Life is possible. Situations are possible. And anybody can start to gain some kind of insight and appreciation of their lives. That’s what we call 'sacred.' It doesn’t mean something dramatic, but something very simple. There’s a sacredness to everyone’s life.
It is 2012, folks. Color means nothing as far as someone’s future plans or gender or sexuality. It is a color. In the past, pink was a masculine color, but it’s morphed into a feminine one. Therein lies the problem.
Anything feminine is considered weak, inferior, delicate, less than. It may be good enough for your daughters, but it sure as hell isn’t for your sons.
I ask you to consider why? Do you love your daughters less? What about your mothers? Do you consider them to be insubstantial? Do you forget that women make up half of the population? Are you worried that they will take away your power? What is the root of the "pink ball" comment?
I propose it is misogyny, at its simplest form. Pink equals girly, and that is not okay for a boy or a man. But here’s the rub, it is. It is not just okay, but should be embraced and nurtured. Our sons should grow up to be strong and caring men. Our daughters should grow up to be strong and caring women. A gay man is not less of a man. A straight man that likes pink is not less of a man.
We have to move from the illusion of certainty- Sam Keen
to the certainty of illusion.
From "Six Edgelit" by Adrienne Rich
The night of the eclipse the full
moon
swims clear between the flying clouds until
the hour of the occlusion It's not of aging
anymore and its desire
which is of course unending
it's of dying young or old
in full desire
Remember me....O, O, O,
O, remember me
these vivid stricken cells
precarious living marrow
this is my labyrinthine filmic brain
this is my dreaded blood
this is my irreplaceable
footprint vanishing from the air
dying in full desire
thirsting for the coldest water
hungering for hottest food
gazing into the wildest light
edgelight from the high desert
where shadows drip from tiniest stones
sunklight of bloody afterglow
torque of the Joshua tree
flinging itself forth in winter
factoring freeze into its liquid consciousness
These are the extremes I stoke
into the updraft of this life
still roaring
into thinnest air
1993-1994
"Freedom to Marry, which led the campaign against the repeal bill, credits its success in part to inroads it has made nationally with Republicans. Freedom to Marry’s founder, Evan Wolfson, credits conservatives like Ted Olson — who led the challenge to Proposition 8 in California — and former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman with accelerating that trend. Mehlman, newly out a year or two ago, was “very effective,” Wolfson says, in guiding them in New Hampshire. And polling showing an overwhelming opposition to the bill in New Hampshire certainly did not hurt."
I've said if often and I'll say it again. The "conservatives" in the GOP are not conservative at all but radical religionists who have raided this once Grand Old Party and made it much less grand. They have also made their own religion less grand in the process by combining it with the Republican party and coming up with a form of religion that has foregone its spiritual foundations to take on the earthly contours of political grandstanding.
I started writing the song in December and took me a month to complete. Then I prepped the music video for a few weeks and shot it all in one day at the culver studios. I had everything donated from techno crane to cameras and fx. I had a killer director, DP, editor and choreographers all who volunteered their time and amazing talents. I spent about a month in post.
The funny thing. Very funny thing... Is that Aaron was planning to ask me !! He actually beat me to the punch and devised his own proposal adventure for me on Valentines day! I was in the midst of prepping the video! I said yes but told him I was still going to ask him and continue my plan!
I presented the video in the backyard. When he saw the screen he thought I made a slide show of our lives together!
After the video I got down on one knee and asked him to make me the happiest person in the world and spend his life with me! He said of course and it was a great moment. But wanted to watch the video again 30 more times. There are a lot of inside jokes and even some wardrobe choices in there designed to experiences in our history.
"NOM’s wedge-strategy memos detail its campaign to funnel money to a handful of African-American clergy in order to attack gay couples and, appallingly, discredit the strong and clear voice of those African-American civil rights champions, such as John Lewis, Julian Bond, and Coretta Scott King, who have stood up for the freedom to marry and the equal civil rights of all people, including gay people of color. These smoking-gun documents show how NOM has sought, in the most cynical ways imaginable, to bait the gay community in hopes of provoking a hurt response that would further divide, all in furtherance of the ugly and cruel anti-gay agenda.
"NOM’s secret memos describe its intention to ‘interrupt [Latinos’] process of assimilation’ by ‘making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity’ and ‘seek to identify glamorous young Latino and Latina leaders’ to reject equal protection for their own family members who are gay. And all of this to be done, fueled by NOM’s shadowy secret funders, in the name of religion -- in flagrant contempt of the Golden Rule of treating others as you would want to be treated. Despicable."
When challenges or obstacles arise for us, we don’t have to get so intimidated; we can say, ‘Yes, it’s an obstacle, but it is not intrinsically bad; it’s not going to destroy me.’ To create a relationship with the obstacle, learn about it, and finally overcome it is going to be a helpful thing to do. It gives us a chance to cultivate wisdom and skillful means. It gives us confidence. We cannot eliminate all of the challenges or obstacles in life— our own or anyone else’s. We can only learn to rise to the occasion and face them.
The whole neighborhood. The whole world. These men, whom we all knew quite well, cried out: “Abdellah, little girl, come down. Come down. Wake up and come down. We all want you. Come down, Abdellah. Don’t be afraid. We won’t hurt you. We just want to have sex with you.”
...They kept yelling for a long time. My nickname. Their desire. Their crime...
But my brother, the absolute monarch of our family, did nothing. Everyone turned their back on me. Everyone killed me that night. I don’t know where I found the strength, but I didn’t cry. I just squeezed my eyes shut a bit more tightly. And shut, with the same motion, everything else in me. Everything. I was never the same Abdellah Taïa after that night. To save my skin, I killed myself. And that was how I did it.
I began by keeping my head low all the time. I cut all ties with the children in the neighborhood. I altered my behavior. I kept myself in check: no more feminine gestures, no more honeyed voice, no more hanging around women. No more anything. I had to invent a whole new Abdellah. I bent myself to the task with great determination, and with the realization that this world was no longer my world. Sooner or later, I would leave it behind. I would grow up and find freedom somewhere else. But in the meantime I would become hard. Very hard.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
“No one deserves to be bullied, harassed, or victimized because of who they are, how they worship, or who they love.”- Attorney General Eric Holder at the White House’s conference on LGBT bullying, where Valerie Garrett also spoke.
The crucial point is to maintain constant vigilance over and awareness of our mental state so that, at the moment that afflictive emotions rise up, they will not trigger a chain of deluded thoughts. Thus, we neither let desire overwhelm our mind, nor do we repress it while leaving it intact in a hidden corner of the mind. We simply become free from its alienating power.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The moment I will never forget was when he looked at me. He gave me a chance to talk to him. It was like he was waiting for me to say something. I took the moment and signed “I am proud of you,” and his response was “Thank u” in sign language back! Oh my gosh! I was like wow! He understood me after I said I was proud of him. It was so amazing…I was just speechless. Right after he thanked me, he smiled at another deaf lady who signed “I love you.” When I shook his hand it did not feel like he was superior to me. He was just a humble man. I am just impressed by him and know that he will have my vote and he will win second term without a doubt. Yeah, I feel safe to have him for another term.
We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.
“This is the most important thing we’ve done in our lives. It’s not just become a legal challenge, but it’s about the hearts and minds of a country changing.”
