Via JMG: Big Bird Was Created By Gay Lovers

As Mitt Romney's Big Bird comment continues to draw shots from both sides, the Daily Beast's Michael Daly observes the gay history behind one of television's most beloved characters.

[Christopher] Lyall and [Kermit] Love were partners in work and life for half a century and in the 1980s traveled with Big Bird to the White House for the annual Easter egg roll. The most momentous results of that presidential nexus were the grass stains on Big Bird’s outsize feet. Nobody could have imagined that this puppet might someday play even the smallest role in deciding who would occupy the Oval Office. “We’ll see,” Lyall says. The possible political impact of this 8-foot-2 yellow plumed character takes a turn from the ridiculous to the delightfully apt when you consider this: Big Bird was the product of a profound partnership between two men that was in every way a marriage save for in the strictly legal sense that the law until very recently forbade.

I encourage you to read Daly's full story.

Labels: LGBT History, Sesame Street, television

Reposted from Joe

Via AmericaBlog Gay:

Religious right attacks astronaut Sally Ride for being a lesbian

Dr. Sally Ride, the US’ first woman astronaut.
Alan C. Heison / Shutterstock.com

A lead religious right “research” group has concluded that Dr. Sally Ride’s pancreatic cancer may be due to her being a lesbian.  They deduced this from looking at the obituaries of...

Read the whole entry »

Via JMG: 20% Of Americans Claim "No Religion"

According to Pew Research, the number of Americans who say they have "no religion" in their lives is soaring.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released an analytic study today titled, Nones on the Rise, now that one in five Americans (19.6%) claim no religious identity. This group, called "Nones," is now the nation's second-largest category only to Catholics, and outnumbers the top Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptists. The shift is a significant cultural, religious and even political change. Count former Southern Baptist Chris Dees, 26, in this culture shift. He grew up Baptist in the most religious state in the USA: Mississippi. By the time he went off to college for mechanical engineering, "I just couldn't make sense of it any more," Dees says. Now, he's a leader of the Secular Student Alliance chapter at Mississippi State and calls himself an atheist.

The report also notes that for the first time the number of Protestants is under 50%. (Tipped by JMG reader Mark)

UPDATE: The Center For Inquiry reacts via press release.

“Though the ‘unaffiliated’ are not entirely made up of nonbelievers, the fact that one in five Americans have rejected traditional religion means that the enormous influence religion has had over policy and culture will continue to wane,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. “Furthermore, thanks to the high percentage of ‘nones’ among the younger generations, these numbers tell us that we are closer than ever to realizing a society in which religious dogma has no significant influence on public policy—that is, a society based on reason and science rather than myth and superstition.”

Labels: atheism, Pew Project, religion, surveys

Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: MINNESOTA: Viking Punter Chris Kluwe Fires Back At Archbishop Nienstadt

"Tell me, Archbishop, Pope, what purpose does the Church serve attempting to influence the affairs of a secular state? The federal benefits under law currently denied gay couples certainly fall under the realm of Caesar, don’t they? No one is forcing the Catholic Church to marry gay couples if that is not the Church’s wish. You can keep the sanctity of Catholic marriage solely between heterosexual couples if you feel that is what’s required (again though, I caution you on the dangers of presumed infallibility). All we are asking is for you to extend the open hand of tolerance instead of the closed fist of fear and hate.

"As American citizens, we respect the right for everyone to practice whichever religion they so choose, including the right to not practice one at all. Haven’t we learned enough from the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Talibans of the world? What does it benefit the Church to attempt to influence secular policy in this country, especially when that influence is to deny basic human rights to others? Will you now assume Caesar’s throne, grasping the transitory ephemera of worldly power and control, while forsaking the eternal kingdom of Heaven?" - Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, firing back at Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstadt's advice to reject gay children.

Read Kluwe's full response.

Labels: bigotry, Catholic Church, football, FTW, heroes, Minnesota, religion, sports, straight allies

Reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 9, 2012

Embracing Groundlessness

It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our effort to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness.

- Pema Chödrön, "The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through October 11th, 2012
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Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma October 8, 2012

Ending Your Problems Forever

When you are preoccupied with external, material objects, you blame them and other people for your problems. Projecting that deluded view onto external phenomena makes you miserable. When you begin to realize your wrong-conception view, you begin to realize the nature of your own mind and to put an end to your problems forever.

- Lama Yeshe, "Your Mind is Your Religion"

Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection through October 10th, 2012
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