Revoked

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Today's Daily Dharma: Energized by Wonder

Energized by Wonder

We need to be able to utilize the positive energy of wondering, of wanting to know the truth for ourselves and working to do that, and not get lost in cynicism or endless speculation.

—Sharon Salzberg, "Sitting on the Fence"

Via JMG: FLORIDA: Gay Festivus Pole Approved

It will be a very gay Festivus at the Florida Capitol Building this year:

The Florida Department of Management Services on Thursday approved an application by Deerfield Beach political blogger Chaz Stevens to set up the display to honor the Festivus “holiday,” agency spokeswoman Natalee Singleton said. Stevens’ application for his 2015 “Rainbow gay edition” display — a 6-foot-6-inch pole built of empty beer cans and topped with a disco ball — allows him to put up the pole on Dec. 21 and for it to remain in the Capitol’s first-floor rotunda through Dec. 28. The only other end-of-year display approved for the Capitol is a menorah by the Chabad Lubavitch of the Panhandle-Tallahassee. The menorah is already in place.

A similar request has been filed in Arkansas. “And now…the Airing Of Grievances….”

Make the jump here to read the original and much more on JMG

Via LGBTq Nation: Zachary Quinto shows how LGBTQ discrimination weakens our society

Zachary Quinto

Today is Human Rights Day, and to make the occasion, the United Nation’s Free & Equal campaign worked with actor Zachary Quinto to spread awareness about the real price of LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace.

A new video narrated by Quinto demonstrates the tremendous toll discrimination takes on society when LGBTQ people don’t receive adequate protections — both at work and in their private lives.
According to the vid, almost two thirds of LGBTQ youth are bullied. A third of them decide to quit school because of it.

Gay and lesbian teens are four times more likely to consider suicide than straight teenagers.
Trans teenagers are more than ten times more like to attempt killing themselves.

According to Charles Radcliffe, Head of Global Issues at the UN Human Rights Office, and campaign direction of UN Free & Equal:

“In study after study, rates of poverty, homelessness, depression & suicide are found to be far higher in the LGBT community than among the general population.
“But it’s not only LGBT people who pay the price; we all do. Every trans kid thrown out of home or forced out of school is a loss for society.
“Every gay or lesbian worker denied work or driven to emigrate is a lost opportunity to build a more productive economy.
“Everyone who still thinks the effects LGBTI discrimination has on the economy are small and marginal should think again.”

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 11/12/2015

“Existem momentos da jornada evolutiva nos quais acreditamos estar nos movendo em direção a realidade espiritual, mas estamos presos, estagnados em algum ponto. Mas como saber se, de fato, estamos nos movendo e não nos enganando? Muito simples - olhando para os nossos relacionamentos. Observando se estamos conseguindo manter o coração aberto para o outro; se estamos conseguindo ir além do jogo de acusações; se estamos conseguindo ver a luz que está por trás da sombra do outro e se já estamos podendo escolher desviar dos buracos que até então havíamos caído.”

“Existen momentos en el camino evolutivo en los cuales creemos estar moviéndonos en dirección a la realidad espiritual, pero estamos presos, estancados en algún punto. ¿Pero cómo saber si, de hecho, estamos moviéndonos y no nos estamos engañando? Muy simple, mirando nuestras relaciones. Observando si estamos pudiendo mantener el corazón abierto al otro, si estamos pudiendo ir más allá del juego de acusaciones, si estamos pudiendo ver la luz que está por detrás de la sombra del otro y si ya estamos pudiendo elegir desviarnos de los pozos que hasta ahora veníamos cayendo”

"There are moments in the evolutionary journey where we believe that we’re moving towards spiritual reality but, in fact, we are stuck on some point. How can we know if we are truly moving towards this reality and are not fooling ourselves? Quite simply, by looking at our relationships. We do so by observing whether we are managing to keep an open heart to one another and being able to go beyond the blame game. If we are able to see the light behind the other’s shadow and consciously choose to deviate from the holes that we had previously fallen into, then we are indeed evolving."

Today's Daily Dharma: Not Someone Else's Path

Not Someone Else's Path

It is essential at the beginning of practice to acknowledge that the path is personal and intimate. It is no good to examine it from a distance as if it were someone else’s. You must walk it for yourself.

—Robert Aitken Roshi, "The Teacher in Everything"

Via Spirit Rock Meditation Center / FB:

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 10/12/2015

PRABHU AP JAGO
PARMATMA JAGO
MERE SARVE JAGO
SARVATRA JAGO

“Essas palavras em sânscrito têm um tremendo poder. Um poder que dificilmente poderemos descrever utilizando as palavras. Mas eu gostaria que você não acreditasse nisso que estou dizendo - eu gostaria que você se permitisse experienciar isso que eu estou dizendo. Eu lhe convido a viver essa aventura de cantar essas palavras para que possa constatar por si mesmo o poder que elas têm.”

“Estas palabras en sánscrito tienen un tremendo poder. Un poder que difícilmente podremos describir utilizando las palabras. Pero me gustaría que no creas en esto que estoy diciendo, me gustaría que te permitas experimentar esto que estoy diciendo. Te invito a vivir esta aventura de cantar estas palabras para que puedas constatar por ti mismo el poder que ellas tienen.”

"These Sanskrit words have a tremendous power; a power that is almost indescribable. But, I don’t wish for you to believe in what I am saying – I wish that you would allow yourself to experience what I am saying. I invite you to live this adventure of singing these words so that you can see for yourself the power they hold."

Today's Daily Dharma: The Task Is Ours

The Task Is Ours

Now is the time to free ourselves from samsara. Unless we do it in this lifetime, it is not going to happen all by itself. We have to take care of ourselves.

—Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche,
"Taking Your Future into Your Own Hands"

The fight for LGBT equality is not over | Hillary Clinton

Via Sri Prem Baba: Flor do dia - Flor del día - Flower of the day - 09/12/2015

“Almas que têm um certo grau de consciência desperta, antes de encarnar, podem escolher onde irão nascer e quem serão seus aliados e protetores durante sua jornada. Elas também têm a chance de escolher os desafios que irão enfrentar. Isso ocorre porque a alma sabe que, nesse plano, a chance de adormecer é muito grande. Então ela também escolhe as dificuldades que a ajudarão a acordar quando a consciência estiver prestes a adormecer.”

“Las almas que tienen un cierto grado de consciencia despierta, antes de encarnar, pueden elegir dónde irán a nacer y quienes serán sus aliados y protectores durante su camino. También tienen la oportunidad de elegir los desafíos que irán a enfrentar. Esto ocurre porque el alma sabe que en este plano, la oportunidad de adormecerse es muy grande. Entonces también elige las dificultades que la ayudarán a despertar cuando la consciencia esté por adormecerse”

"Before incarnating on Earth, the souls that have awakened a certain degree of consciousness can choose where they will be born and who will be their allies and guardians during their journey. They also have the opportunity to choose which challenges they will face. This happens because the soul knows that, in this realm, humans fall asleep all too easily. The soul actually chooses certain difficulties that will help it wake up when its consciousness is about to fall asleep."

Today's Daily Dharma: Groundless and Open

Groundless and Open

If we want to know what enlightenment is like, what awakening is like, we can practice the mind of non-clinging, non-fixation, nonattachment to anything at all. It's the mind of open groundlessness.

—Joseph Goldstein, "One Dharma"

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Today's Daily Dharma: The Enlightened State

The Enlightened State

For me the enlightened state is the realization of the oneness of life. And the proof is in the pudding: Are you functioning that way? Are you helping others?

—Bernie Glassman, "Working in the Cracks"

Via JMG: NETHERLANDS: Gay Refugees Moved To Separate Housing After Attacks By Fellow Refugees

December 7, 2015 LGBT News

Dutch News reports:

Five gay asylum seekers in Amsterdam have been moved to a new location after they were spat on and attacked by other people in their refugee centre, the Parool says on Friday. The five – three from Syria, one from Iran and one from Iraq – have been moved to a house owned by housing corporation Rochdale. Junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff said earlier he did not support separate accommodation for gay refugees because it was ‘stigmatising’. A spokesman for the Salvation Army, which is in charge of refugee accommodation in the capital, said the men’s safety could not be guaranteed in their former housing. ‘They often don’t dare to leave their rooms,’ Philip Tijsma from gay rights lobby group COC told the Parool.

When Canada announced that it would accept gay Syrian refugees but not other “solo males,” activists worried that gay men who identify themselves in order to be eligible could face attacks in European refugee centers during the lengthy evaluation period. Unrelated to that, we must give credit to the Salvation Army for working to protect these gay refugees in the Netherlands.

Read the original here and more on JMG

Via Towleroad: Marco Rubio: I’ll Reverse LGBT Executive Orders, Appoint Anti-Equality SCOTUS Justices

GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio sat down with David Brody at the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview published Saturday and told Brody that as president he would reverse Obama’s LGBT executive orders that stop religious business owners from discriminating against gays, appoint conservative SCOTUS justices who don’t believe that gays have the right to marry or that women have rights over their own bodies. He also said any transgender rights laws regarding bathroom usage have got to go.

Make the jump here to read the full article / transcript and more

This Animated Short Film Shows Us What It’s Like To Date A Werewolf Boyfriend

Via my buddy RG on FB: Bias

Probably one of the best paragraphs I've come across summarizing the stereotyping and confirmation bias (my pilot friends will know all about the danger of confirmation bias in aviation) surrounding gay men even today. This is what keeps so many in the closet and ruins lives.

"I’ve observed girly ticks in straight men who were otherwise highly masculine. And I’ve met heterosexual men who were quite a bit more effeminate than many homos. Yet these effeminate heteros rarely have their manhood called into question, by sheer virtue of their heterosexuality. All of these men are routinely given the benefit of the doubt—their effeminate behaviors dismissed as mere quirks of character. Admit homosexuality, however, and every momentary lapse in machismo is regarded as a sure sign of a womanly nature.

While the objective reality seems to be that masculinity varies from male to male, almost regardless of sexuality, subjective realities based on public and private perceptions have dramatically influenced what it means to be an adult male who loves men. People assign meaning to sexual desire, including their own, and this meaning plays a role in shaping their personalities and dictates who and what they believe they can be."

- Jack Donovan

Via The Middle Class Will Be Heard / FB:

Via Towleroad / FB: Ted Cruz Promises to Fight Gay Rights in Phone Call With Right Wing Extremists: LISTEN

In a phone call last week with anti-gay right wing extremists, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz vowed he would fight against gay rights.

The call was organized by E.W. Jackson, a failed GOP nominee for the post of Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, and anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera.

peter_0

LaBarbera asked Cruz about “the gay agenda”, specifically what he would do to “reverse and neutralize the Obergefell decision of the Supreme Court”, “end Obama’s policy of actually flying the rainbow flag at U.S. embassies worldwide”, and halt “the Equality Act, which I’m calling the Homosexual Superiority Act, in Congress.”

Cruz first addressed the question about the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, comparing it to the Court’s ruling on abortion in Roe v. Wade, as Right Wing Watch points out:

“It is the decision reminiscent of Roe v. Wade of a handful of unelected judges arrogantly and lawlessly decreeing the authority to fundamentally change our country and to tear down the foundations of the country,” Cruz added.

He also criticized Republicans who decided to “surrender” to the Supreme Court and treat Obergefell as the “settled law of the land.”

“My response to this decision was that it was illegitimate, it was lawless, it was utterly contrary to the Constitution and that we should fight to defend marriage on every front,” he said, before promoting constitutional amendments to overturn the ruling and put justices up for retention elections, along with legislation “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.”

Cruz also said he wants “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.” He added, “we will not use the federal government to enforce this lawless decision that is a usurpation of the authority of we the people in this country.”

On LGBT rights as they pertain to military service, Cruz remarked that he was “just hearing terrible things” about the military being “beset with these new LGBT rules”:

“You look at the military and one of the things we’ve seen is morale in the military under the Obama administration has plummeted, and it has plummeted because you have a commander-in-chief that doesn’t support our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, you have a commander-in-chief that doesn’t stand up against our enemies, that won’t even acknowledge or say the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ and you have a commander-in-chief that treats the military as a cauldron for social experimentation. He’s more interested in promoting homosexuality in the military than he is in defeating our enemy.

For example, the military is now focused on trying to promote transgendered [sic] soldiers. The role of the military is not to be some left-wing social experiment. The reason we have the brave men and women who sign up as service men and women to defend this nation is to stand for our values, to protect our safety and security, to protect innocent men and women and to stand up and defeat our enemies, and I would stop the shameless politicizing of our military to push a left-wing agenda that is contrary to the values and contrary to who we are as an American people and a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values.”

LaBarbera praised Cruz for his anti-gay advocacy, calling him a “real believer” who is “not one of these candidates who is going to say, ‘I believe in traditional marriage but I would attend a gay wedding if it was a friend of mine.’” That being a not-so-thinly veiled reference to Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Read the full article and listen to the phone call