Via JMG and CBS / West Virginia County To Pay Settlement And Apologize After Deputy Clerk Called Gay Couple An “Abomination”

GILMER COUNTY, W.Va. (WDTV) -- A settlement has been announced in a federal lawsuit against Gilmer County.

The case Brookover v. Gilmer County was a result of alleged harassment received by a same-sex couple when going to get their marriage license. 

According to a news release by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Gilmer County Deputy Clerk Debbie Allen called Amanda Abramovich and Samantha Brookover an “abomination” to God and stated their marriage shouldn’t be legal. 

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the women by Mayer Brown LLP, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Fairness West Virginia, naming Allen, Gilmer County Clerk Jean Butcher and Gilmer County as the defendants. Americans United stated the defendants violated the U.S. Constitution by “treating same-sex couple differently from others in the name of religion.”

The settlement includes Gilmer County apologizing to Abramovich and Brookover and paying damages to them. It also includes the county issuing a public statement regarding the wrongdoing of the County Clerk’s office. The county has also promised to take steps to ensure their employees do not discriminate against anyone again. 

In a statement, Abramovich and Brookover said, ““When we went to get our marriage license, this was the last thing we expected. We were presented with two options: accept this treatment and leave the possibility that other couples would have to endure this as well, or speak up for ourselves and hopefully stop it from continuing.”

“Consenting adults should never be made to feel embarrassed or ashamed when marrying the person they love,” they added. “It will be a comfort to know that this behavior will no longer be allowed in the Gilmer County Courthouse.”

“Religious freedom is a fundamental American value, and finding someone to love and to marry is a fundamental part of the American dream for many. One should not come at the expense of the other,” said Richard B. Katskee, legal director of Americans United “Religious freedom gives us all the right to believe, or not, as we see fit, but it does not give anyone the right to harm others.”

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Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 30, 2017

My work around the issue of aging is to quiet the mind — it’s standing back enough so that I am not so caught in the culture and the set of attitudes I developed from my childhood, and so on—that I can see what is and respond in a way that is in harmony with that, to become a part of it. Which is the way a bird sings or a river flows or a baby cries.

-  Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Practicing Prayer

Your prayers are answered without your having to think about them. They are answered through the practice of prayer itself.

—Ken McLeod, “Prayer Without Blind Faith”

Via The independent / Chile legalises gay marriage and allows LGBT couples to adopt as historic new bill signed

Chile legalises gay marriage and allows LGBT couples to adopt as historic new bill signed

'We can’t let old prejudices be stronger than love,' President Michelle Bachelet says

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has introduced a bill to legalise gay marriage, the latest in a series of recent reforms in a country long regarded as one of Latin America’s most socially conservative.

Bachelet signed the proposal, which will be sent to lawmakers, at a ceremony in the presidential palace. She said the measure seeks to expand the definition of marriage between a man and a woman and would also expand rights for gay couples, allowing them to adopt children.

“We can’t let old prejudices be stronger than love,” Bachelet said.

Chile approved civil unions for same-sex couples in 2015 and decriminalised gay sex in 1999. The bill comes a week after Chile’s Constitutional Court upheld a measure that would end the country’s absolute ban on abortions.

Civil unions have been recognised in several South American countries, though only Argentina and Uruguay have codified same-sex marriage. Gay marriage has also been legalised in Brazil and Colombia under court rulings.

It’s unlikely Bachelet will be able to push the measure through Congress before she ends her term in March 2018. But gay right advocates celebrated the decision as an important step toward full rights.
“It’s the beginning of the end of discrimination based on sexual orientation to access marriage,” said Luis Larrain, founder of the Iguales Foundation.

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Via Daily Dharma: Work from Where You Are

In human life, if you feel that you have made a mistake, you don’t try to undo the past or the present, but you just accept where you are and work from there.

—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, “Your Life Is Your Practice”

Ram Dass Interview with Bhakti Fest 2017

Via Ram Dass

Worry and fear are not tickets on the express train. They are extra baggage. You were going that way anyway.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Putting Practice before Belief

All religions claim to teach noble truths; in a sense, it’s a given in this kind of discourse. What would happen if we stopped using that language? I think it would free us up to give primacy to the practices.

—Stephen Batchelor, “Understand, Realize, Give Up, Develop”

Via FB / From his deep studies of Gandhi and his own experience, Martin Luther King Jr. developed a list of six facts to help people understand non-violent resistance

"From his deep studies of Gandhi and his own experience, Martin Luther King Jr. developed a list of six facts to help people understand non-violent resistance and join with him in his vision.
King’s words are as insightful and thought provoking today as they were when he wrote them:

1. Non-violent resistance is not for cowards. It is not a quiet, passive acceptance of evil. One is passive and non-violent physically, but very active spiritually, always seeking ways to persuade the opponent of advantages to the way of love, cooperation, and peace.

2. The goal is not to defeat or humiliate the opponent but rather to win him or her over to understanding new ways to create cooperation and community.

3. The non-violent resister attacks the forces of evil, not the people who are engaged in injustice. As King said in Montgomery, “We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may be unjust.”
4. The non-violent resister accepts suffering without retaliating; accepts violence, but never commits it. Gandhi said, “Rivers of blood may have to flow before we gain our freedom, but it must be our blood.” Gandhi and King both understood that suffering by activists had the mysterious power of converting opponents who would otherwise refuse to listen.

5. In non-violent resistance, one learns to avoid physical violence toward others and also learns to love the opponents with “agape” or unconditional love–which is love given not for what one will receive in return, but for the sake of love alone. It is God flowing through the human heart. Agape is ahimsa. “Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate,” said King.

6. Non-violent resistance is based on the belief that the universe is just. There is God or a creative force that is moving us toward universal love and wholeness continually. Therefore, all our work for justice will bear fruit – the fruit of love, peace, and justice for all beings everywhere.”

Indeed...

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - August 27, 2017

You couldn’t possibly be lonely, because where could you go? Do you think if I go in my bathroom and lock the door I can be lonely? I can’t be. It’s always one thought away: The living spirit, the community of our consciousness, that guru inside, is always one thought away.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: A Pinch of Generosity

When you are practicing generosity, you should feel a little pinch when you give something away. That pinch is your stinginess protesting.

—Gelek Rimpoche, “Generosity (and Greed) Introduction”

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Via Daily Dharma: How Self-judgment Can Be Skillful

Joy is what healthy shame and honor are for: to help you see for yourself the well-being that comes from mastering higher levels of skill and harmlessness in your actions.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Why Shame Gets a Bad Rap”

Via Daily Dharma: Willing to Experiment

We do not need to be afraid of our mind. We can go on a journey of discovery and experiment.

—Martine Batchelor, “Meditation, Mental Habits, and Creative Imagination”

Via Daily Dharma: What Can You Give Up?

The spiritual path is about what we give up, not what we get.

—Tim Olmsted, “The Great Experiment”

Via Ram Dass / 25 of 34 Words of Wisdom - August 23, 2017

Since love is a state of being, and a Divine state at that, the state to which we all yearn to return, we wish to possess love. At best we can try to possess the key to our hearts, our Beloved, but sooner or later we find that even that is impossible. To possess the key is to lose it. 

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: The Ultimate All-Inclusive Sangha

Everyone I meet is in my sangha. I don’t know if that’s the proper definition, but that’s the way I’m going to hold it in my mind.

—Jeff Bridges, “The Natural”

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