Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma

Tricycle Daily Dharma April 25, 2012

Eliminating Suffering

The practice is to make the non-arising of grasping and clinging absolute, final, and eternally void, so that no grasping and clinging can ever return. Just that is enough. There is nothing else to do.
- Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, "A Single Handful"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

NEVER AGAIN: President Obama Mentions Gay Victims Of The Holocaust ia JMG: NEVER AGAIN: President Obama Mentions Gay Victims Of The Holocaust


In a speech yesterday at Washington's Holocaust Memorial, President Obama mentioned the homosexual victims of the Holocaust alongside a list of other groups targeted by the Nazi Party.
“We must tell our children about a crime unique in human history… The one and only Holocaust — six million innocent people — men, women, children, babies — sent to their deaths just for being different, just for being Jewish. We tell them, our children, about the millions of Poles and Catholics and Roma and gay people and so many others who also must never be forgotten. We must tell our children… But more than that, we must teach them. Because remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture. Awareness without action changes nothing. In this sense, ‘never again’ is a challenge to us all — to pause and to look within.”
The number of gays who perished in the Holocaust is unknown, although as many as 100,000 homosexual men were arrested by the Nazis.


Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: CALIFORNIA: Proposed Bill Outlaws "Ex-Gay" Therapy For Kids Under 18


California state Sen. Ted Lieu (D) has introduced a bill that would outlaw "ex-gay" or so-called reparative therapy for children under the age of 18. Around The Capitol sums up the proposed item:
This bill would prohibit psychotherapists, as defined, from performing sexual orientation change efforts, as defined, in the absence of informed consent of the patient. The bill would require a specified statement to be included on the informed consent form. Informed consent would not be effective for patients under 18 years of age. The bill would provide for a cause of action against psychotherapists by patients, former patients, or certain other persons in specified cases.
Think Progress notes that the bill passed out of its Senate subcommittee yesterday.


Reposted from Joe

How My Priest Helped Me Come Out

Via JMG: Your Gayness Is A Hobby


"Stop using the word gay, because implicit in the notion of a gay identity is the fact that they’re born gay and that it should be a fundamental human right, but fundamental human rights are based on human nature not on capricious desires. If fundamental human rights are based on capricious desires, guess what, we’d have every group on this planet with a different hobby arguing for fundamental rights and benefits based on the fact that they play hockey, based on the fact that they play basketball or surf, or anything that they’re interested in." - Anti-gay activist Ryan Sorba, speaking at Awakening 2012, a convention of hate group leaders.


reposted from Joe

Bia JMG: Babs Turns 70 Today



And here's her first ever charting single, People. The clip below is from her Oscar-winning performance in the 1968 movie version of Funny Girl, but the single reached #5 on the Billboard pop chart when it was first released from the 1964 original Broadway cast recording. Yes kids, Babs had her first hit record 48 years ago.




Reposted from Joe

Monday, April 23, 2012

Tibetan Chant - Heart Sutra

Phoenix LGBT flash mob silences bigoted preachers with "Born This Way"

Via JMG: IOWA: Sioux City Newspaper Devotes Front Page To Stopping Anti-Gay Bullying


JMG reader Alan points us to this AP story:
In a rare and forceful act of advocacy, an Iowa newspaper devoted the entire front page of its Sunday edition to an anti-bullying editorial after a gay teen committed suicide. Relatives have said 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. suffered intense harassment, including threatening cellphone calls and nasty comments posted online, after coming out to family and friends about a month ago. He died April 15 from what the local sheriff's office described only as a "self-inflicted injury." The Sioux City Journal's front-page opinion piece calls on the community to be pro-active in stopping bullying and urges members to learn more about the problem by seeing the acclaimed new film, "Bully," which documents the harassment of a Sioux City middle school student. It notes that while many students are targeted for being gay, "we have learned a bully needs no reason to strike."
Hit the link for the full editorial.


Reposted from Joe

Via JMG: Bright Side: Romney's New Homocon Is Infuriating The Talibangelicals



reposted from Joe

JMG EXPOSED: Secret Christian Facebook Group Plots Web Attacks On Gay Sites



Fellow blogger Alvin McEwen has uncovered a secret Facebook group whose members share tips on how to flag and take down gay blogs, Facebook pages, and YouTube clips that they find contrary to the Christianist cause. According to McEwen, among the group's members are well-known religious leaders and anti-gay activists.
Based upon information I received from an anonymous source, there is a project afoot by members of the religious right to strike at the gay community via sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. This project is conducted by a secret Facebook group called Truth4Time. According to the creator of the group (whose name shall remain anonymous because he is not a public figure), Truth4Time is supposed to be a library of anti-gay articles, blogs, and other materials for its members to use in their fight against the supposed "gay agenda." Apparently the group has a large lists of documents which contains anti-gay information (i.e. propaganda) that members are invited to use. The founder says that the group is supposed to be a sort of a "behind the scenes support system for the religious right. He seems to think that he is on some type of divine mission.
Hit this link for sample postings from the group, which is apparently invisible to non-members. McEwen has redacted their names because some members are private citizens. He also notes that the group is particularly focused on JMG. Because I'm in cahoots with Satan!
reposted from Joe

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma April 23, 2012

The Koans of Life

Something appears sometimes to be good or bad or right or wrong or long or short or big or small—but what is it overall? The same thing with our life. We must see what it is beyond duality. Our life literally comes down to right now. Now! Here! What is it?
- Maezumi Roshi, "Appreciate Your Life"
Read the entire article in the Tricycle Wisdom Collection

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi Honored at National AIDS Memorial Grove

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Via JMG: The Death Penalty In America


 
Texas is responsible for one-third of all executions since 1976.


reposted from Joe

Thank you Secretary of State Clinton!

Via Tricycle Daily Dharma:

Tricycle Daily Dharma April 22, 2012

The Reality of Liberation

Nirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isn’t watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Via JMG: StopBullying.gov


From the Obama administration. Valerie Jarrett explains:
Earlier today, we screened BULLY at the White House. We were joined by bullying prevention advocates from a range of communities – LGBT, AAPI, faith, disability, and others – as well as educational partners and key Obama Administration staff who work on these issues every day, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Before the film, a panel of nationally recognized experts on bullying prevention spoke from their perspectives about challenges and opportunities, and after the film, we heard from Lee Hirsch, the director and filmmaker, and several of the students and families who were directly impacted by bullying and intolerance and whose stories were featured in the film. This film is a powerful call to action: We must do everything we can to work toward the day when no young person or family suffers the pain, agony, and loss caused by bulling in our schools and communities.
Stop Bullying.


Reposted from Joe

Via Facebook:

Via AmericaBlog Gay: Anglican chaplain says Jesus probably gay



He said it in a Good Friday service.  That must have been an interesting service. Here's an excerpt

Was that divisive issue a subject for Good Friday? For the first time in my ministry I felt it had to be. Those last words of Jesus would not let me escape. "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman behold your son!' Then he said to the disciple. 'Behold your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home."

That disciple was John whom Jesus, the gospels affirm, loved in a special way. All the other disciples had fled in fear. Three women but only one man had the courage to go with Jesus to his execution. That man clearly had a unique place in the affection of Jesus. In all classic depictions of the Last Supper, a favourite subject of Christian art, John is next to Jesus, very often his head resting on Jesus's breast. Dying, Jesus asks John to look after his mother and asks his mother to accept John as her son. John takes Mary home. John becomes unmistakably part of Jesus's family.
Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi. Unusually, he was unmarried. The idea that he had a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene is the stuff of fiction, based on no biblical evidence. The evidence, on the other hand, that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong.