Where Is Gay Marriage Legal? Statista's Map Shows The Countries That Allow Same-Sex Marriage — And Those That Don't

 

Now that same-sex marriage is legal in the United States, it's tempting to shut the book on LGBT rights and say they've been achieved. Despite recent progress, though, the fight is far from over, and nothing illustrates this better than this recent map showing where gay marriage is legal around the world created by Statista in conjuction with The Independent's i100 blog. Of course, marriage equality is hardly the be-all and end-all of LGBT rights; in fact, some in the community feel that its publicity eclipses equally pressing matters, such as violence against trans individuals and bisexual visibility. That being said, the topic is undoubtedly indicative of larger attitudes toward LGBT rights in a country — after all, discussing marriage equality at all requires a certain amount of acceptance of same-sex couples in the first place.

Using data from the Pew Research Center regarding marriage laws around the world, Statista put together a map showing which countries allow same-sex couples to marry — and as an LGBT person myself, the infographic elicits a combination of pride and sadness. It's no surprise to see that countries like the Canada and the UK, where the LGBT community is at an all-time height of visibility and acceptance, have passed same-sex marriage laws. 

However, the map is also an illustration that even countries you don't immediately associate with LGBT equality have made progress: South Africa, parts of Mexico, and Uruguay all allow marriage equality.

On the other hand, the reverse is also true. Most notably, Australia is a gigantic blank spot — despite years of activism, same-sex marriage is still illegal in the Land Down Under. What the hell, Australia?

http://www.bustle.com/articles/121532-where-is-gay-marriage-legal-statistas-map-shows-the-countries-that-allow-same-sex-marriage-and

 

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day 05/11/2015

“Só é possível avançar no caminho espiritual tomando consciência de qual estágio você se encontra. Por isso procuro sempre oferecer elementos para você fazer um autodiagnóstico. Mas, para que você possa fazer uso desses elementos e se entregar para o processo, é preciso que pelo menos um grão de humildade esteja disponível. Sem humildade você não avança no caminho pois o orgulho não te permite entrar em contato com o que precisa ser visto e reconhecido.”

“Solo es posible avanzar en el camino espiritual tomando conciencia de en cuál etapa te encuentras. Por eso siempre trato de ofrecer elementos para que hagas un autodiagnóstico. Pero para que puedas hacer uso de esos elementos y entregarte al proceso, es necesario por lo menos que un grano de humildad esté disponible. Sin humildad no avanzas en el camino, pues el orgullo no te permite entrar en contacto con lo que precisa ser visto y reconocido.”

“It is only possible to progress on a spiritual path bybecoming aware of what stage we are in. I am constantly offering you tools that enable you to make a self-diagnosis. In order to make use of these tools and to surrender oneself to this process,one needs to havea certain degree of humility. Without humility, we cannot move forward on the path, as pride doesn’t allow us to connect with what needs to be seen and recognized.”

Today's Daily Dharma: The Gift of the Present Moment

The Gift of the Present Moment

A more complete attention proffers many special gifts. These gifts can penetrate through the exigencies of social roles, the seeming hollowness of chance encounters, and even through terrible hurt. Paying attention provides the gift of noticing, and the gift of connecting. It provides the gift of seeing a little bit of ourselves in others, and of realizing that we’re not so awfully alone. It allows us to let go of the burden of so much of what we habitually carry with us, and receive the gift of the present moment.

—Sharon Salzberg, "A More Complete Attention"

Read More

Why The Church Should Save Time And Apologize To The LGBTQ Community Now

Sooner or later it’s going to happen. It always does.

History teaches us that eventually justice comes where injustice has reigned for so long, and with it too so do the oppressors’ apologies to those who they’ve victimized. This is true of nations, governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals.

And so often these expressions of culpability and regret arrive posthumously, when many generations who deserve to hear them have long passed, when they cannot benefit from the admissions of those who’ve hurt them. Restoration for these folks, is impossible. 

That’s precisely why the Christian Church needs to apologize to the LGBTQ community and those who love them now, and save so much any unnecessary future suffering.

Though many of us have already figured it out, I believe that day is indeed coming when all Christians will realize just how terrible we as an entity have been to gay people, when we come to grips with our misplaced focus on sexuality, when we’ve properly fathomed the cost of our conduct and fully realize the terrible damage we’ve done to the queer community in the name of God. In that day, we as a Church will be contrite and remorseful and with great sincerity we’ll ask them for forgiveness.

And for so many good, loving, faithful LGBTQ people and their families who’ve been the recipients of our systemized and sanctioned bigotry and fear—it will be too little, too late.

The Church should be brave enough to speak now; those of us within it who are presently committed to diversity without caveat or condition or prerequisite—or delay. We who claim Christ and who believe the Church cannot fully reflect him until it loves all people well, need to say such things loudly and clearly in these moments.  A generation needs and deserves to hear that they are equally loved and valued, not after a lifetime of unnecessary heartache, but to prevent one.

Martin Luther King Jr. was right, the arc of history does bend toward justice, and right now we’re in the middle of such grand, undeniable movement; in Supreme Court decisions and denominational shifts, in local congregations and high-profile spiritual leaders. Most importantly, this beautiful revolution is happening in the very hearts of millions of Christian people who desire a Church that better represents them. If this includes your heart, may this conviction move from there to reach your voice and hands as well.

To those whose eyes are fully open to what God is doing in the world, we can see that day just off in the distance.

We’re surely heading toward a time when all people regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation can worship unfettered and without restriction; where LGBTQ Christians are simply welcomed and celebrated in their communities of faith. While to some, this kind of radical hospitality feels unprecedented and seems radical, Jesus showed us this way two thousand years ago. His ministry was expectation-destroying and scandalous, and startling in its openness to all people and its refusal to cater to the elite, powerful insiders. It sanctioned none of the moral gatekeeping and bullying and segregating and barrier-building that has marked so much of Christianity’s recent history.

The Church then, needs not so much to move forward by abandoning tradition, as it needs to look back and recover the heart of the Christ which is the tradition; one we’ve discarded for decades, in favor of a manufactured culture war over sexuality and sky-is-falling hyperbole over LGBTQ inclusion in the Church. It has been a costly, wasteful, violent diversion from Jesus’ vision for the world, and Christians’ place in it as physical manifestations of his compassion and goodness and mercy.

We need to claim ownership of this, apologize for it, and repent of it—and the reasons are quite simple:

We’re wasting time. Generations of people are being born and living in deep and urgent need of all sorts, and we’re allowing the Church to be largely consumed by a battle that doesn’t rid the world of the smallest bit of hunger or poverty or injustice or war or hatred or greed or suffering, but only promotes division and perpetuates damage to people who are seeking to willingly come alongside the Church (or to live peaceably away from it).

We’re obscuring the message. People outside of the faith (and many within it) are weary of our seeming preoccupation with people’s bedrooms and body parts, and realize just how inconsequential it all is in view of the massive adversity we face in this life, the greater needs of our shared humanity, and the priceless opportunities we have to build something beautiful together. The Church’s focus on issues of sexuality has simply caused us to lose the plot.

I realize there are many people of deep faith reading this, and you still hold an orthodox understanding of sexuality. You are still carrying the teaching you have grown up immersed in and you see the idea of apology to the gay community as a willful rebellion against God. I can only tell you that I wish for greater things for you. I pray that you one day see what so many of us are seeing as we too seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus; that we have really missed the mark and squandered precious time and lives in the process.

And to you who do see, I say again, be loud. Speak the words you feel compelled to speak, because I assure you there are people all around you in your faith communities and homes and workplaces who feel exactly what you feel and who are waiting on someone else to say it first. So say it.

Once communities evolve to embrace greater civil rights for all people and become more inclusive, they rarely go backwards unless overcome by some irrational prejudice or fear. We as the Church are not moving toward a place of less affirmation of the LGBTQ community, but a place where this will eventually be a non-issue; where the gifts and inherent value of all people are the given that we move forward in.

Until that day, in these moments may we as the Church learn from our history regarding the treatment of people of color and of women, and may we be prophetic enough to see where we are headed and act now with boldness and Grace. For the LGBTQ people and those who love them who share this very time and space and breath with us, let our learning (and our apology) not come posthumously. 

There is great living to be done together.

Make the jump here to read the original article and more

Via PAPO RETO / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day 04/11/2015

“Quando você se torna 100% responsável por tudo o que acontece na sua vida, você erradica do seu sistema um dos mais profundos vícios: o vitimismo. E Um dos principais produtos da ideia da vítima é a ingratidão. Estando tomado por ela, você não consegue enxergar as oportunidades que a vida oferece; tudo é visto pelo lado negativo e se torna motivo para reclamação. A vítima é incapaz de agradecer. E é da ingratidão que nascem os pactos de vingança e os jogos de acusação. Essa é uma das raízes da guerra.”

“Cuando te vuelves 100% responsable por todo lo que sucede en tu vida, erradicas de tu sistema uno de los vicios más profundos: el victimismo. Y uno de los principales productos de la idea de la víctima es la ingratitud. Al estar tomado por ella, no puedes ver realmente las oportunidades que la vida ofrece; todo es visto por el lado negativo y se convierte en motivo de reclamo. La víctima es incapaz de agradecer. Y es de la ingratitud que nacen los pactos de venganza y los juegos de acusación. Esta es una de las raíces de la guerra.”

“When we become 100% responsible for everything that happens in our lives, we eradicate one of the deepest vicesfrom our systems: victimhood. A leading consequence of the idea of victimhood is ingratitude. When we are taken over by the victim, we are unable to see all the opportunities life has to offer. Everything is looked atpessimistically and in turn becomes a reason to complain. The victim is incapable of having gratitude, and this lack of gratitude gives birth to pacts of revenge and games of accusation. This is one of the root causes of warfare.”

Satsang completo no link a seguir:
http://www.sriprembaba.org/pt-br/satsang/120914

Via FB:

Via Michelangelo Signorile/ Huffington: How Houston Was Lost: Prop 8 Redux as LGBT Rights Are Put on the Ballot

Political strategists warned LGBT activists in the days ahead of the vote: There was little Spanish-language outreach, no big ad buy in Spanish-language media -- in a city that is 44% Hispanic -- countering the lies of the opposition, who'd certainly been doing their own outreach. Monica Roberts, a long-time African-American transgender activist, warned of little outreach in the black community, which makes up 24% of the city. There was little emphasis by the LGBT rights coalition on the terrible economic impact that a "no" vote to equality would have on the city -- something else that political strategists warned was lacking in their campaign as well. And no ads by LGBT rights proponents held the equal punch that the nasty hate ads embodied. Instead, they overwhelmingly ran nicey-nice ads about good neighbors and equality and human dignity. 

And so, it wasn't a shock, really, that the vote wasn't even close last night. LGBT rights were clobbered, hammered, devastated in the city of Houston by voters, as the Houston Equal Right Ordinance (HERO) was repealed. 

Make no mistake, though HERO protected 15 classes of people against discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations -- groups from African-Americans and women to veterans and disabled people -- the ordinance was always cast as a gay rights measure. That's because it included LGBT people and was spearheaded by Mayor Annise Parker, a lesbian who signed it into law in 2014, and anti-gay opponents, who've always demonized Parker in ugly ways, latched on to that. And in recent months those opponents recast HERO specifically as "The Bathroom Ordinance," via television ads, narrowly focusing on transgender equality and the right of transgender women to use a public rest room, but preying on public fears and misinformation.

That recasting -- that control of the message on a budget that dwarfed that spent by gay groups -- was so effective that, as so many in Houston and outside reporters have told us, many average people interviewed on the street thought the ordinance was all about allowing "men" to use women's rest rooms.

LGBT activists argued until they were blue in the face that every other major city in Texas had such a broad ordinance, as did 200 other large cities across America -- and Houston is the fourth largest city in the U.S. -- but that argument held no weight against the lies of the "bathroom" ads. The opposition ran a hideous but enormously effective attack campaign warning people that their daughters would be molested by men dressing as women in public rest rooms. 

LGBT rights groups were led later in the campaign by the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, whose president, Chad Griffin, told Dominic Holden of Buzzfeed that this was the group's biggest foray into a local ordinance, with 34 staffers on the ground. The coalition HRC led, Houston Unites, which also included the ACLU of Texas, with all of its money and star power, never effectively hit back against the lies with a powerful, biting rejoinder exposing the haters. They didn't even respond in a clear way to the bathroom lie itself, running only one ad to counter it.

The first problem of course -- and some in the coalition, on the defensive, are relying on this as their post-loss spin -- is that equal rights should not be on the ballot. That was something forced by the Texas Supreme Court-- all elected right-wing Republicans -- after opponents of HERO took it to court when they didn't get enough signatures to get it on the ballot. It was a horrifying example of judicial fascism, like something out of Iran.

That said, similar efforts to repeal ordinances, both state and local, can be put on the ballot in many other places in even easier ways. LGBT activists have been successful -- or perhaps lucky -- in a few recent attempts in the past. But the Houston win by anti-LGBT forces puts the wind at their sails. 

They will take these ads -- including the one depicting a man following a little girl into a bathroom stall -- on the road, and maybe even try to use them in a push at a federal law, just in time to use it to drive religious conservatives to the polls in a presidential election year. The so-called First Amendment Defense Act was introduced in Congress this year by Republicans specifically to allow for religious exemptions to LGBT rights, and you better believe Republicans in Congress and around country are looking at the effectiveness of the Houston anti-LGBT campaign. 

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in fact heralded the Houston vote as a win for religious freedom: ""Houstonians' religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the right to petition their government have won the day, but much more work remains to be done to safeguard these freedoms across the nation."

So, we had better break out of victory blindness -- that hazy, heady whirl people are experiencing after one man on the Supreme Court sided with us (while he sides with the right on issues of equality for other groups), making us believe we've arrived when in fact we're still hated by enough people for this to happen. We've got to stop making the same mistakes over and over again. What happened last night is reminiscent of the battle over Proposition 8 in California. 

The anti-gay side focused on harm to children, activating irrational fear deep inside people's brains regarding homosexuals. There was no counterpunch, as in Houston, where ads did not powerfully take on the hate mongers. And there was no outreach to specific communities of color that the opponents were hitting with distorted hate messages.

So Houston was very much Prop 8 redux. LGBT rights activists spent 3 million to 4 million dollars -- while opponents spent about a million dollars -- bringing in people like Sally Field to make appeals, and using other Hollywood celebrities in ads. They got President Obama and Hillary Clinton to speak out, and thought that was going to clinch it. It had the feel to many of a top-down, elite campaign -- outsiders swooping in to tell Houston what is good for it -- instead of being deeply embedded on the ground, in the communities that were voting, including in their media, where the opposition surely was doing their dirty work. There's only so much Sally Field can do, though we all love her and thank her for the help. Right now we need new leadership, and a better plan, or we're doomed to see this again.

Follow Michelangelo Signorile on Twitter: www.twitter.com/msignorile

More:

LGBT VOICES LGBT VOICES Politics Houston Annise Parker Heroes Houston Equal Rights Ordinance Civil Rights Hrc Civil Rights Marriage Equality Media Michelangelo Signorile

Today's Daily Dharma: Power of Conviction

Power of Conviction

You have to work at your sense of conviction. ... Like someone lost in the forest, if you're not really convinced that there's a way out, you give up very easily. You run into a thicket here, a steep cliff there, and it just seems way too much. But if you're convinced there's got to be a way out, you've heard of other people who've made their way out, you think, "It's got to be in here someplace." You keep looking, looking, looking. And finally you see how the other people made their way out: "Oh. That was the path they took."

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "Power of Conviction"

Read More

Evangelicalism, You Have Traumatized Me.

 

The past couple of weeks, I've been having many difficult emotions coming to the surface. They have been repressed for years, only surfacing at times. I did not know where they were coming from and in the past, the only way I would deal with them was through drinking, so that I could temporarily escape them. I have been angry. I have been having a hard time sleeping. I have indigestion. I have a lot on my mind. I have much to say, but I don't know quite how to say it, but I will try anyway. Please listen to me, even if it is hard to hear, even if you want to turn away, because maybe it will save you before it is too late. So here it goes:

Evangelicalism, you have traumatized me.

I grew up in your faith and culture. You appeared to represent God the best. You spoke about God's unconditional love for us. You claimed that you did so many good things in our world. Your gospel promised to give us eternal life, and make things all shiny and new, little by little. You would improve families and communities. Churches would grow, producing beautiful praise and worship songs. Your children would be safe, saying the sinner's prayer at VBS and rededicating themselves at Bible camp every summer. But, what did your gospel look like for me?

I grew up in your Church as a gay child. What was preached to me from your pulpit? You told me that I was an abomination, a wicked and deviant homosexual. No, you did not know that you were speaking to me, but I heard you loud and clear. Yes, you did offer me a solution to be acceptable to God, but what did that solution look like? It looked like this: I could invite Jesus into my life (this was the easy part) and I could turn from my sins. As a gay person, that meant that I could in no way identify with being gay. Sure, I could admit to "same sex attraction" as a struggle, with tears, but I could not claim that as part of my identity. You told me that I would have to either force myself into marrying the opposite sex, after much counseling (which has never been proven to work) if I wanted to find companionship. If I did not want that option, then I was to remain companionless for the rest of my life. This was my cross to bear.

​When you gave me my cross to bear, you did it so nonchalantly- "This is your thorn in your flesh. We all have our own struggles with sin. You can do this. God will be there for you and so will we. We will be by your side, fulfilling your need for companionship. Now, cheer up and put a smile on your face and go on and serve the Lord with joy and gladness!" So while the rest of those in your Church had the hope of finding love, forming a family, and finding a lifetime of companionship, we did not have that hope. In fact, those desires in themselves were evil for us, if not imagined with the opposite sex.

So with that, you stripped away our hope for a future. Sure, many of us did it for a season, just as many of your straight members will remain single for a season. But, as spring turned to summer, and summer turned to fall, and the last of the leaves had fallen, what we were left with was a chilly isolation. You see, college friends are great! They have free time to hang out, partially filling that need for companionship. But, as our friends start to marry and have families of their own, they didn't have as much time for us. And that's ok. That's normal. They should be spending time with their families. But, what happens to us? What happens to us as we grow sick and old? Who will stay beside us, day after day, hour after hour, sleepless night after sleepless night as we lay in our sickbed, and eventually our deathbed? Who will hold our hand, kiss our face, sing to us, share sweet memories with us, and calm our fears? Will you do that?

Evangelicalism, you have traumatized us.

You see, when a tragic disease hit our community, you did not lift a finger. That is what you do, you tie up heavy burdens, but you will not lift a damn finger to help. Instead, you would swiftly lift up your finger with ease to point and judge. This is what you said, "God is judging them, and they have received within themselves their due penalty for their sin." You would also wield your power to lobby and to keep the government from helping us, when we needed it the most, leaving our sick, hurting, and dying community to fend for itself. Where were you during this time to show the love and mercy of God to our community? You were to busy being righteous, I guess. You did not want to be made unclean by us. And so, many of us would die, separated from Church and family.

Evangelicalism, sadly it becomes much worse. You would drive us to depression- driven by shame, to addiction- driven by hopelessness, to depression, driven to suicide- by despair. You ignored the transgender community as well, as around 41% of them would attempt suicide, trying to escape the pain of a strict binary that didn't fit their reality. You told them that they were confused and a threat to your Church and society. You told them that God and the Church could in no way accept them unless they fit a mold that you had formed for them, while ignoring the pain and trauma that your brothers and sisters must endure to force themselves to comply with that mold. Your queer children would be kicked out of their homes and bullied at school. Still you weren't there. You were too busy singing beautiful, empty songs of lip service to your god.

Evangelicalism, you have traumatized all of us.

You have given us a Janus-faced god- a god of love, and a god of endless wrath. If we get him right and if we say the right prayer, and if we repent enough, he will clothe our wretched selves with his own righteousness so that he can stand to look upon us. But if we don't get it right, it will be eternal wrath, with fire and brimstone, where we will suffer and scream out in terror for all eternity with no relief. ISIS would be more gentle and merciful than your god. You would use fear to convert your kids to this god who loves them so much, if they will just let him in. You would also give us a purity culture, where your girls were only valuable if they made it up to the altar as pure, spotless brides (even better if they saved their first kiss for that altar). Your women would feel like worthless rags with one slip-up, while your men would be excused and easily forgiven. You would forever make us wonder if we were ever worthy enough. You would tell us that Christ is our righteousness, but boy, we had better be doing our part. We would always wonder if God really loved us, even while we told the world that God really loved them.

Evangelicalism, you have made your people defend a book, but not the marginalized in front of them. You have blinded them with your judgements. You have made them so hungry for power, that they want nothing to do with the powerless. You have turned them into the oppressors. You have made it all about the next life, while ignoring this one. Your people pray, sing, maintain their holiness, but what they don't see is that this is turning them into white-washed tombs. They don't realize that righteousness is justice. Holiness is defending the powerless and taking care of the least of these. You have made it all about themselves.

You still have some honest, good people within your religion, but you must release them from your bondage. You must give them the freedom to be messy, to question, to love, to do justice, to give mercy, to be kind and gentle. You must step aside and let them see Jesus, and to be Jesus.

Evangelicalism, you have traumatized us enough. Maybe you are the one who is traumatized. It is time to examine your fruit. It is time to heal, so that you may bring healing.


"By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them."
-Matthew 7:16-20, NIV

 
"Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
-Romans 13:10, NIV

 
"Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
-Matthew 22:37-40, NIV

 

Make the jump here to read the original and other worthy articles

Gay Activist Jimmy LaSalvia: "Why I Left the GOP (And You Should Too)"

Via Mentors Channel / FB: