"I'm homosexual and I'm afraid about what my future will be and that people won't like me."
Posted by Humans of New York on Friday, July 3, 2015
Sometimes the Internet can be a good place filled with good people. On Friday, Humans of New York photographer Brandon Stanton posted a heartbreaking image of a young boy with the caption, "I'm homosexual, and I'm afraid about what my future will be and that people won't like me." Even 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton left a few inspirational words, writing, "Prediction from a grown-up: Your future is going to be amazing. You will surprise yourself with what you’re capable of and the incredible things you go on to do. Find the people who love and believe in you –- there will be lots of them."Your day will truly be better if you read the comments. And that's a sentence you won't see very often.
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Wherever the Mind Points, It Goes
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In
this historical moment when American democratic ideals of freedom,
civility, pluralism, altruism, and individualism make America the most
comfortable home on earth for the individual pursuit of enlightenment,
it is an essential form of Buddhist practice to participate in politics,
to vote, to speak out, to encourage those who agree, to reason with
those who disagree. It is wisdom. It is meditation. It is compassion. It
is ethics.
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In
this historical moment when American democratic ideals of freedom,
civility, pluralism, altruism, and individualism make America the most
comfortable home on earth for the individual pursuit of enlightenment,
it is an essential form of Buddhist practice to participate in politics,
to vote, to speak out, to encourage those who agree, to reason with
those who disagree. It is wisdom. It is meditation. It is compassion. It
is ethics.
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More than a decade ago, photographer Ed Freeman set out to capture the gay rights struggle in a photograph for the cover of Frontiers, a gay magazine. To do so, he relied on an image — the flag-raising at Iwo Jima — that has been imitated and adapted countless times since it was captured in the midst of one of America’s bloodiest battles. [snip] More than a decade after his adaptation of the photograph was published, it circulated on social media following the Supreme Court’s decision Friday to allow same-sex marriage in all 50 states. That prompted a backlash against Freeman — including a death threat he says he reported to the FBI. “He said if he ever saw me, he’d kill me,” Freeman said in a phone interview. “I got swamped with vitriolic hate mail.” Freeman said there is “no way in hell” that he meant his adaptation of the Iwo Jima image to be provocative. “This picture was just a flashpoint for a lot people who are looking for a reason to lash out, so I guess I get to be the whipping boy,” he said. “I’m fine with that if that’s what it takes.Haters are going nuts on Twitter.
The opposition to legal same-sex marriage is both partisan and generational. Two-thirds of Republicans oppose same-sex marriage, as does a majority of those 65 and older. Two in three Democrats and adults under 30 are in favor. Some of the opposition is clearly religious: 57% of those who say religion is very important to them oppose the ruling (a third approve). Among Catholics, there is a close division with nearly half approving. There is more support in the Northeast and West than there is in the Midwest and South.46% of all Americans say they'd attend a same-sex wedding.
But same-sex marriage has already become part of the American landscape. 44% say they know a gay or lesbian married couple. More than half of those with higher incomes and half of women do, but only 29% of African-Americans say they know a gay or lesbian couple that is married. Those who know a same-sex married couple approve of the Court’s ruling by two to one. While many people know a same-sex married couple, only 7% have attended a same-sex wedding. Three times as many Democrats (11%) as Republicans (3%) and eight times as many liberals (16%) as conservatives (2%) have done so.
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As the early Buddhist teachings freely admit, the predicament is that the cycle of birth, aging, and death is
meaningless. They don't try to deny this fact and so don't ask us to be
dishonest with ourselves or to close our eyes to reality. As one
teacher has put it, the Buddhist recognition of the reality of
suffering, so important that suffering is honored as the first noble
truth, is a gift, in that it confirms our most sensitive and direct
experience of things, an experience that many other traditions try to
deny.
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