Sunday, October 5, 2014
Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Frank Bruni
Via JMG: Engage!
Via Reddit: "I proposed to my boyfriend yesterday on the bridge of the Enterprise, he said yes and I couldn't be happier." (Tipped by JMG reader Ray)
Reposted from Joe Jervis 
Flower of the Day: 10/05/14
"Devotion
is love in its most refined form. Devotion is when we become lovers of
the Supreme, lovers of life itself. Devotion happens when the love
within us can manifest in this way, establishing communion with the Holy
Spirit. This communion feeds us, forming a benign circle. Therefore, it
is true to say that love is sufficient unto love."
Sri Prem Baba
Via Daily Dharma
Call It By Its Right Name | October 5, 2014
If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view. If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.
- Zoketsu Norman Fischer, “Beyond Language”
Saturday, October 4, 2014
JMG Quote Of The Day - Yvette Schneider
Meanwhile in Washington DC...
Labels: brainwashing, Christopher Doyle, crackpots, ex-gay, LGBT youth, religion, self-loathing, still totally gay, torture
Via JMG: SCOTUSblog On What Could Happen Next
Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUSblog:
Reposted from Joe Jervis
It would be hard to find a close, or perhaps even a casual, observer of the Court who would predict with any confidence that the Court will deny review of all seven pending filings on same-sex marriage, from five states. The Court actually has been quite active on the issue this year: on three occasions, it has temporarily blocked lower court rulings that would have cleared the way immediately for same-sex marriages to begin or to be recognized, in Utah and Virginia.
Those orders suggest, if they don’t actually prove, that the Court is preserving either a chance for the issue to be explored further in lower courts without thousands of new same-sex marriages occurring, or a chance for the Justices themselves to weigh in on the issue before that happens.
Moreover, it would only take the votes of four Justices to grant review of any one of the seven new petitions, and there are four Justices who strenuously objected in dissent last year when the Court struck down a key part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act — a ruling that actually set off nearly three-dozen rulings by lower federal courts, striking down (with only one exception) state bans on such marriages.
When the Court privately discusses the new cases, as it almost surely did at last Friday’s closed-door Conference, it would not be hard to predict that those four Justices would be arguing energetically to take on the issue, provided that they had some reason to hope that, after such a review, they might gather a fifth, majority-making deciding vote from another Justice.
Those four Justices also surely know that, if the Court does opt to deny review of all of the cases at this point, such a denial would trigger the full implementation of appeals court decisions that would spread in a short period of time to eleven more states beyond the nineteen (along with Washington, D.C.) that currently allow same-sex marriage. That would almost certainly add an inevitability to the campaign to win same-sex marriage rights across the nation.
So, after the silence on Thursday, the focus now turns to Monday. The new list of orders, mostly denials, will emerge first and, before the end of the day, the Court will indicate whether it is rescheduling the same-sex marriage cases for another look, at a private Conference set for next Friday morning.
Flower of the Day: 10/04/14
"The
human entity feels that suffering is bad, but is unable to give it up.
This happens because at some point a marriage took place between the
vital current, which is our sexual energy, and suffering. This is the
reason why suffering remains in the world. This is why destructiveness
continues even though we are aware that it is senseless."
Sri Prem Baba
Via Daily Dharma
About the Present Moment | October 4, 2014
Some important questions to ask are why
people want to believe that mindfulness is good in every circumstance,
that there are no negative side effects, and that it’s derived in a pure
way from a 2500-year-old practice. Why do contemplative practices,
especially Asian contemplative practices, seem to elicit this type of
positive response? Those are the really interesting cultural questions
about the present moment.
- Catherine Kerr, "Don’t Believe the Hype"
Friday, October 3, 2014
Flower of the Day: 10/03/14
"The
vast majority of people are taught to deny the shadow. Most religions
and even culture itself evoke the original goodness, but they do not
teach us about what to do with evil. In order to reach the experience of
oneness, we need to integrate all parts within us. We can only bring
the kingdom of God to earth through unity, and unity includes
everything."
Sri Prem Baba
Via Daily Dharma
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Too Busy Talking to Ourselves | October 3, 2014
Most of us are too busy talking to
ourselves to even contemplate what might be vivid and apparent should we
ever learn to shut up.
- Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei, "The Sword Disappears in the Water"
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Thursday, October 2, 2014
Flower of the Day: 10/02/14
"The
first glimpse of God is a deep darkness. This darkness is the unknown
that inhabits you, and this encounter with God is a portal to this same
unknown part of you. What is unknown makes you fragile and vulnerable. A
profound meeting between a more superficial center and a much deeper
center of consciousness acts as a mirror that reflects the reality of
who you are on all levels. So if you are not mature enough for this
encounter with yourself, then you tend to run away from it."
Sri Prem Baba
Via Daily Dharma
A Fathomless Foundation | October 2, 2014
Buddhism is fundamentally a path
of inquiry, a practice of looking at the mind’s tendency to cling, to
adhere to opinions, beliefs, memories, emotions, moods. This is a
remarkable foundation, because it’s fathomless. For as every moment
gives way to the next, we come face to face with an infinite freshness
of experience—a freshness that, if we have truly surrendered to the
practice, cannot be solidified into a doctrine.
- Noelle Oxenhandler, "Glass of Water, Bare Feet"
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Via Daily Dharma
Body as Illusion | October 1, 2014
There is no 'body' in the limbs,
But from illusion does the idea spring,
To be affixed to a specific shape—
Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man.
But from illusion does the idea spring,
To be affixed to a specific shape—
Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man.
- Shantideva, "What Body?"
Flower of the Day: 10/01/14
“For
a while now I have been speaking about the cycle of time we are
currently in. There are many people wanting to commit suicide, many
unknown diseases appearing, and our whole system is entering collapse,
from economics and politics to the environment. What is actually
happening is that the ego is entering collapse. This crisis is most
visible and intense within larger urban centers, where one’s patience is
constantly tested. This is why it is important that you dedicate at
least a few minutes of the day to sadhana, spiritual practice, because this is what makes it possible to keep the flame of connection ignited.”
Sri Prem Baba
Via JMG: New Report On LGBT Poverty
A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added financial burdens faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans because of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, these laws contribute to significantly higher rates of poverty among LGBT Americans and create unfair financial penalties in the form of higher taxes, reduced wages and Social Security income, increased healthcare costs, and more. The momentum of recent court rulings overturning marriage bans across the country has created the impression that LGBT Americans are on the cusp of achieving full equality from coast-to-coast. But the new report, Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being LGBT in America, documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways: by enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit and other areas; by failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families; and by creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents.Read the full report (PDF).
The report documents the often-devastating consequences when the law fails LGBT families. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are almost twice as likely to be poor as children raised by married opposite-sex parents. Additionally, 15 percent of transgender workers have incomes of less than $10,000 per year; among the population as a whole, the comparable figure is just four percent. To demonstrate the connection between anti-LGBT laws and the finances of LGBT Americans and their families, the report outlines how LGBT people living in states with low levels of equality are more likely to be poor, both compared to their non-LGBT neighbors, and compared to their LGBT counterparts in state with high levels of equality. For example, the denial of marriage costs gay and lesbian families money; same-sex couples with children had just $689 less in household income than married opposite-sex couples in states with marriage and relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but had an astounding $8,912 less in household income in states lacking such protections.
UPDATE: NBC News reports on the study.
Shortly after her wife died in March, Arlene Goldberg had to give up the beloved South Florida home that the couple shared. Because Goldberg’s 2011 marriage to her partner of 47 years wasn’t recognized as legal in Florida, she was denied her wife’s social security benefits. Without that income, Goldberg, 67, couldn’t pay her mortgage. “I’m trying to figure out how I am going to get through this time,” she said from Fort Myers, Florida. “I really can’t even pay my bills.”
Goldberg is among an untold number of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people nationwide who suffer economic distress and in some cases, poverty, as a result of anti-gay laws such as same-sex marriage bans, or from a lack of legal protections, like non-discrimination ordinances, according to a new report by two think tanks, the progressive Center for American Progress and the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project.
Census data and other research over the last decade have shown higher rates of financial hardship and poverty among gays. But the report’s authors make the connection between those difficulties and specific laws and policies by analyzing current incomes and poverty rates for LGBT people and their heterosexual counterparts in states that have protections and those that don’t.
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