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Tricycle Daily Dharma February 25, 2014

Good for the Ego

We can nod and smile when our ego, like a slightly demented relative who means well, offers its endless array of opinions, judgments, and knee-jerk reactions, but know that our ego is merely doing what it does best: Valuate. More of that. Less of this. I don’t give a shit. Good for the ego. And thank goodness we’re more than just our egos!

- Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi, “Liberation”

Read the entire article in the Wisdom Collection through February 26, 2014
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Via JMG: HRC: Recall US Ambassador To Uganda

Via press release from the Human Rights Campaign:

President Museveni sent a clear message today that bigotry and intolerance – which is now further codified into statute in Uganda – trump the rights of LGBT Ugandans. Let there be no room for doubt, this bill could destroy lives and tear families apart. We call on Secretary of State John Kerry to temporarily recall the U.S. Ambassador to Uganda in order to strengthen our nation’s engagement on this issue. A temporary recall will send one of the clearest signals possible that the United States will not tolerate such abuses to any person’s human rights. We condemn the work of anti-LGBT Americans who pressed for the passage of this law. While many now distance themselves from passage of this bill, their work in Uganda helped bolster support and create space for enactment of the legislation. They could soon have blood on their hands.

Labels: Africa, bigotry, Christianity, HRC, John Kerry, LGBT rights, religion, Scott Lively, State Department, Uganda

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Huffington: How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions

 It seems like this election season "religious liberty" is a hot topic. Rumors of its demise are all around, as are politicians who want to make sure that you know they will never do anything to intrude upon it.

I'm a religious person with a lifelong passion for civil rights, so this is of great interest to me. So much so, that I believe we all need to determine whether our religious liberties are indeed at risk. So, as a public service, I've come up with this little quiz. I call it "How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions." Just pick "A" or "B" for each question.

1. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.

2. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.

3. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.

4. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.

5. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.

6. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.

7. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.

8. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.

9. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.

10. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.

Scoring key:
If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can fight for your equality -- not your superiority.

If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.

In closing, no matter what soundbites you hear this election year, remember this: Religious liberty is never secured by a campaign of religious superiority. The only way to ensure your own religious liberty remains strong is by advocating for the religious liberty of all, including those with whom you may passionately disagree. Because they deserve the same rights as you. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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JMG HomoQuotable - George Takei

"Dear Arizona, Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses – even those open to the public – to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s 'sincerely held religious belief.' This 'turn away the gay' bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us. [snip]  If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent." - George Takei, writing for his blog.

Labels: Arizona, bigotry, George Takei, HomoQuotable, Jan Brewer, LGBT rights, public accommodations, religion

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: White House Denounces Uganda

Via press release:

Statement by the Press Secretary on Uganda: Instead of standing on the side of freedom, justice, and equal rights for its people, today, regrettably, Ugandan President Museveni took Uganda a step backward by signing into law legislation criminalizing homosexuality. As President Obama has said, this law is more than an affront and a danger to the gay community in Uganda, it reflects poorly on the country's commitment to protecting the human rights of its people and will undermine public health, including efforts to fight HIV/AIDS. We will continue to urge the Ugandan government to repeal this abhorrent law and to advocate for the protection of the universal human rights of LGBT persons in Uganda and around the world.

Let's hope we also get a statement directly from President Obama.

Labels: Africa, bigotry, Christianity, LGBT rights, religion, Uganda, White House, Yoweri Museveni

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: John Kerry Reacts To Ugandan Law: We Are Reviewing US Assistance Programs

"This is a tragic day for Uganda and for all who care about the cause of human rights. Ultimately, the only answer is repeal of this law. The United States is deeply disappointed in the enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. For the four years since the bill was introduced, we have been crystal clear that it blatantly violates human rights obligations that Uganda’s Human Rights Commission itself has recognized are enshrined in Uganda’s Constitution. Today’s signing threatens a dangerous slide backward in Uganda’s commitment to protecting the human rights of its people and a serious threat to the LGBT community in Uganda.

"We are also deeply concerned about the law’s potential to set back public health efforts in Uganda, including those to address HIV/AIDS, which must be conducted in a non-discriminatory manner in order to be effective. As President Obama stated, this legislation is not just morally wrong, it complicates a valued relationship. Now that this law has been enacted, we are beginning an internal review of our relationship with the Government of Uganda to ensure that all dimensions of our engagement, including assistance programs, uphold our anti-discrimination policies and principles and reflect our values.

"From Nigeria to Russia and Uganda, we are working globally to promote and protect the human rights of all persons. The United States will continue to stand against any efforts to marginalize, criminalize, and penalize vulnerable persons in any society." - Secretary of State John Kerry, in a press release issued today by the State Department.

Labels: Africa, bigotry, Christianists, John Kerry, LGBT righs, Obama administration, religion, Scott Lively, State Department, Uganda

Reposted from Joe Jervis

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“When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . .” 

― Joseph Campbell

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Tricycle Daily Dharma February 24, 2014

Insight into Impermanence

To those whose knowledge is developed, everything within and without oneself, within and without one’s house, within and without one’s village and town, is an object at the sight of which the insight of impermanence may spring up and develop.

- Ledi Sayadaw, “Meditation en Masse”

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If Republicans Don’t Want to be Compared to Nazis, They Should Stop Acting Like Nazis

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We have witnessed a great deal of conservative madness over the past five years, since Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Some of us during the intervening years have wondered where it would end. I was one of those who early on began to compare the Religious Right and the Tea Party to the Nazis. It was not a careless or spiteful comparison, but one based on the evidence of their rhetoric and avowed goals. There is a reason I made the above map resemble the Nazi flag. 

It is no accident that the Nazi cry of Germany for the Germans is echoed by the Republican cry of America for Americans. Once upon a time there were “real” Germans and our own time brought us “real” Americans – the obvious consequence of such claims being that everybody else was an interloper, inferior – the “other.” With a single utterance, people like Sarah Palin, like Hitler before her, was able to delegitimize half of the population. The “other” become parasites attacking the health of the country. This is a claim made by both Nazis and the Religious Right.
Of course, that horrified progressives, to say such horrible things. Godwin’s Law was, of course, invoked (we need a law about the invocation of Godwin’s Law – seriously). But a comparison should not be shied away from because it seems extreme. As I have argued repeatedly both here and elsewhere, the comparison holds water. If somebody acts like a Nazi, we should certainly be able to point out that they are acting like a Nazi.
Which brings us to first Kansas, a state which was driven to the brink of Nazification by Republicans, and then, perhaps in horror of what it had almost done, backed away, and then to Arizona, which is now our first state to embrace Nazism. Sure, S.B. 1062 is not a law until Gov. Jan Brewer signs it, and she says she needs more time, but who, really, needs more time to decide whether or not to oppose Nazism? Other than Ted Nugent, that is.

Many of us saw this coming. We were laughed at. We warned people what the Religious Right wanted, what it intended. As with the Nazi Party in its early days, far too many people did not take the forces of oppression seriously. This tendency to deny unpleasant realities, even while they are occurring, is frustrating to say the least. It is dangerous at the worst: People will not fight back against something they cannot bring themselves to believe.
Believe it. People used to talk about Nazi Germany in disbelief even after the fact. How could it happen? It could happen very easily. It had happened before in human history and there was no reason to believe it would not happen again. And again. It could happen here, too, if we are not vigilant. In state after Republican state, we are seeing what amounts to state-sanctioned violence against the other, from Stand Your Ground laws to Arizona’s S.B. 1062.
The one constant is intolerant conservative Christianity, the driving force of oppression dating all the way back to the dawn of the movement. When conservative Christianity achieved a dominant position in the Roman Empire, the first thing it did was produce the Theodosian Code, which I have warned of here on previous occasions. The Theodosian Code was, like S.B. 1062, a tool of oppression, a collection of laws passed by the emperor Constantine and his successors, “was presented to the empire as a Christmas present in 438.”[1]

The attitude of conservative Christians toward the “Other,” one of, if you can’t convince them, force them, is embraced today by Republican lawmakers. Bishop Caesarius of Arles told his sixth century flock to admonish unbelievers “harshly,” to chide them “severely,” and if this failed, to strike them, to pull their hair, even to forcibly restrain them. In this he was following the advice of John Chrysostom, a Saint, who advised “rebuke” by way of punching the unbeliever: “Smite him on the face; strike his mouth; sanctify thy hand with the blow.”[2]
As Sabine MacCormack observes of the infamous Book 16, “In the Theodosian Code…we can document the incorporation of sins into the purview of the criminal code; and as a result, the range of actions surveyed by the law and changed and expanded.”[3] In other words, Book 16 “articulates for the first time in a Roman law code, what religion and what religious practices ‘are to be done and what are to be avoided’; and what was ‘the True Religion.’”[4]
By the 450s, a generation after the publication of the Code, MacMullen argues that the “legal system became wholly an instrument of persecution.”[5] Look at the violence we see today and argue that we are not far from the Theodosian, or in more modern terms, Nazi precipice. As MacMullen makes clear, witnessing did not end with harsh words, or even with fists:

Government too, at the urging of the bishops weighed in with threats, and more than threats, of fines, confiscation, exile, imprisonment, flogging, torture, beheading, and crucifixion. What more could be imagined? Nothing. The extremes of conceivable pressure were brought to bear. Thus, over the course of many centuries, compliance was eventually secured and the empire made Christian in truth.[6]

Substitute America for empire, and you have the dominionist dream for our country and our time. From the top down, the deck was stacked against the other, whoever they might be, from Jews to Pagans and even to other Christians. There are good reasons you don’t see Gnostic churches today on your street corner. Nor more than Christians and then Nazis would abide a synagogue, will conservative Christians abide temples and mosques. Jews and gays were targets of Theodosian Christianity before they were targets of Nazism and finally, of the Religious Right.
The antecedents of the Religious Right’s war on tolerance are ancient. Nazism is ultimately but a way stop on that road, a product itself of all that came before, and the most recent example we have of what happens when intolerance is legislated into law – as is in danger of happening in America today.

Notes:
[1] Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (Yale University Press, 1997), 20.
[2] Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ (University of California Press, 2005), 175, 258 n. 21, citing Caesarius, Sermon 53.1 and Chrystostom, Homilies on the Statues 1.32 (trans. NPNF).
[3] Sabine MacCormack, “Sin, Citizenship, and the Salvation of Souls: The Impact of Christian Priorities on Late-Roman and Post-Roman Society,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39 (1997), 362.
[4] Michele Renee Salzman, “The Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the ‘Theodosian Code’,” Historia: Zeitscrift für die Geschichte 42 (1993), 362.
[5] MacMullen (1997), 30.
[6] MacMullen (1997), 72 

 

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UPDATE: Civil Marriage Laws Map

Via JMG: INDIA: Law Criminalizing Homosexuality May Be Years From Being Repealed

The Independent reports:

When [in 2009] the Delhi High Court suspended the draconian Section 377 of the Indian penal code which dated from the days of British rule, India’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community thought there was no turning back. Five years on the euphoria has gone. In December, the country’s highest court overturned the lower court’s ruling, once again making gay sex a crime punishable by up to ten years in jail and putting tens of millions of Indians at risk of prosecution or harassment. Last month, that court – which had said gay people in India were just a “minuscule minority” – upheld its decision against an appeal and said it was up to the government to change the law. But there is little chance for that. While senior figures of the ruling Congress party supported repealing Section 377, the leadership of the main opposition party, which most analysts believe is set to secure power in an upcoming election, do not. As it was, the current parliament held its last session on Friday; it could be years before a new parliament amends the law.

With a population of more than 1.3 billion, India has at least 65 million LGBT citizens, if one uses the 5% estimate. That is HARDLY a "minuscule minority." In fact, using the 5% figure, the LGBT community in India is larger than the entire populations of more than 200 nations. Only 20 countries have populations greater than 65 million. Even if you cut the 5% estimate in half, the LGBT community in India is larger than the entire population of Canada.

Labels: homosexuality, India, LGBT rights

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: UGANDA: Anti-Gay Bill On Hold While President Challenges US Scientists To Disprove That Homosexuality Is A Choice

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has put off signing the anti-gay bill while he challenges American scientists to disprove that homosexuality is a choice.

A week ago Museveni had insisted that he would approve the legislation, prompting criticism from US president Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton. The US warned that the move would "complicate" relations with Uganda, to which it gives more than $400m (£240m) in aid annually. Uganda dismissed the threat as blackmail but on Friday it emerged that Museveni had done a u-turn and would not sign the proposed law until after hearing from scientists. "I therefore encourage the US government to help us by working with our scientists to study whether, indeed, there are people who are born homosexual," he wrote. "When that is proved, we can review this legislation." But he added: "Africans do not seek to impose their views on anybody. We do not want anybody to impose their views on us. This very debate was provoked by western groups who come to our schools and try to recruit children into homosexuality."

My guess is that Obama's strong denouncement of the bill is working. For now. Ugandan Minister of Ethics Simon Lokodo is very unhappy.

"It is a social style of life that is acquired," he said. "The point is they chose to be homosexual and are trying to recruit others. The commercialisation of homosexuality is unacceptable. If they were doing it in their own rooms we wouldn't mind, but when they go for children, that's not fair. They are beasts of the forest." Lokodo condemned western meddling in Uganda's domestic affairs. "When I heard the US saying they will cut aid, we said fine. Will they be comfortable if we come to America and started practising polygamy? Homosexuality is strange to us and polygamy is strange to you. We have divergent views. When they call me wrong, I will call them wrong. Don't bring it to Africa; keep it there."

Last week Lokodo declared that Uganda shows tolerance to gay people by "not slaughtering them."

Labels: Africa, LGBT rights, Uganda, Yoweri Museveni

Reposted from Joe Jervis  

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Tricycle Daily Dharma February 23, 2014

Do Less, Accomplish More

We are born with all the wisdom, playfulness, and imagination we need; we just sometimes need a reminder to return to our senses and get out of our own way. Let go of whatever fears, assumptions, distractions, resistance, and busyness may be hampering you. Allow yourself to think and feel and live that way.

- Marc Lesser, "Do Less, Accomplish More"

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Via JMG: Meghan McCain Slams AZ Hate Bill

Labels: Arizona, bigotry, GOP, LGBT rights, Meghan McCain, public accommodations, religion

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: BRITAIN: King's Husband Won't Be Queen

The first headline is from the tabloid Daily Mail.  The Telegraph has a less sensational story:

Men are to be banned from becoming Queen or Princess of Wales as part of an unprecedented effort to rewrite more than 700 years of law to prevent unintended consequences of gay marriage. Even a 14th Century act declaring it high treason to have an affair with the monarch’s husband or wife is included in the sweeping redrafting exercise. The order makes clear that a clause in the Act giving gay and heterosexual marriage the same legal effect does not apply to the rights of anyone “who marries, or who is married to, the King Regnant, to the title of Queen”. It also makes clear that were a future Prince of Wales to marry a man his husband could not be called Princess of Wales.

More immediately, the order rules out the possibility of Dukes, Earls and other male peers who marry other men making their husbands Duchess, Countess or Lady. Meanwhile dozens of other laws are to be excluded from the remit of the Act. They include the Second Statute of Westminster from 1285, which deals with inheritance matters, and even the Treason Act of 1351. It makes it high treason to “violate the King’s companion” – meaning the husband or wife of the monarch – or that of the heir. A Government spokeswoman explained that it would still be considered high treason to have sex with a king’s wife – but not his husband.

Britain's anti-gay groups are mocking the changes, of course.

 

Labels: Britain, marriage equality, royals

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via George Takei: Dear Arizona

Dear Arizona,

Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses–even those open to the public–to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” This “turn away the gay” bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us.

Kansas tried to pass a similar law, but had the good sense to not let it come up for a vote. The quashing came only after the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and other traditional conservative groups came out strongly against the bill.

But not you, Arizona. You’re willing to ostracize and marginalize LGBT people to score political points with the extreme right of the Republican Party. You say this bill protects “religious freedom,” but no one is fooled. When I was younger, people used “God’s Will” as a reason to keep the races separate, too. Make no mistake, this is the new segregation, yours is a Jim Crow law, and you are about to make yourself ground zero.

This bill also saddens me deeply. Brad and I have strong ties to Arizona. Brad was born in Phoenix, and we vacation in Show Low. We have close friends and relatives in the state and spend weeks there annually. We even attended the Fourth of July Parade in Show Low in 2012, looking like a pair of Arizona ranchers.

The law is breathtaking in its scope. It gives bigotry against us gays and lesbians a powerful and unprecedented weapon. But your mean-spirited representatives and senators know this. They also know that it is going to be struck down eventually by the courts. But they passed it anyway, just to make their hateful opinion of us crystal clear.

So let me make mine just as clear. If your Governor Jan Brewer signs this repugnant bill into law, make no mistake. We will not come. We will not spend. And we will urge everyone we know–from large corporations to small families on vacation–to boycott. Because you don’t deserve our dollars. Not one red cent.

And maybe you just never learn. In 1989, you voted down recognition of the Martin Luther King holiday, and as a result, conventions and tourists boycotted the state, and the NFL moved the Superbowl to Pasadena. That was a $500 million mistake.

So if our appeals to equality, fairness, and our basic right to live in a civil society without doors being slammed in our face for being who we are don’t move you, I’ll bet a big hit to your pocketbook and state coffers will.

George Takei

The original post can be found here

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Tricycle Daily Dharma February 22, 2014

Seeing Clearly

What does seeing clearly mean? It doesn’t mean that you look at something and analyze it, noting all its composite parts; no. When you see clearly, when you look at a flower and really see it, the flower sees you. It’s not that the flower has eyes, of course. It’s that the flower is no longer just a flower, and you are no longer just you.

- Maurine Stewart, “Our One and Only Commandment”

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