages to the realities of modern life. "[I]f a genderless marriage is a marriage in which the wife is not automatically expected to be responsible for school forms and child care and dinner preparation and birthday parties and midnight feedings and holiday shopping, I think it's fair to say that many heterosexual women would cry 'Bring it on!' " Mundy writes. A 2006 study found that heterosexual divorce rates dropped in European countries that granted legal status to same-sex partnerships. The Atlantic online (5/22)

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Colin & Joe - Binational Couple Fights Uncertainty Brought on by DOMA gaybinationals

Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:

	Daily Buddhist Wisdom
	It is through not understanding, not penetrating four things that we have run so erratically, wandered on so long in this round of existence, both you and I. What are the four? Goodness, concentration, wisdom, and liberation. When these four things are understood and penetrated, craving for superficial existence is rooted out and that which leads to continued return to the same conditions is ended. There is no more constant journeying. - Digha Nikaya More Buddhism Quotes >>

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma / FB:

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 11, 2013

A New Approach

What disintegrates in periods of rapid transformation is not the self, but its defenses and assumptions. Self-protection restricts vision and movement like a suit of armor, making it harder to adapt. Going to pieces, however uncomfortable, can open us up to new perceptions, new data, and new responses.

- Joanna Macy, "The Greatest Danger"

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Via JMG: Google Salutes Maurice Sendak

Today's Google Doogle pays tribute to gay author Maurice Sendak, who died last year.  Sendak came out in 2008 at the age of 80 and revealed a 50-year relationship with his partner.

For what would have been his 85th birthday on Monday, Google has drawn up a wonderfully imagined Google Doodle as a tribute to the beloved illustrator and children’s book author Maurice Sendak. It begins, of course, with Max sailing to the land of Where the Wild Things Are, but soon also ventures to the surreal cityscape of In The Night Kitchen and ends, appropriately, with the birthday party from Sendak's 2011 book Bumble-Ardy. Happy birthday, Mr. Sendak.

Labels: gay writers, Google, Maurice Sendak

Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: No Marriage Rulings From SCOTUS Today

 

The Supreme Court has released its regular Monday rulings and the same-sex marriage cases do not appear on the list.  Most do not expect the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings to be issued until the end of the month, but there is a chance they could come sooner.  There will be another round of rulings issued later this week in a rare Thursday release.

Labels: DOMA, Prop 8, SCOTUS

Reposted from Joe

Prop 8 Ruling is Just Days Away: June 10 Marriage News Watch

Via JMG: Californians Back Marriage By 22 Points

The Los Angeles Times reports on their latest poll:

The poll found that 58% of the state's registered voters believe same-sex marriage should be legal, compared with 36% against, a margin of 22 points. When the same pollsters asked that question three years ago, 52% favored gay marriage and 40% opposed it, a 12-point spread.
Most national polls this year have found majority support, but only one of those surveys reported it as high as 58%. The average was roughly 51% in favor of gay marriage. As in the rest of the country, more women (63%) than men (52%) in California favor same-sex marriage.
Younger California voters also support gay marriage by larger margins than older voters, the poll found. Whereas 76% of voters ages 18 to 29 support legalizing the unions, only 52% of those ages 50 to 64 agree.
Still, the shifts among older voters are dramatic. Voters 65 and older are now almost evenly divided — 46% in favor, 47% against — compared with just three years ago, when seniors opposed gay marriage by 19 percentage points.

If Prop 8 is upheld and marriage ends up returning to the ballot in California, at least we have this as a starting point. For now.

Labels: California, marriage equality, polls, Prop 8

Reposted from Joe

Via The Buddha's Face / FB:

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times. Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
~Thomas Merton

Via Today.com: How Gay Married Couples get Shortchanged

How gay married couples get shortchanged

June 9, 2013 at 10:32 AM ET

 

Jason DeCrow / AP

 

Patrick Plain, left, and Seong Man Hong, both of New York, celebrate after getting married at the City Clerk's office in New York Sunday, July 24, 2011. 

 

More than 1,000 federal rights and securities are denied to couples in same-sex marriages not legally recognized by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, says Vickie Henry, senior staff attorney at Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD. GLAD is a leading advocacy group in the campaign to strike down DOMA.

"Few of those benefits are more important than Social Security," says Crosby Burns, policy analyst of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, an independent, nonpartisan educational institute based in Washington, D.C.

"This program forms part of the bedrock of our nation's safety net," Burns says. "With full and equal access to this social insurance program, families headed by same-sex couples would finally have access to the economic safeguards they need, intended to keep them out of poverty and afloat during hard times."

Chief among them, Henry says, are the spousal benefit, the spousal disability benefit, the lump-sum benefit and the survivors benefit. The children of same-sex parents would also be affected.

Read on to see how the Social Security system works in favor of heterosexual married couples and against same-sex married couples. If DOMA is struck down, gay couples stand to gain more Social Security benefits.

Make the jump here to read the full article courtesy of today.com

Via Buddhism on Beliefnet:

	Daily Buddhist Wisdom
	Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us. - Ayya Khema, "When the Iron Eagle Flies" More Buddhism Quotes >>

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 10, 2013

Here and Now

Heaven and hell are not some places I’m going to go to later on. Heaven and hell are here right now, and I create them for myself with my own choices.

- Hae Doh Gary Schwocho, "Beneath Belief"

Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through June 11, 2013
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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma June 9, 2013

Nowhere to Stay

Pleasure isn’t a place for you to stay. Pain isn’t a place for you to stay. Pain wears away. Pleasure wears away. Our foremost Teacher said that all fabrications are inconstant.

- Ajahn Chah, “The Last Gift”

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Via JMG:POLL: Parents Chill About Gay Kids

 

More from Pew's latest study:

In 1985, a Los Angeles Times survey found that 64% of the public said they would be “very upset” if their child told them he or she was gay or lesbian. By 2004, that number had fallen by almost half (33%). Since then, it has declined another 14 points, to 19%. Instead, a majority (55%) now says they would not be upset if they learned their child was gay or lesbian, a 19-point increase since 2004 and a 46-point increase since the mid-1980s. Again, this has been an across-the-board shift in attitudes.

Yet the change has been more dramatic among some groups than others. In 2004, fully 82% of those 65 and older said they would be upset if their child told them they were gay, and 50% said they’d be very upset. Today, only about half (47%) say they’d be upset and just 24% say they’d be very upset.Among Republicans, the percentage saying they’d be very upset if they learned their child was gay or lesbian also has fallen by half – from 44% to 22% – since 2004.

Labels: homosexuality, parenting, polls

Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: GERMANY: High Court Rules That Gay Couples Deserve Equal Tax Benefits

In what is being characterized as a setback to the administration of Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's highest court has ruled that same-sex couples are entitled to the same tax benefits granted to married straight couples.

The verdict requires a change in the law and is a red rag to some in Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and its traditionally Catholic Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), who worry that conservative values are being diluted. The ruling was widely expected after the court in February overturned a ban on same-sex couples adopting a child already adopted by one of the partners. "The provisions set out in the income-tax law violate the general rule of equality," wrote the Karlsruhe-based court, adding the law should be changed retroactively from August 2001. Same-sex partnerships have been legal in Germany since 2001 but do not enjoy the same tax benefits as married heterosexuals.

Openly gay Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle hailed the ruling, saying that the time has come "for German tax law to be as modern as its society." A spokesman for the Christian Social Union party denounced the news as an attack on the "sanctity of marriage." (Tipped by JMG reader Matthew)

Labels: Angela Merkel, Germany, LGBT rights

Reposted from Joe