Ricky Martin - Disparo al Corazón (Official Video)

http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/watch-ricky-martin-sing-gay-marriage-new-music-video240315

Via TED: Michael Sandel: A Arte Esquecida do Debate Democrático

Publicado em 9 de abr de 2012

A democracia prospera com o debate cívico, é o que diz Michael Sandel -- mas, vergonhosamente, perdemos essa prática. Ele conduz um divertido exercício, como participantes do TED discutindo sobre um caso recente da Suprema Corte (PGA Tour, Inc. vs. Martin) cujo resultado revela o ingrediente crítico da justiça.

Via Profoundly Human: Baha’i Curious: Why Can’t My Religion Accept My Sexuality?

I’ve been a Baha’i since April 21, 2007. 

I came out of the closet November 4, 2010, at age 24.

I’ve been gay, however, since as far back as I can remember.

I first learned about the Baha’i Faith from a Persian classmate at my high school in Auburn, Maine. We’re best of friends 15 years later, still.

She invited me over to her family home for a devotional. There, I met friends from around the world from various faiths, races and backgrounds. This diversity was intoxicating in my humble, if not sheltered, hometown of 30,000 people. I was awe-struck by the oneness that I felt at the devotional. There were songs, prayers, food and fellowship. I went back every Thursday after and became a Baha’i seven years later. It has informed, guided and enriched my life in every way imaginable.
Baha’is, by the way, believe in:

---

1. The Oneness of God

2. The Oneness of Humanity and; 

3. The Oneness of Religion. 

---

What got me was the idea of progressive revelation; in essence, that no one prophet is it, that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Zoroaster, Buddha, the Bab and Baha’u’llah — who Baha’is believe is the most recent manifestation of God — have come based on the needs of humanity for the era in which they lived. 

I’ve visited the Baha’i World Center in Israel twice and I’ve opened my home in New York City for devotionals hundreds of times. I share the ideas of the Baha’i Faith with those who are curious and have been an active member within the community. Aside from my parents, the Baha’i Faith has cultivated and shaped who I've become in my life, and it is the most consistent community to which I’ve belonged.

That’s why it’s so heart-breaking that I’m considering leaving the Baha’i Faith. 

DON’T DO IT

Friends suggested that I not write this article. Baha’is have told me to deal with this quietly because it may bring about disunity. It’s been suggested that I talk it out instead; for fear that my writing something would have negative repercussions for me. I believe that any time one can express their challenges — their vulnerabilities and that which they feel makes them unlovable (and lately, being gay and a Baha’i mostly certainly makes me feel unlovable) — that it allows more shining to take place. That’s my goal in writing this: That we may all celebrate our wholeness, despite our challenges.

I also hope this is helpful to those who read it. In particular, for those gay Baha’is who are in the closet right now and, even more so, the gay Baha’is in the closet who’ve chosen to repress their sexuality and marry women in order to serve the Cause of the Baha’i Faith. Let's not pretend you don't exist.

Many Baha’is have written me over the months since The Jake Sasseville Show went live asking how I’ve reconciled being openly gay and a Baha’i. The truth is, as I receive many kind emails and Facebook posts, I realize I'm quite embarrassed to call myself a Baha'i while being at odds with the core Teaching around marriage and sexuality. 

THE TEACHING

According to the Universal House of Justice, the supreme ruling, democratically elected body of the Baha’i Faith, made up of nine members headquartered at the Baha’i World Center in Haifa, Israel:

---

“Homosexuality… can well have medical aspects, and in such cases recourse should certainly be had with the best medical assistance. But it is clear from the teaching of Baha’u’llah that homosexuality is not a condition to which a person should be reconciled, but is a distortion of his or her nature which should be controlled or overcome.” (Letter to a member of the Baha’i Faith, 1973)

---

Read the full article here

Photo: Like The Ocean Photography

Via JMG: CALIFORNIA: Activist Charlotte Laws Files "Jackass Initiative" Ballot Measure

In response to the proposed Sodomite Suppression Act, activist Charlotte Laws has filed her own California ballot measure titled the "Jackass Initiative."

Any person, herein known as an "Intolerant Jackass," who brings forth a ballot measure that suggests the killing of gays and/or lesbians, whether this measure is called the Sodomite Suppression Act or is known by some other name, shall be required to attend sensitivity training for at least three (3) hours per month for twelve (12) consecutive months. In addition, the offender or "Intolerant Jackass" must donate $5000 to a pro-gay or pro-lesbian organization.

Laws has been interviewed by Slate:

“I’m fighting fire with fire,” she told me. “The only way to counter [the Sodomite Suppression Act] is … to let people know that most people in California don’t agree with something as incendiary and hateful as what this one attorney proposed.” Laws recognizes the merit of having a content-neutral initiative system, but she believes “we have a very open-minded state and country. This is one guy, and there are millions of us who do not agree with this.” Laws, a former Los Angeles politician and community activist, has devoted the last few years to battling revenge porn, especially kingpin of the genre Hunter Moore. Her new campaign is much more lighthearted—and, of course, a bit quixotic.

According to her Wikipedia page, Laws is former two-term member of the Greater Valley Glen Council and is the first politician to run on the platform of representing all "beings" in her district, not merely humans. Yesterday she spoke about the Jackass Initiative on a California radio show.

Labels: 2016 elections, activism, California, Charlotte Laws, gay death penalty, Matt McLaughlin, religion

 
Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 24/03/2015

“A autopunição é uma forma de sabotagem da própria felicidade. Ela nasce da culpa. Ao se perceber vendo o prazer ou a felicidade como um perigo, procure identificar a culpa dentro de você. Se existe culpa é porque você ainda não entrou em acordo com algum aspecto do seu passado. Nesse caso, você pode não lembrar do passado, mas ele está tão presente quanto aquilo que acontece aqui agora.”

“El autocastigo es una forma de sabotaje de la propia felicidad. Éste nace de la culpa. Al percibirte viendo el placer o la felicidad como un peligro, intenta identificar la culpa dentro tuyo. Si existe culpa es porque aún no entraste en acuerdo con algún aspecto de tu pasado. En ese caso, puedes no recordar el pasado, pero éste está tan presente como aquello que sucede aquí y ahora.”

“Self-punishment is a form of sabotaging one’s own happiness. It is born out of guilt. If we’re able to notice that we perceive pleasure or happiness as a threat, we should try to observe the guilt that exists within us. If there is guilt, it’s because we have yet to integrate some aspect of our past. We may not even remember our past, but it is as present as what is happening right here and now."

Via Daily Dharma

The Empowered Individual | March 24, 2015 When individuals are happy and empowered they’re more likely to take action for the sake of others, more likely to be aware of the dignity of life and to treat all life with respect in their everyday actions, more likely to encourage others to do the same. - Pauline Sherrow, "Q&A with Pauline Sherrow" Read More →

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 23/03/2015

“Quando é possível haver um grupo de estudantes comprometidos com a Verdade, o satsang se transforma na própria experiência da Unidade. Nesse caso, o discurso é um mero detalhe, porque a transmissão acontece através do silêncio. A clareza, a guiança, as instruções chegam e tudo fica claro no seu coração, mesmo que nenhuma palavra seja dita. Até porque as palavras são muito pequenas para expressar a grandeza da Verdade.”

“Cuando es posible que haya un grupo de estudiantes comprometidos con la Verdad, el satsang se convierte en la propia experiencia de la Unidad. En ese caso, el discurso es un mero detalle, porque la transmisión sucede a través del silencio. La claridad, la guía, las instrucciones llegan y todo se aclara en tu corazón, aunque ninguna palabra sea dicha. Incluso porque las palabras son demasiado pequeñas para expresar la grandeza de la Verdad.”

"When it’s possible to have a group of students committed to the truth, satsang becomes the experience of oneness. In this case, the discourse is a mere detail, because the transmission takes place through silence. Clarity, guidance, and instructions come and everything becomes clear in one’s heart, even if no words are spoken. Words are too small to express the greatness of the truth anyways."

Via Daily Dharma

Adventures in Going Nowhere | March 23, 2015 One of the beauties of Nowhere is that you never know where you’ll end up when you head in its direction, and though the horizon is unlimited, you may have very little sense of what you’ll see along the way. The deeper blessing is that it can get you as wide-awake, exhilarated, and pumping-hearted as when you are in love. - Pico Iyer, "Adventures in Going Nowhere" Read More →

Via Sierra Club / FB

Gloria Gaynor - I am What I am

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día- Flower of the day 22/03/2015

“Muitos já compreendem que por não estarem dando ao mundo aquilo que vieram para dar, sentem-se vazios e angustiados; sem motivação para viver. Alguns ainda não conseguiram reconhecer seus dons; outros já reconheceram e até já estão colocando-os em movimento, mas ainda não se sentem guiados. Isso indica que falta alguma coisa e faz-se necessário dar mais um passo adiante na jornada. Porque se você realmente coloca seus dons a serviço do amor, você se sente guiado; você entra na corrente de transmissão de energia: a felicidade é dada a você para ser transmitida ao outro.”

“Muchos ya comprenden que debido a que no están dando al mundo aquello que vinieron a dar, se sienten vacíos y angustiados; sin motivación para vivir. Algunos todavía no consiguieron reconocer sus dones; otros ya los han reconocido y están poniéndolos en movimiento, pero todavía no se sienten guiados. Esto indica que falta algo y se hace necesario dar un paso más adelante en el camino. Porque si realmente colocas tus dones al servicio del amor, te sientes guiado; entras en la corriente de transmisión de energía: la felicidad es dada te es dada para ser transmitida al otro.”

"Many people understand that when they don’t give to the world what they came to give, they are left feeling empty, anguished, and without any motivation to live. Some people have failed to recognize their gifts, while others have recognized them and are able to put them into action but still do not feel guided. This is an indication that something is missing and it’s necessary to take yet another step forward in the journey. If we have really put our gifts at the service of love, we feel guided and we enter the current of energy transmission. We receive happiness so that it may be transmitted to others."

Via Daily Dharma

Fire in Our Hearts | March 22, 2015 In war, one has to write or speak about war, but one has to write or speak about beauty, too. When to do which? No one knows, I think. Perhaps you know only each morning upon awakening. We must have courage, we must have fire, we must have energy. There is a war and all hearts are tempted to grow numb, to withdraw and tuck in as if about to roost for the long night. We must not allow this to happen. We must burn, we must travel on, with morning’s fire in our hearts and beauty everywhere we turn, amidst a great burning. - Rick Bass, "Answering the Call" Read More →

Jethro Tull - Life is a long song

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

Make the jump here to read the original article

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."