Revoked

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Via Towleroad: U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford Marries Stephen DeVincent in Copenhagen

U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford married Dr. Stephen Devincent in a ceremony in Copenhagen today.

Writes Gifford in an Instagram post

“Just married in Copenhagen where the first legal gay partnerships took place 26 years ago. Now heading back to celebrate with our friends and family from all over the world at our residence under the American flag. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined such a perfect day. Life is good.”

The U.S. Embassy in Denmark also celebrated the news in a Facebook post with an official photo:

“Please join us in congratulating Ambassador Gifford and Dr. Stephen DeVincent on their wedding earlier today at Copenhagen City Hall.”

President Obama named Gifford ambassador to Denmark in June 2013.

Make the jump here to read the original and full posting

Friday, October 9, 2015

Via Mentors Channel / FB:

Today's Daily Dharma: The Force of Love

The Force of Love

The extraordinary thing about the cultivation of metta [lovingkindness], as opposed to Christian ideas of love, is that it is a transpersonal force. When you concentrate on transmitting metta, it's like you're not actually doing it, you're just opening yourself up to this field of potential sympathy that exists between all sentient beings.

—Antony Gormley, "The Other Side of Appearance"

Today's Daily Dharma: What Should I Do Today?

What Should I Do Today?

My students ask, 'What should I do now? What should I do today?' To me, it comes down to practice, clearing your mind and opening your heart so that whatever arises, moment to moment, you handle it as best you can.

—Jan Chozen Bays, "War or Peace? Thinking Outside the Box"

Via Huffington: Every LGBTQ+ Person Should Read This

Dearest Queer Person,

Chances are you don't even know that you are holy, or royal or magic, but you are. You are part of an adoptive family going back through every generation of human existence.

Long before you were born, our people were inventing incredible things. Gifted minds like the inventor of the computer Alan Turing and aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont live on in you.

The imprint that bold and brilliant individuals like Lynn Conway and Martine Rothblatt (both transgender women alive today) made on modern technology is impossible deny as present-day engineers carry their torch in the creation of robots and microprocessors.

More recently speaking, one of the co-founders of Facebook publicly acknowledged his identity as a gay man, as did the current CEO of Apple.

We were so often gods and goddesses over the centuries, like Hermaphrodite (the child of Hermes and Aphrodite), and Athena and Zeus, both of whom had same-sex lovers. In Japan it was said that the male couple Shinu No Hafuri and Ama No Hafuri, "introduced" homosexuality to the world. The ability to change one's gender or to claim an identity that encompasses two genders is common amongst Hindu deities. The being said to have created the Dahomey (a kingdom in the area now known as Benin) was reportedly formed when a twin brother and sister (the sun and the moon) combined into one being who might now identify as "intersex." Likewise, the aboriginal Australian rainbow serpent-gods Ungud and Angamunggi possess many characteristics that mirror present-day definitions of transgender identity.

Our ability to transcend gender binaries and cross gender boundaries was seen as a special gift. We were honored with special cultural roles, often becoming shamans, healers and leaders in societies around the globe. The Native Americans of the Santa Barbara region called us "jewels." Our records from the Europeans who wrote of their encounters with Two-Spirit people indicates that same-sex sexual activity or non-gender binary identities were part of the culture of eighty-eight different Native American tribes, including the Apache, Aztec, Cheyenne, Crow, Maya and Navajo.

Without written records we can't know the rest, but we know we were a part of most if not all peoples in the Americas.

Your ancestors were royalty like Queen Christina of Sweden, who not only refused to marry a man (thereby giving up her claim to the throne), but adopted a male name and set out on horseback to explore Europe alone. Her tutor once said the queen was "not at all like a female." Your heritage also includes the ruler Nzinga of the Ndongo and Matamna Kingdoms (now known as Angola), who was perceived to be biologically female but dressed as male, kept a harem of young men dressed in traditionally-female attire and was addressed as "King." Emperors like Elagalabus are part of your cultural lineage, too. He held marriage ceremonies to both male-identified and female-identified spouses, and was known to proposition men while he was heavily made-up with cosmetics.

Caliphs of Cordoba including Hisham II, Abd-ar-Rahman III and Al-Hakam II kept male harems (sometimes in addition to female harems, sometimes in place of them). Emperor Ai of Han Dynasty China was the one whose life gives us the phrase "the passions of the cut sleeve," because when he was asleep with his beloved, Dong Xian, and awoke to leave, he cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than wake his lover.

You are descended from individuals whose mark on the arts is impossible to ignore. These influential creators include composers like Tchaikovsky, painters like Leonardo da Vinci and actors like Greta Garbo. Your forebears painted the Sistine Chapel, recorded the first blues song and won countless Oscars. They were poets, and dancers and photographers. Queer people have contributed so much to the arts that there's an entire guided tour dedicated just to these artists at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

You have the blood of great warriors, like the Amazons, those female-bodied people who took on roles of protection and had scarce time or interest between their brave acts to cater to the needs of men. And your heart beats as bravely as the men of the Sacred Band of Thebes, a group of 150 male-male couples who, in the 4th century B.C.E., were known to be especially powerful fighters because each man fought as though he was fighting for the life of his lover (which he was). But your heritage also includes peacemakers, like Bayard Rustin, a non-violent gay architect of the Black civil rights movement in the U.S.

We redefined words like bear, butch, otter, queen and femme, and created new terms like drag queen, twink and genderqueer. But just because the words like homosexual, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual, have been created in the relatively recent past doesn't mean they are anything new.

Before we started using today's terms, we were Winkte to the Ogala, A-go-kwe to the Chippewa, Ko'thlama to the Zuni, Machi to the Mapuchi, Tsecats to the Manghabei, Omasenge to the Ambo and Achnutschik to the Konyaga across the continents. While none of these terms identically mirror their more modern counterparts, all refer to some aspect of, or identity related to, same-gender love, same-sex sex or crossing genders.

You are normal. You are not a creation of the modern age. Your identity is not a "trend" or a "fad." Almost every country has a recorded history of people whose identities and behaviors bear close resemblance to what we'd today call bisexuality, homosexuality, transgender identity, intersexuality, asexuality and more. Remember: the way Western culture today has constructed gender and sexuality is not the way it's always been. Many cultures from Papua New Guinea to Peru accepted male-male sex as a part of ritual or routine; some of these societies believed that the transmission of semen from one man to another would make the recipient stronger. In the past, we often didn't need certain words for the same-sex attracted, those of non-binary gender and others who did not conform to cultural expectations of their biological sex or perceived gender because they were not as unusual as we might today assume they were.

Being so unique and powerful has sometimes made others afraid of us. They arrested and tortured and murdered us. We are still executed by governments and individuals today in societies where we were once accepted us as important and equal members of society. They now tell us "homosexuality is un-African" and "there are no homosexuals in Iran." You, and we, know that these defensive comments are not true--but they still hurt. So, when others gave us names like queer and dyke, we reclaimed them.

When they said we were recruiting children, we said "I'm here to recruit you!" When they put pink and black triangles on our uniforms in the concentration camps, we made them pride symbols.

Those who challenge our unapologetic presence in today's cultures, who try to deprive us of our rights, who make us targets of violence, remain ignorant of the fact that they, not us, are the historical anomaly. For much of recorded history, persecuting individuals who transgressed their culture's norms of gender and sexuality was frowned upon at worst and unheard of at best. Today, the people who continue to harass us attempt to justify their cruel campaigns by claiming that they are defending "traditional" values. But nothing could be further from the truth.

But now you know they are wrong. Just imagine the world without that first computer or the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, or a huge part of the music you've ever heard from classical Appalachian Spring to classic YMCA (I mean, we've held titles from the "Mother of Blues" to the "King of Latin Pop!"). How much less colorful would the world be without us? I'm grateful that you're here to help carry on our traditions.

So, happy LGBT History Month! I hope to celebrate with you here at Quist. This list of LGBTQ history online resources is a good place to start in exploring more specifics about this heritage.
Lesbianamente*,
Sarah Prager

*Actually a term as a way someone signed a letter for a lesbian organization in Mexico decades ago!
This piece was inspired in part by facts and sentiments from Another Mother Tongue by Judy Grahn (published 1984). Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia edited by Gilbert H. Herdt (published 1993) is also referenced. Many of the referenced facts are cited so many places it has become common knowledge. Christianne Gadd contributed significantly to this piece. This post originally appeared in The Advocate.
Follow Sarah Prager on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Sarah_Prager

LGBT History Quist App LGBTQ History Bisexual History LGBT History Lesbian History Transgender History Christina of Sweden Alan Turing

Make the jump here to read the full article here

Today's Daily Dharma: No Retreat

No Retreat

On the night of the Buddha’s enlightenment, he is said to have understood that everything is completely interconnected and interdependent. Therefore it is impossible for anybody to go on retreat from the world. Everybody knows that when you go on retreat, the whole world, no matter how tiny your retreat cabin, is there, in terms of your experience. And the purpose of retreat is precisely to transform the world.

—Richard Reoch, "The Path of Complete Enlightenment"

Today's Daily Dharma: Just Being

Just Being

When we speak of just sitting, we are not limiting ourselves to describing a particular posture or practice. We are describing a way of being in the world in which everything we encounter is fully and completely itself.

—Barry Magid, "Uselessness"

#ConLaVozBienAlta - FELGTB

Your Father (30s) | Campbell’s #RealRealLife

Today's Daily Dharma: Always Awake

Always Awake

Every instant in the flow of illusion and suffering displays the full panoply of the unimpeded awakened state. There are no moments in which awake is not.

—Douglas Penick, "Taken Away and Given"

Today's Daily Dharma: Refuge in the Night

Refuge in the Night

Intimacy is a principal benefit of reclaiming the twilight hours of each day: intimacy with nature, intimacy with others, intimacy with ourselves. Darkness is good therapy. It unwinds the springs that daylight tightens and opens doorways onto eternity that are made invisible by light.

—Clark Strand, "Finding a Shallow Cave"

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 04/10/2015

“Movidas pelo medo e pelo ódio inconscientes, as pessoas se encontram, mas não sabem o que de fato querem umas das outras. Elas estão buscando algo, mas não sabem o que é. Elas ignoram que estão procurando uma parte de si mesmas no outro, e se iludem com a ideia de que o outro é a fonte da felicidade. Mas essa ideia é a fonte do sofrimento nas relações.”
“AMAR E SER LIVRE - As bases para uma nova Sociedade.”

“Movidas por el miedo y por el odio inconsciente, las personas se encuentran, pero no saben lo que realmente quieren unas de otras. Ellas están buscando algo, pero no saben qué es. Ignoran que están buscando una parte de sí mismas en el otro, y se ilusionan con la idea de que el otro es la fuente de la felicidad. Pero esta idea es la fuente del sufrimiento en las relaciones.”
“AMAR Y SER LIBRE - Las bases para una nueva Sociedad.”

“Motivated by fear and unconscious hatred, we interact with one another without even knowing what we truly want from each other. We are all searching for something, but we don’t know what it really is. We forget that we are actually looking for a part of ourselves in the other, and we delude ourselves into thinking that the other is our source of happiness. This very idea is the source of suffering in our relationships.”
LOVE AND BE FREE: The Foundations for a New Society

Today's Daily Dharma: Embrace Imperfection

Embrace Imperfection

My practice is teaching me to embrace imperfection: to have compassion for all the ways things haven’t turned out as I’d planned, in my body and in my life; for the way things keep falling apart, and failing, and breaking down. It’s less about fixing things and more about learning to be present for exactly what is.

—Anne Cushman, "Living from the Inside Out"

Via Salon: Pope Francis met with openly gay couple — and unlike Kim Davis, who ambushed him, he did so intentionally

(Credit: Reuters/Aristide Economopoulos)

Pope Francis met with a gay couple the day before he met with same-sex marriage opponent Kim Davis, CNN’s Daniel Burke reports.

Yayo Grassi and his partner, Iwan — old friends of the pope from Argentina — visited the pontiff and were greeted with warm hugs. In an interview with CNN, Grassi said that “three weeks before the trip, he called me on the phone and said he would love to give me a hug.”

Unlike the publicity stunt manufactured by Kim Davis, her lawyers, and elements within the church hostile to Francis’ agenda, this meeting was both deliberate and purposive.

Referring to the Vatican’s statement about Davis, in which Reverend Federico Lombardi said that “the only real audience granted by the Pope at the nunciature was with one of his former students and his family,” Grassi said “that was me.” Pope Francis taught him at Inmaculada Concepcion high school in Flores, Argentina, from 1964-1965.

Make the jump here to read the original article

Friday, October 2, 2015

Via JMG: BREAKING: Vatican Distances Pope Francis From Kim Davis, “Meeting Should Not Be Seen As Support”

October 2, 2015 Marriage Equality, Religion

This morning the Vatican formally distanced Pope Francis from Kim Davis in a statement which declares that his meeting with her “should not be considered a form of support.” The Associated Press reports:

After days of confusion, the Vatican issued a statement Friday clarifying Francis’ Sept. 24 encounter with Davis, an Apostolic Christian who has become a focal point in the gay marriage debate in the U.S. In a statement, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Francis met with “several dozen” people at the Vatican’s embassy in Washington just before leaving for New York. Lombardi said such meetings are par for the course of any Vatican trip and are due to the pope’s “kindness and availability.” He said the pope only really had one “audience” in Washington: with former students and his family members. “The pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects,” Lombardi said.

Davis said earlier this week that she and her husband met briefly with the pope at the Vatican’s nunciature in Washington and that he encouraged her to “stay strong.” She later told ABC: “Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we’re doing and agreeing, you know, it kind of validates everything.” The Vatican statement made clear the pope intended no such validation. News of the audience sent shockwaves through the U.S. church, with Davis’ supporters saying it showed the pope backed her cause and opponents questioning whether the pope had been duped into meeting with her and truly knew the details of her case. Initially the Vatican only reluctantly confirmed the meeting but offered no comment. On Friday, Lombardi issued a fuller statement to “contribute to an objective understanding of what transpired.

Last night CBS News reported that a Vatican insider says the Pope was “blindsided” by the meeting.

A highly placed source inside the Vatican claims the Pope was blindsided. It is a meeting some charge was orchestrated by the man who lived there, the Pope’s representative here, Carlo Maria Vigano. Not even the Papal Spokesman Federico Lombardi knew about it ahead of time. Nor did the leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which would have opposed it. Others claim the Pope knew about the meeting and had ordered Vatican diplomats, perhaps even Vigano, to set it up. CBS 2’s Vatican source doesn’t think so. A close advisor to Pope Francis tweeted that the Pope was, in his words, “exploited” by those who set up what the CBS 2 source says was a “meeting that never should have taken place.” Some call it an attempt by highly placed church leaders in the U.S. to diminish the impact of the Pope’s visit.

Also yesterday Esquire Magazine speculated that Pope Francis was “swindled” into the meeting by his own enemies within the Vatican. That story also blames Vigano and notes that he participated in NOM’s hate march earlier this year.

The man is a real player within the institutional church. He first came to prominence as a whistleblower during one of the several investigations of the Vatican Bank, which may be what got him exiled to this godless Republic in the first place. Despite that fact, Vigano is well-known to be a Ratzinger loyalist and he always has been a cultural conservative, particularly on the issue of marriage equality. In April, in a move that was unprecedented, Vigano got involved with an anti-marriage equality march in Washington sponsored by the National Association For Marriage. (And, mirabile dictu, as we say around Castel Gandolfo at happy hour, one of the speakers at this rally was Mat Staver, who happens now to be Kim Davis’s lawyer.) In short, Vigano, a Ratzinger loyalist, who has been conspicuous and publicly involved in the same cause as Kim Davis and her legal team, arranges a meeting with Davis that the legal team uses to its great public advantage.

It will be VERY enjoyable to watch the Liberty Counsel attempt to spin today’s bombshell from the Vatican, which will surely set off a firestorm of inquires about who actually set up the meeting.

NOTE: Also complicit here, in my mind, is ABC News. It was their reporter who lobbed that “conscientious objector” question on the papal plane as the Pope departed Philadelphia. And then the next day it was ABC News who somehow had the exclusive interview with Kim Davis. This was probably not a coincidence.
UPDATE: Here is Reuters’ take on today’s bombshell.

Pope Francis did not ask to meet a Kentucky county clerk who had been jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples and did not offer her unconditional support, the Vatican said on Friday. Looking to limit controversy after last week’s meeting in Washington between the pope and Kim Davis, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said she was one of “several dozen” people who had been invited by the Vatican ambassador to see Francis. A senior Vatican official, who declined to be named, said there was a “sense of regret” within the Holy See over the encounter, which sparked widespread debate in the United States, overshadowing almost all other aspects of the pope’s visit. He added that Davis had been in a line of people the pope had met at the Vatican embassy in Washington before he left for New York. “The only real audience granted by the Pope at the Nunciature (Vatican embassy) was with one of his former students and his family,” the statement said.

Today's Daily Dharma: Rest in Lovingkindness

Rest in Lovingkindness

We suffer because we do not understand the openness of our true nature. This is the ignorance that the Buddha taught is the root of all suffering. . . . If we take the time to shift to a place where we can actually rest in openness and lovingkindness, our suffering diminishes.

—Lama Palden, "Practicing with the Five Hindrances"

On All In with Chris Hayes last night, Dan Savage spoke about why Kim Davis’ secret meeting with Pope Francis is troubling and how it contradicts his message that the Catholic Church should focus less on social issues.

Said Savage of the meeting,

“I think it’s very revealing. You know, the Pope has said the church needs to de-emphasize social issues, needs to not just talk about gay marriage and abortion, but this secret meeting where he encouraged this woman to continue to discriminate against LGBT couples and then framed her as a conscientious objector….I think it really reveals what goes on with the Catholic church under the Pope, which is that this de-emphasizing of these social issues is – I don’t want to call it a racket or a scam, but it’s kind of a smoke screen that the Pope still believes these things, the church – the church said it is not going to change its position on same sex marriage, but then for the Pope to turn around and meet with someone like Kim Davis, and tell her – and encourage her to keep it up, keep discriminating against LGBT couples, it just shows that the church wishes it could engage in this activity.”

Hayes noted the irony that evangelical, protestant and Catholic Christians are now united given their historical ability to not always play nicely with one another. To which Savage replied, “It just shows you that homophobia is really what unites people across different Christian faiths now and it’s disgusting.”

Make the jump here to read the full article and see the video

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do Dia- Flor del Día - Flower of the Day 02/10/2015

“O homem é uma semente, um potencial que pode ser manifestado ou pode ser desperdiçado. A colheita espiritual é sempre um mistério: plantamos pensamentos, palavras e ações, mas não sabemos quando vamos colher os grãos. Nosso trabalho é plantar pensamentos, palavras e ações que estejam alinhados com a Verdade maior. Em outras palavras, é plantar o bem para colher o bem. Mas, muitas vezes estamos colhendo coisas que não lembramos quando plantamos.”

“El hombre es una semilla, un potencial que puede ser manifestado o puede ser desperdiciado. La cosecha espiritual es siempre un misterio: plantamos pensamientos, palabras y acciones, pero no sabemos cuándo vamos a cosechar esos granos. Nuestro trabajo es plantar pensamientos, palabras y acciones que estén alineados con la Verdad mayor. En otras palabras, es plantar el bien para cosechar el bien. Pero muchas veces estamos cosechando cosas que no recordamos cuándo las plantamos.”

“A human is a seed, a potential that can be manifested or wasted. The spiritual harvest is always a mystery: we plant thoughts, words and actions, but we don’t know when we are going to harvest the grain. Our work is to plant thoughts, words and actions that are aligned with a higher truth. We strive to plant the good in order to harvest the good. But oftentimes we end up harvesting things that we don’t even remember having planted.”

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Anuncios Google 3:29 / 4:15 New Teacher Encounters Homophobia In Second Week.

http://imfromdriftwood.com/alexa_espinal/