Madonna Performs 'Ghosttown'

Via JMG: Gallup Survey On LGBT Populations

Gallup reports:

The San Francisco metropolitan area has the highest percentage of the adult population who identify as LGBT of any of the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas, followed by Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas. Variation in the percentage who identify as LGBT across the largest metro areas is relatively narrow, with San Francisco's percentage just 2.6 percentage points higher than the national average of 3.6%, and the lowest-ranked metro area -- Birmingham, Alabama -- one point below the national average.

The top 10 includes metro areas from every region of the country except the Midwest. Given the long history of a visible and politically active LGBT community in San Francisco, the city's ranking at the top of this list is not surprising. Similar to San Francisco, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) like Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles in the West, and Boston in the Northeast, are known for their progressive social and political climates and active LGBT communities. Hartford is the capital of Connecticut, which has permitted same-sex couples to legally marry longer than every state except Massachusetts.

MSAs like Austin and New Orleans in the South, and Denver in the Rocky Mountain region, all have reputations as socially progressive cities within states and regions that are much more conservative, perhaps making them regional hubs for the LGBT population.

Hit the link for the full list.

Labels: Birmingham, Gallup, San Francisco, surveys

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via the Wasington Post: The improbable, 200-year-old story of one of America’s first same-sex ‘marriages’

The shared tombstone of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, a 19th-century lesbian couple. (Rachel Hope Cleves)
 
Charity Bryant only intended to stay a few days in Weybridge, Vt., a tiny rural town with little to hold her attention. But then she met Sylvia Drake.

Drake was 22 — a talented, literary-minded woman in search of a kindred spirit. Bryant, seven years her senior, was brilliant, charismatic and exactly the kind of partner Drake had been looking for. The two fell swiftly, madly in love. Within months, Bryant rented a one-room apartment and asked Drake to become her roommate and wife.

It may sound like something from a 21st-century vows column, but this romance predates most newspapers’ style sections — by about two centuries.

Make the jump here to read the full story on the Washington Post Website

Via Tricycle: May All Beings Be Happy

March 20, 2015

May All Beings Be Happy

A lovingkindness meditation
Kevin Griffin

 

Metta (lovingkindness) is that sense of openness when we feel connected to everyone and everything in the world. In some ways, it's a natural outgrowth of mindfulness practice and just the general cultivation of happiness in our lives. When the Buddha talks about lovingkindness, he's clearly pointing to something different from what we usually call "love." In fact, his teachings point to the problems with selective love, and how that leads to clinging and ultimately suffering as things change. The Metta Sutta tells us to spread love over the entire world to everyone, no matter what we think or feel about them. This is unconditional love, love that doesn't expect or need a return, love that sees past the petty differences and disputes in life to the universal longings for happiness that we all share. In practicing lovingkindness, we are faced with our clinging, our judgments, and our selective caring. We see that what we usually call love may have a lot of conditions tied up with it: "I'll love you as long as you love me" or " as long as you give me what I want." And, further, we see that the love we have for our dear ones makes us vulnerable to grief and loss. 

Traditionally, metta practice focuses on three categories: those we love, those we are neutral or have no strong feelings about, and those we have difficulties with. Before we work with these categories, the practice suggests we first focus on a benefactor or beloved person (or even a pet). When we spend time sending lovingkindness to this beloved, we accomplish a couple of things: first, we soften ourselves up a bit, so that we are ready to send love to others; and second, we get a clear sense of what love feels like so that we establish that kind of baseline.

After connecting with the beloved, we then try to send love to ourselves. Many people find this to be one of the most difficult aspects of the metta practice. At least in our culture, many of us have complicated, and often negative, feelings about ourselves. To see ourselves as just another person deserving love is a valuable exercise. Here we start to disidentify with ourselves, see ourselves in more objective terms. When we can see ourselves as just another imperfect human, equally deserving of love as anyone else, it becomes easier to offer love to ourselves.

Moving from focus on ourselves to focus on all the rest of the people we care about—family, friends, intimates, and partner—the heart tends to open more easily. Now we might feel ourselves getting into the flow of lovingkindness. Without obstruction, and using the phrases, feelings, and visualizations of the practice, the mind can become quite focused and concentrated, so that, not only do we enjoy the pleasant feeling of love, but also the powerful feeling of concentration, called samadhi, that comes with deeper meditation practices.

We then try to carry these two qualities, the openheartedness and the focus, into giving metta to a neutral person or persons. For many people, this seems to be an awkward practice at first, but I think it has great potential in terms of growing a broad sense of lovingkindness for all beings. 

A neutral person is someone we don't have strong feelings about, either positive or negative. I've used people like the clerk in the video store and the security guard at the bank. These are people I can visualize pretty easily because I've seen them many times, but I certainly don't like or dislike them in any meaningful way. 

At first, and naturally enough, it might be hard to feel much about these people, but the practice gives us a form we can simply follow without worrying about the results. You see the person in your mind, you say the lovingkindness phrases to yourself, and you try to connect in your heart. What helps me in doing this practice is contemplating the universal desire for happiness and freedom from suffering. 

Even though I don't really know this neutral person, I know that, just like me, they want happiness. 

So, in a sense, I'm connecting with my own wish for happiness and just projecting it onto them.

As we work with the neutral person, we have the opportunity to see what the Buddha was getting at. It might be easy to wish happiness for your loved ones, but as you wish that, it's still very personal for you. You have some investment in their happiness, so it's difficult to disidentify with their happiness. 

However, with the neutral person, you have no investment, so you have to connect with something else, this universal longing that is impersonal. That moves you away from your self-identification into a more authentic metta. As long as there is identification or longing or investment in someone else's happiness, we aren't experiencing unconditional love. 

I think that many people can get caught up in the idea that metta is about feeling good and praying for people you care about. This is something of a distortion of the teachings. Yes, being immersed in metta is a pleasant experience, but that experience isn't the goal of the practice. 

Working with the difficult person makes this fact clear. If we were just trying to feel good, we certainly wouldn't spend time thinking about someone we don't like. The difficult person can be someone you've had conflict with or toward whom you have a resentment. 

Sometimes when no one in my life comes up, I just use a political figure that I disagree with. In any case, this is a place where we have to apply a strong mindfulness to our practice so that we don't lapse into aversion, anger, judgment, or resentment. As we follow through on the practice, visualizing the person and saying the phrases, it's very likely that we will not feel much that's positive, at least in our initial efforts. We need to be careful that the mind doesn't wander into negative thoughts and that we just keep with the simple task of the practice, staying with the words and the breath in the heart. Here, you may be able to get some insight into the limits of your own capacity for love. That's a valuable thing to see. It can give us some goals as well as show us where some of our own suffering comes from.

Clearly, the great spiritual masters believe that the capacity to love our enemies is one of the vital tasks of human evolution. Jesus spoke of this and exemplified it when he forgave those who crucified him; the Buddha explains this in the "Simile of the Saw," in which he says that even if someone were sawing off our limbs one by one, no thought of hatred should arise. If we want to be truly loving people, unconditionally and for all beings, we have to work with some form of this practice. It's certainly not something that I've come anywhere close to mastering, but I have found that with compassion practice, I can get some sense of this. 

After working with the difficult person, we can move to the expansive part of metta practice. This is actually a complete shift because no longer are we thinking about any individuals, but working instead with a sense of space. This space is what the Buddha is talking about in the Metta Sutta when he says that we are "radiating kindness over the entire world, spreading [it] upwards to the skies and downwards to the depths, outwards and unbounded, free from hatred and ill will." 

This is a somewhat more difficult area of practice to describe because it doesn't have the same cognitive elements of the earlier pieces. Instead, we are working more with a feeling, a feeling of expansiveness and connection. Hopefully when we arrive at this part of the practice, we've developed something of an internal sense of lovingkindness. While focusing on that feeling, that authentic wish for all beings to be free from dukkha, or suffering, we being a process of imaginative expansion. We can use a visualization if that works, while we stay connected to the feeling in the heart and imagine that the love is growing.

First we see/feel that love filling and enveloping the room we are in. Then we let that feeling expand out through the whole building, the neighborhood, outward in all directions until it touches everything on earth. This can be done slowly or quickly, depending upon how much time you have and how into it you are. You can think of specific groups of people you want to send love to: the sick and dying, the oppressed, or whatever comes up for you. You can also send love to animals, plants, and the earth itself. 

At this point, you may lose the sense of boundaries with your body, and experience a sort of floating or fluid sensation. I'm not trying to tell you how you should feel—just know that anything in this realm is normal and helps to support this part of the practice. When we've spread lovingkindness over the entire planet, we then expand into space, vast and limitless. We try to permeate the universe with lovingkindness. 

Once we've sat in this place of boundless love for a little while, we can bring ourselves gradually back into the body and heart, and close the period of meditation.

Practice—Metta Phrases

I've more or less outlined the practice above. Always start by connecting with the breath, so you have some attention in your body, preferably at the heart. As I've said, we first send metta to a beloved person or benefactor, then ourselves, our dear ones, a netural person, a difficult person, then radiating to all beings. A big part of this, then, is the felt sense of lovingkindness; however, this feeling may be stronger, weaker, or even absent at times. 

Nonetheless, we continue the practice by visualizing the people we are sending metta to, maybe naming them, and repeating phrases. 

You should use phrases that resonate for you and are simple and direct. Not more than four phrases. Here are some typical ones:

May you be happy

May you be peaceful

May you live with ease.

Some people like to add something like, "May you be safe." 

Stay in touch with your breath; notice feelings of happiness or resistance that come up at various stages; let the phrases flow with the breath and stay connected to the heart.

Kevin Griffin is the cofounder of the Buddhist Recovery Network. He lives in Berkeley, California. 

Adapted from Recovering Joy: A Mindful Life After Addiction by Kevin Griffin. Copyright © 2015 by Kevin Griffin. To be published by Sounds True in June, 2015. 

Image: Minette Layne/Flickr

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Via Portal Brasil / FB:

Portal Brasil

 

Ministra do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF), Cármem Lúcia, manteve decisão que autorizou a adoção de crianças por um casal homoafetivo do Paraná. Para a ministra o conceito de família não pode ser restrito por se tratar de casais homoafetivos. Leia aqui: http://goo.gl/896ZEb

Rough Trans: "The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Carmen Lucia, kept the decision authorizing the adoption of children by a homosexual couple in Paraná. The minister said the concept of family can not be restricted to not includehomosexual couples."

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 21/03/2015

“O ser humano às vezes demora muito tempo para amadurecer até que possa pedir e experienciar o perdão. O perdão nasce de um aspecto específico da consciência, a compreensão. Ele é um florescimento da compreensão. E essa compreensão envolve arrependimento. Quando o arrependimento é sincero, ele te liberta de qualquer culpa. As suas lágrimas caem, lavam as marcas da culpa e iluminam o perdão; e somente o perdão te liberta dos fardos do passado.”

“El ser humano a veces tarda mucho tiempo para madurar hasta que pueda pedir y experimentar el perdón. El perdón nace de un aspecto específico de la conciencia, la comprensión. Es un florecimiento de la comprensión. Y esa comprensión involucra arrepentimiento. Cuando el arrepentimiento es sincero, te libera de cualquier culpa. Tus lágrimas caen, lavan las marcas de la culpa e iluminan el perdón; y solamente el perdón te libera de las cargas del pasado.”

"Human beings sometimes take a long time to mature to the point of being able to ask for forgiveness and to experience forgiveness. Forgiveness is born from a specific aspect of consciousness: comprehension. It is a blossoming of understanding, and this comprehension involves remorse. When repentance is sincere, it frees us from all guilt. When tears fall, they wash away the imprints of guilt and illuminate our forgiveness. Only forgiveness can set us free from the burdens of the past."

Via Dialy Dharma

Unconditional Love | March 21, 2015 The Metta Sutta tells us to spread love over the entire world to everyone, no matter what we think or feel about them. This is unconditional love, love that doesn't expect or need a return, love that sees past the petty differences and disputes in life to the universal longings for happiness that we all share. - Kevin Griffin, "May All Beings Be Happy" Read More →

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 20/03/2015

“Uma pessoa preguiçosa pode fazer muitas coisas, mas esse fazer (que pode ser até compulsivo) é uma reação, ou seja, é uma fuga da verdadeira ação. Porque a ação inevitavelmente te leva a entrar em contato com aqueles sentimentos que foram suprimidos e congelados no seu sistema, justamente por ser difícil de lidar com eles. A preguiça é mais conhecida na sua forma passiva, na qual a pessoa se vê completamente paralisada diante do que precisa ser feito. Às vezes ela tem um tremendo talento, uma capacidade genial, mas não consegue colocar isso em movimento a favor dela e dos outros. Porém, existe a preguiça ativa que se manifesta através de um fazer compulsivo que te desvia daquilo que realmente precisa ser feito.”

“Una persona perezosa puede hacer muchas cosas, pero este hacer (que puede hasta ser compulsivo) es una reacción, es decir, es un escape de la verdadera acción. Porque la acción inevitablemente te lleva a entrar en contacto con aquellos sentimientos que fueron suprimidos y congelados en tu sistema, justamente porque es difícil lidiar con ellos. La pereza es más conocida en su forma pasiva, en la cual la persona se ve completamente paralizada delante de lo que necesita ser hecho. A veces ella tiene un tremendo talento, una capacidad genial, pero no consigue ponerlo en movimiento a favor de ella y de los demás. Sin embargo existe la pereza activa que se manifiesta a través de un hacer compulsivo que te desvía de lo que realmente precisa ser hecho.”

"A lazy person may do many things, but this doing, which can even be compulsive, is only a reaction. In other words, it is an escape from true action. Real action inevitably leads us to get in touch with the feelings that were suppressed and frozen in our systems because they were so difficult to deal with. Laziness is best known in its passive form where we find ourselves completely paralyzed in the face of what needs to be done. Sometimes we can have a tremendous talent, a brilliant ability, but we’re unable to put it into motion for ourselves and for others. In contrast, the active form of laziness manifests itself through compulsive doing and distracts us from what really has to get done."

Via Daily Dharma:

The Mind Recognizes Itself | March 20, 2015 Instead of thinking of this and that, one thing after the other, let your mind recognize itself in a single moment. When the mind recognizes itself, there is no thing to see there. It’s just wide open. That’s because the essence of mind is empty. It’s wide open and free. - Tsoknyi Rinpoche, "Dissolving the Confusion" Read More →

Via JMG: Barney Frank: If Aaron Schock Is Gay, He Has Forfeited His Right To The Closet

"I don't know if he's gay or not. But if he is, he's forfeited any right to privacy because he votes anti-gay. My view is that people who are gay who vote to support the right of other people to do it have a right to privacy, but the right to privacy does not include hypocrisy. The one thing that puzzled me, The New York Times had a story about how he redecorated his office to look like Downton Abbey, but all I saw were pictures of like Ulysses S. Grant. It's obviously sort of disjunctive in my mind. There were all these pictures of Republican presidents. I don't know what they were doing in Downton Abbey. I suppose you could say, from a certain angle, Herbert Hoover does look a little bit like Maggie Smith depending on the light, but nobody could have been Ulysses S. Grant. I have to say, if they're not true [the rumors], he spent entirely too much time in the gym for a straight man." - Barney Frank, speaking to Business Insider.

Labels: Aaron Schock, Barney Frank, GOP, homocons

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via JMG: CALIFORNIA: Gay Death Penalty Ballot Measure Will Probably Be Advanced

Last month a Christian activist filed a 2016 California ballot measure that calls for the death penalty for homosexuality. And it appears that Attorney General Kamala Harris can do little to prevent the the proposed referendum from reaching the petition signature gathering stage. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The state Supreme Court has the power to keep measures off the ballot if they violate the California Constitution. It has exercised that power to disqualify measures that cover more than one subject, broadly defined, and to block last year’s attempt by legislative Democrats to seek a statewide advisory vote on a U.S. constitutional amendment that would limit corporate spending in federal elections. Presumably the justices could locate a state constitutional provision that would discourage shooting people in the head.
But McLaughlin’s measure is currently before Harris, whose options appear to be limited. Once the sponsor has paid the required fee, state law directs the attorney general to prepare a title and a maximum 100-word summary of the initiative and forward it to the secretary of state for a 90-day period of public signature-gathering. The secretary of state’s website says Harris is scheduled to take those actions by about May 4.
Does she have the power to refuse if the measure is patently unconstitutional? Harris isn’t saying; her office did not return repeated phone calls. But some veteran practitioners of election law said they don’t think so. “The statute is clear: that the office has to prepare a summary provided the proponents have paid $200 and followed the right procedures,” said attorney Robert Stern, author of the state’s 1974 Political Reform Act. He said he’s never heard of a case in which the attorney general refused to issue a title and summary.

The ballot measure briefly vanished from the AG's official website earlier this month, but soon reappeared. The proposed referendum includes this stipulation: "Any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification shall be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method." Jesus is love.

Labels: 2016 elections, California, Christian Love, Christianists, gay death penalty, Kamala Harris, religion

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via LGBT: Life Gets Better Together / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 19/03/2015

“A água é uma manifestação da vida. A crise hídrica tem se manifestado com mais força em alguns lugares, mas o desequilíbrio é geral. O sintoma aparece com mais força em um continente, mas a doença é planetária. É um desequilíbrio no ciclo da própria vida. Embora o tema seja complexo, e envolva questões sociais, políticas e econômicas, na raiz da crise está a negação da Verdade. A água representa nossos sentimentos mais profundos, e a falta dela é justamente a negação desses sentimentos. Mas, no mais profundo, esse desequilíbrio é um sintoma da esquecimento da espiritualidade.”

“El agua es una manifestación de la vida. La crisis hídrica se ha manifestado con más fuerza en algunos lugares, pero el desequilibrio es general. El síntoma aparece con más fuerza en un continente, pero la enfermedad es planetaria. Es un desequilibrio en el ciclo de la propia vida. Aunque el tema sea complejo, e involucre cuestiones sociales, políticas y económicas, en la raíz de la crisis está la negación de la Verdad. El agua representa nuestros sentimientos más profundos, y la falta de ella es justamente la negación de estos sentimientos. Pero en lo más profundo, este desequilibrio es un síntoma del olvido de la espiritualidad.”

"Water is a manifestation of life. The water crisis has manifested itself more strongly in some places, but the imbalance is worldwide. The symptoms appear stronger in certain continents, but the disease is global. It is an imbalance in the cycle of life itself. Although the issue is complex and involves social, political and economic issues, the root of the crisis lies in the denial of truth. Water represents our deepest feelings, and the lack of water is precisely the denial of these feelings. On the deepest level, this imbalance is a symptom of the forgetfulness of spirituality."

One Thousand Buddhas | March 19, 2015 Where there are one thousand human beings, within one thousand ways of living, one thousand buddhas are revealed. Buddha is revealed through mountains, valleys, trees, and grasses, through a multitude of phenomena. The heart that can be revered in whatever form we see, in whatever direction we look, this is the true heart of Buddhism, this is Buddha life. - Soko Morinaga Roshi, "One Chance, One Encounter" Read More →

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 18/03/2015

“Quando a luz do perdão se manifesta, todas as sombras se dissipam. Mágoas e ressentimentos se dissolvem e o passado desaparece. Você volta para a luz do momento presente, onde não existe separação ou distanciamento. Por isso compreenda que se existe uma barreira entre você e outro, ela é feita de mágoas e ressentimentos - é feita de acusação. Portanto, é feita de passado.”

“Cuando la luz del perdón se manifiesta, todas las sombras se disipan. Heridas y resentimientos se disuelven y el pasado desaparece. Vuelves a la luz del momento presente, donde no existe separación o distancia. Por eso comprende que si existe una barrera entre tú y otro, ella está hecha de heridas y resentimientos - está hecha de acusación. Por lo tanto, está hecha de pasado.”

"When the light of forgiveness manifests, all shadows dissipate. Hurts and resentments dissolve, and the past disappears. We return to the light of the present moment, where there is no separation or distance. This is why we must understand that if there is a barrier between ourselves and another person, it is due to hurts, resentments and accusations. This barrier is created out of our past."

Via Daily Dharma

Softening Judgment | March 18, 2015 Falling down is what we humans do. If we can acknowledge that fact, judgment softens and we allow the world to be as it is, forgiving ourselves and others for our humanity. The Buddha’s First Noble Truth—that suffering exists—is, in itself, a permission to be human and not demand more of ourselves than we’re capable of. Our compassion arises from our very fallibility, and love takes root in the soils of human error. - Lin Jensen, "An Ear to the Ground" Read More →

Via The Advocate: Presbyterians Overwhelmingly Approve Marriage Equality

The largest Presbyterian denomination approved a marriage resolution on Tuesday that amends their constitution to accept same-sex marriages.

A voice vote held on Tuesday in New Jersey had 86 regional bodies approving the new resolution and 41 opposed (one local presbytery had a tie vote), reports The New York Times. The church, which claims 1.8 million members and is based in Kentucky, has been moving to the left in the past few years; they cleared the way for gay and lesbian pastors, elders, and deacons four years ago.

Their latest change in policy also means Presbyterian ministers who previously performed same-sex marriages will not be prosecuted or convicted of ecclesiastical crimes by the church.

The new policy is a measured change. Conservative ministers will not be forced to perform same-sex marriages, while the new constitution will not be altered that drastically. The church previously considered marriage as between "a man and a woman," while the new language considers marriage as a union of "two people, traditionally a man and a woman."

The Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Quakers are some of the other denominations that have opened the door to same-sex marriage. The Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism have also hopped on the bandwagon.

Tags: Religion, Marriage Equality

Via GLAAD: Presbyterians latest church to affirm marriage equality

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has become the latest church to approved marriages for same-sex couples. The Presbyterian Church, USA now holds that marriage is between “two persons” rather than “a man and a woman.” 

Last summer, the PC(USA) governing body voted by a 71% vote to change the description of marriage, from between “a man and a woman” to “two persons.” However, the amendment required 51% of the 171 regional bodies called presbyteries to affirm the change. That threshold was crossed as 86 presbyteries voted yes, as of today. The tipping point vote was cast by Palisades Presbytery in New Jersey. However, affirming votes came from more conservative presbyteries, including the Charleston-Atlantic and Foothills Presbyteries in South Carolina, James and Shenandoah Presbyteries in Virginia, Presbytery of the Pines in Louisiana, and North Alabama Presbytery. You can see a full tally, and which presbyteries are still yet to vote at the Covenant Network of Presbyterians website.

Make the jump here to read the full article

Via NYT: Presbyterians Give Final Approval for Same-Sex Marriage

After three decades of debate over its stance on homosexuality, members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted on Tuesday to change the definition of marriage in the church’s constitution to include same-sex marriage.

The final approval by a majority of the church’s 171 regional bodies, known as presbyteries, enshrines a change recommended last year by the church’s General Assembly. The vote amends the church’s constitution to broaden marriage from being between “a man and a woman” to “two people, traditionally a man and a woman.”

The Presbytery of the Palisades meeting in Fair Lawn, N.J., put the ratification count over the top on Tuesday on a voice vote. With many presbyteries still left to vote, the tally early Tuesday evening stood at 86 presbyteries in favor and 41 against and one tied.

“Finally, the church in its constitutional documents fully recognizes that the love of gays and lesbian couples is worth celebrating in the faith community,” said the Rev. Brian D. Ellison, executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, which advocates gay inclusion in the church.

“There is still disagreement, and I don’t mean to minimize that, but I think we are learning that we can disagree and still be church together.”

The church, with about 1.8 million members, is the largest of the nation’s Presbyterian denominations, but it has been losing congregations and individual members as it has moved to the left theologically over the past several years. There was a wave of departures in and after 2011, when the presbyteries ratified a decision to ordain gays and lesbians as pastors, elders and deacons, and that may have cleared the way for Tuesday’s vote.

Make the jump here to read the full article