Maulana Syed Jalaluddin Umri, president of the hardline Indian Islamic group Jamaat-e-Islami Hind said in 2009: “The time has come for all religious leaders to unite on this issue and jointly protest the government’s proposed move to legalise gay rights. A consensus should be evolved for challenging the Delhi High Court order in the Supreme Court.” The case has now been brought and debate began at the Supreme Court yesterday with a petition by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhyaya asked petitioners who had the authority to decide the “order of nature” that gay acts supposedly violate. They asked: “Test-tube babies, surrogate mothers – are they in the order of nature?”RELATED: Anti-sodomy laws were imposed up India over 150 years ago when the British took control. Prior to that no such ban existed.
For 35 years, LGBT residents of Anchorage, Alaska have battled for employment and housing protections. Time after time Christian groups have beaten them back. Last week activists successfully placed a referendum on the November ballot which adds the words "sexual orientation and gender identity" to this long list: "race, color, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, age, physical disability, and mental disability." The result? Outrage, websites, and a vow to defeat LGBT rights yet again.
The National Stonewall Democrats have launched a petition campaign asking the Log Cabin Republicans to refrain from endorsing anti-LGBT candidates this year. Stonewall's executive director Jerame Davis writes: In 2004, Log Cabin Republicans took a principled stand and refused to endorse George W. Bush for his support of a federal marriage amendment alone. These candidates have pledged to go farther than President Bush ever considered. Will Log Cabin Republicans follow its own precedent and refuse to endorse anti-equality politicians? Recent stories in the media suggest they may actually be willing to overlook the anti-LGBT pledges GOP candidates have taken against our community. Sign the petition and tell Log Cabin Republicans they should never endorse anti-LGBT candidates who pledge to deny us equality.RELATED: The other allegedly gay Republican group, GOProud, has already issued a statement declaring that any of the four remaining GOP candidates would make a better president that Obama. GOProud staffers have been photographed brandishing a Romney banner.
It is essential that you cultivate the twin elements of concentration and inquiry in your meditation. Concentration will bring stability, stillness, and spaciousness; inquiry will bring alertness, vividness, brightness, and clarity. Combined, they will help you to develop creative awareness, an ability to bring a meditative mind to all aspects of your daily life. |
Hundreds of people packed a hearing room at the Capitol to plead with lawmakers to give them legal protections traditional couples enjoy. The issue has gained traction as more states have recently passed either civil union or gay marriage laws. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper urged lawmakers to pass civil unions during his State of the State speech last month, and more Republicans have expressed public support for the measure. The bill, passed on a 5-2 vote with one Republican senator joining Democrats, is expected to easily clear the full Senate. The real challenge will be in the Republican-controlled House.One Colorado reacts via press release.
“We applaud today’s vote to ensure that all committed couples have the tools they need to provide for the ones they love. Especially in these difficult economic times, gay and lesbian couples need civil unions to take care of their families. “Today’s testimony reflects the widespread support for this legislation. Business executives and faith leaders, Republicans and Democrats, gay parents and straight allies all realize that passing civil unions is the right thing to do. “With their approval, the Senators on the Judiciary Committee affirmed that all families are worthy of dignity and respect.”
More than 80 percent of Chinese people born after the 1980s hold no discriminatory beliefs regarding homosexuality, according to a survey on marriage perspectives conducted by jiayuan.com, a major Chinese dating website. The survey results, which were published in the Monday edition of the Beijing News, indicate that 83 percent of respondents born between 1980 and 1989, as well as 82 percent of those born after 1990, do not disapprove of homosexuality. The online survey of 85,439 people, most of whom were between the ages of 20 and 50, also revealed that about 15 percent of female respondents would not marry a man who does not own an apartment and a car.As we well know from our own freeping expeditions, online survey can often mean bupkis. What's most interesting here, I think, is the fact that the news was reported on by the Chinese government itself.
Within minutes of Gov. Gregoire's signing of Washington's marriage equality bill, hate groups filed the paperwork to begin collecting petitions to repeal the law. They haven't yet cleared the procedural hurdles to start accepting signatures, but gay activists have already launched their own decline to sign campaign. 
Warren Throckmorton reports that a death penalty for homosexuality has been proposed in the Liberian legislature. Former Liberian first lady Jewel Howard Taylor has introduced a bill making homosexuality liable to a death sentence, amid a raging debate over gay rights in the country, a lawmaker said Wednesday. The bill submitted by former president Charles Taylor’s ex-wife, now a senator, also seeks to amend laws to prohibit gay marriage. “No two persons of the same sex shall have sexual relations.Jewel Howard Taylor's ex-husband, the former president of Liberia, is presently incarcerated in The Hague, where he awaits trial for crimes against humanity. Among the charges is an accusation that Taylor forced his soldiers to cannibalize his enemies. The United Nations has ordered Jewel Howard Taylor banned from traveling outside of Liberia.A violation of this prohibition will be considered a first degree felony,” reads the proposed amendment to marriage laws. First degree punishment can range from 10 years to life imprisonment to the death sentence, on the discretion of the judge. Voluntary sodomy is already a criminal offence in the west African country and can result in up to three years imprisonment.
"Freedom to Marry is proud to have Leader Pelosi joining our call to put the Democratic Party squarely on record in support of the freedom to marry as part of the national platform. A strong majority of Democrats and Independents support the freedom to marry, and standing up for all families is not just the right thing to do morally, it's also right to do politically. I hope more people will quickly join Leader Pelosi by signing Freedom to Marry's Democrats: Say I Do petition so together we can get the party, and the country, where the majority of Americans already are."Chris Geidner got the scoop at Metro Weekly. He notes:
The former House speaker's support for the move comes in response to Freedom to Marry's announcement on Feb. 13 that it was launching a campaign to ask the Democrats, as the group put it, to "Say I Do" to including such a marriage equality plank in the party's platform. The platform, a detailed statement of the party's positions that will be finalized at the Democratic National Convention this September, has never included language in support of the right of same-sex couples to marry. And the leader of the party, President Obama, opposed marriage equality in the 2008 campaign. He said in December 2010 that his position on marriage equality was "evolving" but that he still "struggle[s]" with it. His press secretary, Jay Carney, said this past week of Obama's position, "You know his position, where it stands now, on the issue of same-sex marriage, so I really don't have much to add on that."
"I’m outraged that there are currently major candidates for President of the United States who are using homophobia to rally their base. I’m pissed off at my Republican family back in North Carolina, several of whom came to my wedding, but who went right back and are voting for homophobes and acting like it doesn’t matter. It does matter and it’s time for the queers in this country to start saying so to their families. I think we’ve all cut them too much slack for far too long." - Armistead Maupin, speaking to Britain's Pink News.
Because of the recent furor over the Girl Scouts' inclusive membership policy, an anti-gay alternative called the American Heritage Girls is seeing an explosion in membership.The group started with 100 girls in Ohio, and in recent weeks has surpassed 18,000 members in 45 states and six countries. Nine groups with a total of 357 girls meet in the St. Louis area; there were five local groups at this time last year. They are based at private schools and churches in Jefferson, St. Charles and St. Louis counties. Founder Patti Garibay, who had been a longtime Girl Scout leader for her daughters, wanted a choice. "We are faith-based, and they are secular, and that's a change," she said. "We're not for everybody, but we're obviously for a lot of people." Garibay estimates that 90 percent of Heritage members have left the Girl Scouts. Shanna Stewart, who home-schools her two daughters in Wentzville, found American Heritage Girls after becoming concerned when she learned the Girl Scouts had invited a lesbian to speak at the national level. "They were encouraging girls to embrace whoever they were; it didn't matter what choices they made, as long as they were true to themselves. That was a concern."Like the Boy Scouts, the American Heritage Girls ban atheists and gays from becoming members or leaders.
The key to maintaining your inspiration in the day-to-day work of meditation practice is to approach it as play—a happy opportunity to master practical skills, to raise questions, experiment, and explore. |
