10/31/13
10/30/13
Sandra Day O'Connor marries a gay couple at the Supreme Court. She is a rare breed of Republican: a moderate one!
From The New Civil Rights Movement:
Retired Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor today married a same-sex couple in the U.S. Supreme Court. O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the nation’s highest court, married a couple together for 36 years, Jeffrey Trammell and Stuart Serkin.
Trammell is a rector (academic, not religious, leader) at The College of William & Mary in Virginia, where the former justice was chancellor. O’Connor was appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan.
“The ceremony took place in the lawyer’s lounge of the court, according to court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg,” Bloombergreports. “That is just off the courtroom where the sitting justices delivered a pair of 5-4 decisions in June that stopped short of legalizing gay marriage across the country yet struck down a federal law barring benefits for spouses in same-sex marriages.”
10/29/13
Putin's promise of the day...and we will hold him to it
"We are doing everything, both the organizers and our athletes and fans, so that participants and guests feel comfortable in Sochi, regardless of nationality, race or sexual orientation."--Russian president Vladimir Putin, speaking today to Thomas Bach, the chairman of the International Olympic Committee.
10/27/13
A 9-year-old Pennsylvania boy wins a 255-pound pumpkin by guessing its weight, has it stolen, and then the thief returns it with a note of apology. Grace!
Full story. Here is the note of apology:
"I'm really sorry about taking your pumpkin, it was wrong of me, you earned the pumpkin, I didn't think my actions through nor realize who they were affecting. Sincerest apologies."
The untold story of Obama with the Sandy Hook victims' families. Mistakes and all, he is my president...
An excerpt from THE PRESIDENT’S DEVOTIONAL: The Daily Readings That Inspired President Obama, by Joshua DuBois, former head of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in the Executive Office of the President of the United States under President Barack Obama.
But the private facts we received in the White House from the FBI were even worse.
How the gunman treated the children like criminals, lining them up to shoot them down. How so many bullets penetrated them that many were left unrecognizable. How the killer went from one classroom to another and would have gone farther if his rifle would’ve let him.
That news began a weekend of prayer and numbness, which I awoke from on Saturday only to receive the word that the president would like me to accompany him to Newtown. He wanted to meet with the families of the victims and then offer words of comfort to the country at an interfaith memorial service.
I left early to help the advance team—the hardworking folks who handle logistics for every event—set things up, and I arrived at the local high school where the meetings and memorial service would take place. We prepared seven or eight classrooms for the families of the slain children and teachers, two or three families to a classroom, placing water and tissues and snacks in each one. Honestly, we didn’t know how to prepare; it was the best we could think of.
The families came in and gathered together, room by room. Many struggled to offer a weak smile when we whispered, “The president will be here soon.” A few were visibly angry—so understandable that it barely needs to be said—and were looking for someone, anyone, to blame. Mostly they sat in silence.
I went downstairs to greet President Obama when he arrived, and I provided an overview of the situation. “Two families per classroom . . . The first is . . . and their child was . . . The second is . . . and their child was . . . We’ll tell you the rest as you go.”
The president took a deep breath and steeled himself, and went into the first classroom. And what happened next I’ll never forget.
Person after person received an engulfing hug from our commander in chief. He’d say, “Tell me about your son. . . . Tell me about your daughter,” and then hold pictures of the lost beloved as their parents described favorite foods, television shows, and the sound of their laughter. For the younger siblings of those who had passed away—many of them two, three, or four years old, too young to understand it all—the president would grab them and toss them, laughing, up into the air, and then hand them a box of White House M&M’s, which were always kept close at hand. In each room, I saw his eyes water, but he did not break.
And then the entire scene would repeat—for hours. Over and over and over again, through well over a hundred relatives of the fallen, each one equally broken, wrecked by the loss. After each classroom, we would go back into those fluorescent hallways and walk through the names of the coming families, and then the president would dive back in, like a soldier returning to a tour of duty in a worthy but wearing war. We spent what felt like a lifetime in those classrooms, and every single person received the same tender treatment. The same hugs. The same looks, directly in their eyes. The same sincere offer of support and prayer.
The staff did the preparation work, but the comfort and healing were all on President Obama. I remember worrying about the toll it was taking on him. And of course, even a president’s comfort was woefully inadequate for these families in the face of this particularly unspeakable loss. But it became some small measure of love, on a weekend when evil reigned.
And the funny thing is—President Obama has never spoken about these meetings. Yes, he addressed the shooting in Newtown and gun violence in general in a subsequent speech, but he did not speak of those private gatherings. In fact, he was nearly silent on Air Force One as we rode back to Washington, and has said very little about his time with these families since. It must have been one of the defining moments of his presidency, quiet hours in solemn classrooms, extending as much healing as was in his power to extend. But he kept it to himself—never seeking to teach a lesson based on those mournful conversations, or opening them up to public view.
Jesus teaches us that some things—the holiest things, the most painful and important and cherished things—we are to do in secret. Not for public consumption and display, but as acts of service to others, and worship to God. For then, “your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you,” perhaps not now, but certainly in eternity. We learned many lessons in Newtown that day; this is one I’ve kept closely at heart.
10/25/13
10/24/13
The new pope rails against "ideological Christians", saying "ideology chases away the people, distances, distances..the Church of the people." PREACH!
This pope is making right-wing Catholics and christians squirm. PREACH!
10/23/13
Essayist Marilynne Robinson destroys the idea that Christianity belongs to conservatives...
In an interview with the novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson, Robert Long asked her about the too-frequent identification of Christianity with the religious right in America. She doesn’t hold back:
Well, what is a Christian, after all? Can we say that most of us are defined by the belief that Jesus Christ made the most gracious gift of his life and death for our redemption? Then what does he deserve from us? He said we are to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek. Granted, these are difficult teachings. But does our most gracious Lord deserve to have his name associated with concealed weapons and stand-your-ground laws, things that fly in the face of his teaching and example? Does he say anywhere that we exist primarily to drive an economy and flourish in it? He says precisely the opposite. Surely we all know this. I suspect that the association of Christianity with positions that would not survive a glance at the Gospels or the Epistles is opportunistic, and that if the actual Christians raised these questions those whose real commitments are to money and hostility and potential violence would drop the pretense and walk away.
Via The Daily Dish
Understatement on the year
"The time has ended to be taken in by these crazy people."
--Senator Harry Reid on The Tea Party members who shut down the Federal government and voted to default on the national debt
10/22/13
This story shows the use of the word "gay" as a slur has the power to shame, even in 2013. We have a long way to go
"I am a white heterosexual male. This trifecta of privilege means that I'm not routinely subjected to prejudice. But for a few minutes I got to walk in the shoes of a gay person in a public place. For no good reason I had had a slur marked over my luggage. I was degraded. I was shamed. I was humiliated. For me, this was only a few minutes of one day of my life. If what I felt for those few minutes is extrapolated out every day over a lifetime, then I can fully understand why our gay friends feel persecuted and why they have such high rates of suicide. It is unacceptable. It is said that words can't hurt you. That it is true. But it isn't the words that hurt, it's the intention behind them. 'I am gay' was not emblazened across my luggage as a celebration. It was used as a pejorative. It was used to humiliate. It was used as a slur."-- One Sleepy Dad blogger Aaron, whose suitcase emerged on the Perth airport carousel with the above message. The airline has apologized.
10/21/13
I suspect that Russia has delayed consideration of thls law that strips away the rights of LGBT parents is due to international pressure
Russia is hosting the Winter Olympics in 2014 and the World Cup in 2018, so I suspect that the Olympics and FIFA, as well as Western governments, have put massive pressure on the Kremlin to halt the enactment of future anti-gay laws, lest the moving of these international tournaments to other countries.
From BuzzFeed:
The move came to light after LGBT rights activists noticed the bill had been noted as “withdrawn” on the website of the State Duma, Russia’s parliament. A spokesperson for Alexei Zhuravlyov, the far right MP who tabled the bill, later confirmed the move, but said it would be resubmitted after some changes were made.
“It’s being recalled for revision — certain legal formulations will be clarified, and then after some points are removed, it will be brought to the State Duma again,” Sofia Cherepanova, Zhuravlyov’s spokesperson, told RIA-Novosti, a state-run news agency. “We hope to pass the bill.”
10/20/13
Every single day, LGBT kids are kicked out of their homes by parents. We need to help these kids. I gave to Larkin Street
Give $ and time to the homeless programs for LGBT runaway kids in your area:
San Francisco: Larkin Street Youth Services
Los Angeles: The Gay Center
New York City: Ali Forney Center
10/19/13
10/18/13
Breaking news: Victory in the NJ Supreme Court today, with marriages beginning on Monday. The home state of my grandparents acknowledges me and my love
Such great news! Read about it here.
As a kid, I use to spend the some summers in New Jersey with my two sets of grandparents. I liked the outspoken, down-to-earth, and hard-working people of this state. Today, New Jersey is making me proud!
These bullied kids took their lives because they couldn't bear the pain and shame. But they were beautiful, whole, and complete. I fight for them everyday
Clockwise from top left: Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Justin Aaberg, Tyler Clementi, and Seth Walsh.
Often, I think about queer kids like these, feel the piercing pain of growing up in a homophobic society, and do my best to stand up for them, my (15-year-old) self, and love. But make no mistake, we are changing this country and world, as love is triumphing over fear. I will never give up this cause.
When some conservatives can't win at the ballot box, they try to disenfranchise voters, which is the gravest insult to those who have died fighting for democracy
And this happening in Virginia right now because the anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant GOP candidate for governor is trailing his Democratic opponent...
In Texas, where a popular Democratic woman, Wendy Davis, is running for governor. From ThinkProgress:
In Texas, where a popular Democratic woman, Wendy Davis, is running for governor. From ThinkProgress:
In addition to attacks on their reproductive rights, women in Texas are facing another sizable problem: large-scale disenfranchisement. Thanks to the state’s strict voter ID law – going into effect on November 5 – constituents must nowprovide a photo ID with their most up-to-date, legally-recognized name at the polls. On the surface the prerequisite appears achievable, but in reality it disproportionately impacts female voters, specifically those who are married.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “66 percent of voting-age women with ready access to any proof of citizenship have a document with [their] current legal name” – the remainder must find a way to procure a new photo ID to vote in upcoming elections. Because so many women fail to update their IDs after adopting their spouses’ last name, their right to vote is under threat. Doing so, however, comes with a litany of obstacles.
Constituents must show original documents verifying legal proof of a name change, whether it is a marriage license, divorce decree, or court ordered change – they are prevented from using photocopies. In the absence of original documents, voters must pay a minimum of $20 to receive new copies. Due to inflexible work schedules and travel expenses, voters often opt to have their documents mailed, incurring additional costs.
Taken together, these obstacles to proving a legal name change will eliminate a large pool of women from the state’s electorate, as many will face time and financial constraints that will prohibit them from securing new credentials. On the other hand, the majority of men eligible to vote will not encounter the same difficulties, because they do not typically modify their names when married.
Anyone -- Democrat or Republican -- who tries to disenfranchise another citizen from voting is not a real democracy-loving American. This behavior is reprehensible, the same as treason.
10/17/13
Quote of the day
Can you imagine saying this to your gay kid? Sounds like conditional love to me.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that if one of his four children came out as gay, he would “grab them and hug them and tell them I love them.”
He would also tell them “that Dad believes that marriage is between one man and one woman,” he said. [...]
“My children understand that there are going to be differences of opinion in our house and in houses all across this state and across this country,” Christie said.
Andrew Sullivan explains the Tea Party as a fundamentalist religion...
"The Tea Party as a Religion" by Andrew Sullivan
Dishheads know I believe that you cannot understand the current GOP without also grasping how bewildered so many people are by the dizzying onset of modernity. The 21st Century has brought Islamist war to America, the worst recession since the 1930s, a debt-ridden federal government, a majority-minority future, gay marriage, universal healthcare and legal weed. If you were still seething from the eruption of the 1960s, and thought that Reagan had ended all that, then the resilience of a pluralistic, multi-racial, fast-miscegenating, post-gay America, whose president looks like the future, not the past, you would indeed, at this point, be in a world-class, meshugganah, cultural panic.
When you add in the fact that the American dream stopped working for most working-class folks at some point in the mid 1970s, and when you see the national debt soaring from the Reagan years onward, made much worse by the Bush-Cheney years, and then exploded by the recession Bush bequeathed, you have a combustible mixture. It’s very easy to lump all this together into a paranoid fantasy of an American apocalypse that must somehow be stopped at all cost. In trying to understand the far-right mindset – which accounts for around a quarter of the country – I think you have to zoom out and see all of this in context.
Many of us found in Barack Obama a very post-ideological president, a pragmatist, a Christian, and a traditional family man, and naively believed that he could both repair the enormous damage done by the Bush-Cheney administration and simultaneously reach out to the red states as well. I refuse to say the failure is his. Because he tried. For years, he was lambasted by the left for being far too accommodating, far too reasonable, aloof, not scrappy enough, weak … you know the drill by now. In fact, he was just trying to bring as much of the country along as he could in tackling the huge recession and massive debt he inherited at one and the same time, and in unwinding the 9/11 emergency, and in ending two wars and the morally and legally crippling legacy of torture (about which the GOP is simply in rigid denial).
Obama got zero votes from House Republicans for a desperately needed stimulus in his first weeks in office. So I cannot believe he could have maintained any sort of detente with the Republican right, dominated by the legacy of Palin, rather than McCain. But the healthcare reform clearly ended any sort of possibility of coexistence – and the cold civil war took off again. The first black president could, perhaps, clean up some of the mess of his predecessor, but as soon as he moved on an actual substantive change that he wanted and campaigned on, he was deemed illegitimate. Even though that change was, by any standards, a moderate one, catering to private interests, such as drug and insurance companies; even though it had no public option; even though its outline was the same as the GOP’s 2012 nominee’s in Massachusetts, this inching toward a more liberal America was the casus belli. It still is – which is why it looms so large for the Republican right in ways that can easily befuddle the rest of us.
But it is emphatically not the real reason for the revolt. It is the symptom, not the cause. My rule of thumb is pretty simple: whenever you hear a quote about Obamacare, it’s more illuminating to remove the “care” part. And Obama is a symbol of change people cannot understand, are frightened by, and seek refuge from.
That desperate need for certainty and security is what I focused on in my book about all this, The Conservative Soul. What the understandably beleaguered citizens of this new modern order want is a pristine variety of America that feels like the one they grew up in. They want truths that ring without any timbre of doubt. They want root-and-branch reform – to the days of the American Revolution. And they want all of this as a pre-packaged ideology, preferably aligned with re-written American history, and reiterated as a theater of comfort and nostalgia. They want their presidents white and their budget balanced now. That balancing it now would tip the whole world into a second depression sounds like elite cant to them; that America is, as a matter of fact, a coffee-colored country – and stronger for it – does not remove their desire for it not to be so; indeed it intensifies their futile effort to stop immigration reform. And given the apocalyptic nature of their view of what is going on, it is only natural that they would seek a totalist, radical, revolutionary halt to all of it, even if it creates economic chaos, even if it destroys millions of jobs, even though it keeps millions in immigration limbo, even if it means an unprecedented default on the debt.
This is a religion – but a particularly modern, extreme and unthinking fundamentalist religion. And such a form of religion is the antithesis of the mainline Protestantism that once dominated the Republican party as well, to a lesser extent, the Democratic party.
It also brooks no distinction between religion and politics, seeing them as fused in the same cultural and religious battle. Much of the GOP hails from that new purist, apocalyptic sect right now – and certainly no one else is attacking that kind of religious organization. But it will do to institutional political parties what entrepreneurial fundamentalism does to mainline churches: its appeal to absolute truth, total rectitude and simplicity of worldview instantly trumps tradition, reason, moderation, compromise.
An important thesis of the book is that as religious organizations grow powerful and complacent, and their adherents do likewise, they make themselves vulnerable to challenges from upstart sects that “impose significant costs in terms of sacrifice and even stigma upon their members.” For insurgent groups, fervor and discipline are their own rewards.
Right now, the Republican Party is an object of contempt to many on the far right, whose adamant convictions threaten what they perceive as Republican complacency. The Tea Party is akin to a rowdy evangelical storefront beckoning down the road from the staid Episcopal cathedral. Writing of insurgent congregations, Finke and Stark said that “sectarian members are either in or out; they must follow the demands of the group or withdraw. The ‘seductive middle ground’ is lost.”
In other words, this is not just a cold civil war. It is also a religious war – between fundamentalism and faith, between totalism and tradition, between certainty and reasoned doubt. It may need to burn itself out – with all the social and economic and human damage that entails. Or it can be defeated, as Lincoln reluctantly did to his fanatical enemies, or absorbed and coopted, as Elizabeth I did hers over decades. But it will take time. The question is what will be left of America once it subsides, and how great a cost it will have imposed.
10/16/13
Quote of the day
“It’s very, very serious,” warned Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “Republicans have to understand we have lost this battle, as I predicted weeks ago, that we would not be able to win because we were demanding something that was not achievable.”
10/15/13
Quote of the day
No one involved in this mess is particularly popular. But a two-party political system with first-past-the-post elections is a zero-sum affair. And Republicans are not only less popular than Democrats, their popularity is falling faster than Democrats’. They are, in other words, losing, and badly.--Ezra Klein via The Daily Dish
My take: America is losing badly because of this avoidable crisis!
This moving book, "Two Boys Kissing," made me cry and relive the feelings of youth, while acknowledging those who survived or died during the AIDS era
Rarely has book made me reflect so much on my life, choices, luck, and relationships. David Levithan's wisdom and deep reflections as a gay man moved me as much as his spare but beautiful prose. This is one book that I recommend for gay men, whether you are 18 or 58 years old.
I am worried. The US (and world) stands at an economic and political precipice today; I just hope the radical wing of the GOP doesn't push us into the abyss...
This paragraph from Politico.com sums up our situation on October 15, 2013:
Speaker John Boehner, who has wrestled with an unruly pack of conservatives for months, will soon be faced with an uncomfortable choice: Pass an emerging bipartisan Senate deal to lift the debt ceiling and fund the government, or don’t — and risk massive political and economic consequences.
10/14/13
Email of the day
From the Daily Dish:
I have been a registered Republican for almost 20 years now and I have endured some horrendous candidates within my party because I truly believed Republicans were capable of rational discourse and realistic methods to reining in what I believe is an out-of-control government. I have endured Bush in 2004 with his disgusting gay baiting, Palin in 2008 and Tea Party of 2010/2012. I have taken serious abuse from friends who cannot fathom why in the hell I would belong to such a party.
I grew up during the Reagan years, where the promise of America was real for everyone. I believed in my country and its leaders. I “thought” Republicans stood FOR something … but the sad reality is that they only are AGAINST everything that does not square with their delusional idea of what America used to be … and actually never was.
I think it was Ted Cruz who led me to my breaking point with his phony filibuster and his propaganda machine to exacerbate the already gripping paranoia in the Republican party. Make no mistake, I think Obamacare is a disaster and the Democrats barely capable of doing anything to get our country on the right path. But I’d rather work to fix the mess than to support a party totally incapable of governing in a fact-based manner.
I am ashamed it took me this long to change. But I just filled out my voter registration document to change party affiliation. I will not associate myself with this destructive party any longer. And I bet I am not alone.
10/13/13
On Saturday, openly gay featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz lost his world championship fight. But he is a winner!
Sadly, Orlando lost his fight in Vegas.
But this guy's decision to come out publicly has done much to improve his own life as well as thousands of others lives around the world. He is a big winner in my book.
These gay teens show that love is winning (& grinning)!
From fuckyeahgaycouples.tumblr.com:
This is a picture of my boyfriend and I: him (Travis) on the left and me (odair-comma-james) on the right before prom. We have been together now for over five months and he is the love of my life. He has helped me through so much. He has even helped me come out to my siblings and basically our entire school. We are the gay couple of our high school basically. Anyway I just love him so much and I will miss him next year at college when I don’t see him every day!
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