Via JMG: Civil Rights Groups Pay Tribute To Edith Windsor

 

From the ACLU:

Today, we lost one of this country’s great civil rights pioneers, Edie Windsor. The wheels of progress turn forward because of people like Edie who are willing to stand up in the face of injustice. One simply cannot write the history of the gay rights movement without reserving immense credit and gratitude for Edie Windsor. We were proud to stand with Edie when she took her fight on behalf of same-sex couples everywhere to the Supreme Court. We mourn her today, as do all whom she touched in her incredible life. Edie always urged others not to ‘postpone joy.’ So even as we mourn this terrible loss, we also celebrate Edie, who set an example for all of us to follow.

From GLAAD:

Edie Windsor is a legend who changed the course of history for the better. She touched countless lives, and we at GLAAD are deeply saddened by her passing, but her kindness, compassion, and legacy will endure. LGBTQ advocates and organizations are planning a vigil for Edie outside of the Stonewall Inn in New York City tonight.

From PFLAG:

We’ve lost a lesbian national treasure, someone who committed to love and never stopped pushing for change and justice. Edie had such joy for life, and gave our community so much. I hope she felt our love for her, and that we gave back to her in the same way she gave to all of us.

From Lambda Legal:

Our hearts are with Edie’s wife, Judith Kasen-Windosr, their family, friends and all whose lives were changed because Edie so fearlessly stood up for herself and her community. She called for the respect and dignity denied to same-sex spouses, and the Supreme Court heard her plea. Because of Edie, we are a more perfect union. She left an indelible mark on all who knew her story, and all whose love is now recognized and protected because of the victory she helped secure for LGBT people. Thank you Edie. You will be remembered with deep respect and gratitude. We will miss you.

From the Civil And Human Rights Coalition:

Edie Windsor was unafraid to stand up when she knew she was being discriminated against, and ultimately, the Supreme Court agreed. Because of her bravery, the nation saw a significant leap forward for LGBTQ equality. While much work remains, the actions of courageous individuals like Edie have helped move us forward as we work towards a more perfect union. We extend our sympathies to her wife, Judith Kasen-Windsor, and all those who were touched by this amazing woman.

From the Human Rights Campaign:

Edie Windsor is a hero and civil rights icon who pushed our country closer to the promise of a more perfect union,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Future generations will learn how she faced down discrimination with courage and defiance, and boldly challenged the United States government to treat her marriage to Thea Spyer equally under the law — as our Constitution guarantees. After Edie Windsor succeeded in defeating the Defense of Marriage Act, she continued to push forward, galvanizing the support of hundreds of thousands of Americans in support of the Obergefell case before the United States Supreme Court in 2015. We join millions across the nation in mourning the loss of Edie Windsor, and share our deepest condolences with her wife, Judith Kasen-Windsor.

Make the jump here to read the original and more 

Via ADAM & ANDY / 08/21/17

Via Daily Dharma: Paying the Bills, Ethically

If we are embarking on a spiritual path, we need to live our lives ethically, and this means ensuring that we do as little harm as possible to anyone or anything while we’re earning our daily bread.

—Krishnan Venkatesh, “Why Right Livelihood Isn't Just About Your Day Job”

Via Daily Dharma: The Treasure of Hope

When we possess the treasure of hope, we can draw forth our inner potential and strength. A person of hope can always advance.

—Daisaku Ikeda, “On Hardship & Hope”

Via Ram Dass

The object of our love is love itself. It is the inner light in everyone and everything.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: Dealing with Delusion

Acknowledging our delusion is a very important step, but just to leave it at that will not suffice. There’s no greater foolishness than to spend one’s lifetime acknowledging that one is deluded and yet doing nothing whatsoever about it.

—Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, “Renunciation”

Via Daily Dharma: Trading Candy for Gold

In trading the pleasures of an ordinary life for a meditative life, you’re trading candy for gold.

—Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Skillful Shelter”

Via Daily Dharma: Use Boredom to Your Advantage

Boredom is like having to deal with fear, anger, or indeed craving, or any other negative mental state. It is an opportunity to experience the energy that is usually drained away by distractions.

—Sangharakshita, “Staying with Boredom”

Via Daily Dharma: Be Yourself—It's Your Only Option

The only thing you really ever have to offer another person is your own state of being.

—Ram Dass, “Tuning”

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - September 6, 2017

Do what you can on this plane to relieve suffering by constantly working on yourself to be an instrument for the cessation of suffering.

To me, that's what the emerging game is all about.

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: How Meditation Helps You Let Go

By creating a sense of background support through the calming and stilling of the mind, meditation makes possible the compassionate conditions that allow clinging to be released.

—Mark Epstein, “What Changes?”

Time for a Metta // Tempo para um Metta

I’d like you to be safe

I’d like you to be healthy

I’d like you to be happy

I’d like you to be at ease in the world

Eu gostaria que você estivesse seguro

Eu gostaria que você estivesse saudável

Eu gostaria que você estivesse feliz

Eu gostaria que você estivesse à vontade no mundo

Via Rick Heller / Secular Meditation

Via FB

Via Daily Dharma: On the Impermanence of Desire

As a simple experiment, the next time you have some wanting or desire in the mind, investigate what the wanting feels like and then notice how it feels when the wanting passes away. Given the great law of impermanence, it always will.

—Joseph Goldstein, “The End of Suffering”

Via Daily Dharma: Karma: The Best Investment

Don’t worry so much about social security. Finance your karmic security instead.

—Andrew Holecek, “The Supreme Contemplation”

Via Patheos/ Queers: Our Worth is Independent of Theology

This week a conservative evangelical Christian group released the “Nashville Statement,” a transparently homophobic and transphobic screed designed to give theological cover to those who wish to discriminate and hate in the name of God. Its 14 Articles are a sustained assault on the dignity of LGBTQIA+ people, each one an ethical monstrosity elevating some people’s interpretation of scripture over other people’s right to live as they wish.

The articles include the following:

WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship.

WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.

WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

WE DENY that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.

WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

And it continues.

In response, various more liberal Christian groups and individuals have released counter statements. I enjoyed the one by fellow Patheos blogger Nadia Bolz-Weber (the Denver Statement) which, while offering a more affirming view of LGBTQIA+ persons, also questions whether God has arms.

I am, of course, heartened that some Christians have the heart to see through the Nashville Statement’s hateful nonsense. Honestly, though, these Christian counter-statements miss the most important point: we must never ground human dignity in any text or teaching, any scripture or sacrament. We must not look to the Bible, or the teachings of Jesus, or any other external source in order to “justify” the worth and dignity of human beings. Doing so will always jeopardize the most marginalized people, because we human beings cannot help but interpret texts and teachings in ways inflected by the prejudices of our current culture. Once we locate the source of people’s dignity outside people – LGBTQIA+ people are worthy of respect because it says so here in my book – it is only a matter of time before someone finds a way to reinterpret that source in such a way that it does not grant some people dignity.

This is a fundamental and inescapable problem with moral systems which look to privileged texts to tell us what is right or wrong: they are only as secure as a given interpretation of the text. And when you’re dealing with the Bible – a text with an inescapable homophobic history and, at best, defensible homophobic interpretations – it’s crystal clear that there is no secure basis for the dignity of LGBTQIA+ people to be found there.

We need to take a Humanistic turn, as a culture. We need to state, quite simply, that respect for the dignity of persons is a bedrock ethical principle, grounded in the very nature of people themselves, requiring no external justification. In response to abominations like the Nashville Statement we must not say “We have a better interpretation of scripture than yours,” or “We understand God better than you do” (responses which make human dignity a matter of interpretation), but “No God or scripture can undermine the inherent dignity of a human person.”

The Nashville Statement is not only wicked, but it is irrelevant: that is the most important point.
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Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/templeofthefuture/2017/09/queers-worth-independent-theology/#j6JWmPWrxuggHP3i.01

 

Via Ram Dass / Words of Wisdom - September 3, 2017

The transformative process is our job, so that we are not ruled by fear but by love.  

- Ram Dass -

Via Daily Dharma: You Are Your Own Best Proof

For practicing Buddhists, why would you need third-person proof to show that your own practice is helping you? In the end, when it comes to spiritual practice, you are your own best proof.

—Thupten Jinpa Langri, “Under One Umbrella”

Via FB