This Southern son of a preacher & a high school football player finds acceptance after he comes out. For him, it gets better

Governor Chris Christie claims to be in favor of gay rights but not marriage equality. Where is the logic and love in this?

President Barack Obama

Being ourselves and letting love in

Zen lesson: on how to meditate

To sit without emotion, hope or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or the kettle whispering its faint undersong.

--William Wordsworth

via Zen Calendar

I love the beautiful game of soccer, for its drama & men

From the book "The World is a Ball" by John Doyle:

"The game brings joy, breaks your heart, brings joy, breaks your heart, brings joy, breaks your heart...The meaning whirls and turns at the ball does--as the world does."

Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman explicitly apologizes for hurting LGBT people in the past. Apology accepted

From Towleroad.com:

“At a personal level, I wish I had spoken out against the effort,” he says. “As I’ve been involved in the fight for marriage equality, one of the things I’ve learned is how many people were harmed by the campaigns in which I was involved. I apologize to them and tell them I am sorry. While there have been recent victories, this could still be a long struggle in which there will be setbacks, and I’ll do my part to be helpful.”

While Ken is still a Republican, he has been active in helping marriage equality prevail in New York, Maryland, and New Hampshire. Thank you! I have forgiven his betrayal, but his misdeeds will not be forgotten.--Joe

Chad Griffin, HRC's new leader is a political and communications strategist, not a lobbyist. This is a smart move

Andrew Harmon reports on Chad:

Chad Griffin, the Los Angeles-based political consultant whose central role in the Proposition 8 lawsuit turned him into a national LGBT rights figure, has been named president of the Human Rights Campaign.

A major fundraiser for the Obama campaign who began his career in the early days of the Clinton White House, Griffin will replace current president Joe Solmonese at the helm of the $40 million organization on June 11, HRC announced Friday following a board of directors vote. Solmonese, who joined HRC as president in 2005 and said in August that he would leave after his contract expires at the end of this month, will continue in his role until June. Solmonese was named a national co-chair for the Obama campaign last month.

In its pick of Griffin as president, HRC has chosen someone who was shaped from an early age by Washington political culture yet who is not defined by it, having spent the vast majority of his career outside the Beltway. Griffin, 38, is a fervent supporter of President Obama with personal ties to White House officials, but has pushed the bipartisan case for marriage equality, notably hiring former George W. Bush solicitor general Theodore Olson to co-lead the Prop. 8 suit and aligning with conservatives including gay former Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman, who has raised money for the legal effort. Griffin has been openly critical of the president’s evolving position on marriage equality, calling Obama’s indicated support for state’s rights on deciding who can marry “a step backwards.” And, central to the job, Griffin has a proven ability to be a formidable fundraiser.

During the GOP-led assault on birth control, Bernie Sander asks "What if There Were 83 Women Senators?" Republicans have now disenfranchised women, gays, & Latinos...

This conversation might change if we made GOP men pay for their Viagra.:)

David Frum on the legacy of Andrew Breitbart: Society's demagogues are not remembered as great men

Andrew Breitbart, the conservative web entrepreneur who died yesterday, helped revolutionize the conservative media landscape. It is always tragic for such a young man to die. I do feel bad for his family and friends.

Conservative David Frum from the Daily Beast sums up the legacy of Andrew:

...it becomes difficult to honor the Roman injunction to speak no ill of the dead. It’s difficult for me to assess Breitbart’s impact upon American media and American politics as anything other than poisonous. When one of the leading media figures of the day achieves his success by his giddy disdain for truth and fairness—when one of our leading political figures offers to his admirers a politics inflamed by rage and devoid of ideas—how to withhold a profoundly negative judgment on his life and career?

Especially when that career was so representative of his times?

We live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century. Many of our most important public figures have gained their influence and power by inciting and exploiting the ugliest of passions—by manipulating fears and prejudices—by serving up falsehoods as reported truth. In time these figures will one by one die. What are we to say of this cohort, this group, this generation? That their mothers loved them? That their families are bereaved? That their fans admired them and their employees treated generously by them? Public figures are inescapably judged by their public actions. When those public actions are poisonous, the obituary cannot be pleasant reading.