5/30/13
Quote of the day
Higher Love from Shortt and Epic on Vimeo.
"I tell this story in the book of being at this park in Seattle many years ago, where a limo pulls up and a bride and a groom tumble out to get their portraits at this very famous park with a beautiful view of downtown Seattle. And as they're walking back to the limo everyone starts to applaud, and rightly so. Everyone takes delight when two people find each other and make that commitment. I was standing there clapping next to these two older gentlemen with two big dogs. It was clear that they were gay and I was gay. And as they get into their car, the one closest to me looks at me and says, `We are always happy for them. Would it kill them to be happy for us?' We've reached that tipping point, where they are happy for us. Now you see straight people looking at gay people and recognizing something about themselves in us."
5/29/13
Photo of the day, on American resilience
The Philadelphia Phillies visited the Boston Red Sox in a regular season MLB baseball game at Fenway Park on the evening of May 28, 2013. Boston Marathon bombing victim Jeff Bauman threw out a ceremonial first pitch. By Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.Via The Daily Dish
The U.S. Catholic Church is mobilizing its clergy against marriage equality. Just like with the child abuse scandal, 50 years from now, they will be apologizing for this abuse
Here is the Church's anti-gay talking points:
From Towleroad.com:
Fearing decisions from the Supreme Court that would rule broadly in favor of marriage equality and against DOMA and Prop 8, New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan, America's top Catholic, has issued a bulletin to Catholic parishioners across the country, calling upon members of the clergy to give sermons with anti-equality sentiment and counseling members of the laity to pray, fast, and sacrifice as a means to stop what he calls, "the Roe v. Wade of Marriage."
Read this uplifting article about Jallen Messersmith, who has gone from a bullied teen to being one of the bros on his college basketball team. This is the future of our movement...
I really enjoyed this Outsports article entitled "Out College Basketball Player Happy Being Just One Of The Guys."
--He was born 20 years ago in Blue Springs, Missouri, to Tim and Chantelle Messersmith during March Madness and the 1993 run by Michigan's Fab 5. He was named Jallen (pronounced Jalen), a mash-up of his middle name, Allen, with the first name of then-Michigan star Jalen Rose.
--He was raised a Mormon.
--He was bullied so badly in pre-adolesence that he was home-schooled.
--He plays college basketball for Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, a small liberal arts Catholic school and was fourth in the nation in his division in blocked shots this past season.
--He is openly gay.
A 6-8, 215-pound openly gay Mormon basketball player at a Catholic school in Middle America Kansas seems an anomaly. Messersmith, though, fits in perfectly with his teammate and was embraced after he came out last fall, first to his coaches and then over time to his teammates. To them, he's just Jallen.
5/28/13
5/27/13
5/26/13
This is what courage looks like: Russian LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseev being arrested (and punched) at Moscow's 8th annual pride march
5/25/13
Yay! Robbie Rogers to return to professional soccer, being the first opening out MLS player. I support him
“Rogers' epiphany to return to the game came when he spoke to a group of about 500 kids at the Nike Be True LGBT Youth Forum in Portland last month. 'I seriously felt like a coward...These kids are standing up for themselves and changing the world, and I'm 25, I have a platform and a voice to be a role model. How much of a coward was I to not step up to the plate?'"
5/24/13
Essential zen wisdom
You can spend a lot of energy being upset, or you can get with the program—it’s that right effort thing—get the beauty of the way it is.
--Jeff Bridges via Tricycle.com
5/23/13
Why we must never give up on anyone: this SF Giant talks about his journey from being homophobic to accepting gays
San Francisco Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt shows how love can trump fear and homophobia.
From the AP:
The ex-military brat said Monday he was so uncomfortable in San Francisco that he would seclude himself. ”I didn’t leave my hotel room when we came to play the Giants or A’s. I didn’t want to go out or see anyone,” he said. ”There was a profession of being wrong. I’ve come to that from a deep angle. I’ll probably get a lot of flak from the church for it, but I believe I’m right.”…
”There’s a chapter in there of me coming to San Francisco and being hesitant because I had homophobia, and now I don’t,” he said. ”I see more San Francisco as a city of love and a city of passion and compassion. It’s unbelievable this city. To see that and to have my heart change as a city I didn’t ever want to come to, to a city that I’m so thankful I’m going to be part of for a long time, it talks about that. For me, it was an awesome deal.”
A sweet (and slightly bitter) victory today: gay boys are allowed to be scouts, but gay adults are still prohibited from serving as scout leaders. We will keep advocating for full equality...
This was huge step forward for the Boy Scouts of America and for gay boys everywhere in America.
However, it is obviously unfair to accept openly gay scouts and then kick them out of scouting once they become adults and want to continue on as scout leaders. What is the logic of that? This policy change was obviously a political compromise meant to buy time for the Boy Scouts of America organization, which is caught between the pro-equality forces and social conservatives.
Tonight, I am going to celebrate this news with a good Belgium beer. I am happy to be one of 1.8 million activists who stood up and fought against this unjust policy.
And tomorrow, we will be back, fighting for complete equality. And, eventually, we will win because we have love and more energy on our side! I am sure of it.
Crossing my fingers today that Boy Scouts will do the right thing and vote to include gay boys in scouting
Momentum is on our side as we try to change every pillar of institutionalized homophobia. Let's hope that the Boy Scouts change their policy today.
BTW, yesterday, BSA President Wayne Perry stated that ending the BSA’s restriction on gay youth membership is “the right decision for Boy Scouts”. I could not agree more.
5/22/13
Shame on the Democrats for buckling under to GOP pressure to exclude gay binational couples from the immigration bill!
Read how Senator Chuck Schumer threw us under the bus to keep the GOP from scuttling the immigration reform bill because their objections to any sort of rights for the LGBT. Please let Senator Schumer and the Democrats that we are angry about this. I expect better from the Democrats.
5/21/13
Those crazy, sexy Navy Cadets...and their annual greased monument climb
Good, clean homoerotic fun...a Navy tradition. What's not to love?
My "nephew" graduated this past weekend in DC and I couldn't be happier for him
Jason Edward Tucker (the blond young man on the right) isn't really my nephew but this term is the best one we have for our 18 year friendship. I met his two lesbian moms when he was 5 years old, and have been his male mentor ever since then -- through his moms' messy and protracted divorce, his difficulty with one of his mom's questioning of her gender, and the creation of their new family structures that did not easily include him. Jase came out at 13 years old and was bullied at a progressive high school in Marin County, CA. High school was a tough time for this all-star student, with his grades falling to a C-average and him barely holding his life together.
But he did! In his senior year of high school, he got a scholarship to the six-month Oxbox arts immersion program, then spent the summer in Spain with ex-boyfriend (working as kitchen help in his restaurant), and won a 85% scholarship to attend Corcoran College of Art + Design in DC. At Corcoran, he was a straight A student, started a gay boy's art cooperative called "Boys Be Good," hustled to get a job at prestigious contemporary gallery called Morton Fine Art, and worked weekends for a gay photographer as an assistant for high-end weddings. In total, this kid took 6 classes per semester (because he wanted to learn as much as possible), worked 70 hours weeks, had 3 jobs, and had an active social life, including a series of a good boyfriends. What a wunderkind!
So it was particularly satisfying seeing him graduate this weekend, having been there with him nearly every step of the way. I am so proud of him and, as my grandma used to say to me, love him to pieces.
5/20/13
Obama to Morehouse graduates: "Keep setting an example for what it means to be a man. Be the best husband to your wife, or your boyfriend, or your partner...nothing is more important."
Nearly everyday or week, the President makes me even prouder to be an American.
5/18/13
5/16/13
Because of all the work by previous generations of queer people, this young couple can feel okay about themselves. That's progress
This photo, and all the other ones like this on my blog, are from the tumbler account fuckyeahgaycouples. Check out the great pride and high self-esteem there!
This historical novel, "The Song of Achilles," is one of the best same-sex love stories that I have read in a decade. Written by a woman. Highly recommended
Following in the tradition of Mary Renault and Marguerite Yourcenar, Madeline Miller's novel is a beautifully written page-turner, following the life of Greek hero Achilles and his male partner Patroclus. I read it last weekend, and her prose and characters having been living in my heart and mind all week.
GOP-related headline of the day
First, the GOP base attacks Chris Christie because he put the welfare of his state before partisan politics.
Now the GOP base is angry at Rubio because he wants to find a way for millions of Latino Americans residents to become legal citizens. That's smart politics in those who live in real world.
What is next for this fear-orientated, angry group of people? Sounds like they want to nominate a Rand Paul or some other extreme candidate in 2016. And I say to that: GOP, be my guest and watch Hillary win by a landslide.
Zen practice: accepting things are they are
The process of finding the truth may not be a process by which we feel increasingly better and better. It may be a process by which we look at things honestly, sincerely, truthfully, and that may or may not be an easy thing to do.
--Adyashanti, from an excerpt from Bliss is a By-Product
5/15/13
With so much good news, we cannot overlook the murders of queer people around the world, including Vladislav Tornovoi of Russia. Horrific and outrageous
Vladislav Tornovoi, 23, was attacked by two men in the city of Volgograd, who mutilated his genitals and raped him with a beer bottle.
In an murder which has sparked outrage across Russia and overseas, the young man's face was smashed with a rock and was then set on fire.
Tornovoi was allegedly killed shortly after coming out as gay to friends during a boozy Victory Day celebration. Two men aged 22 and 27-years-old - who were reportedly Tornovoi's friends, are under arrest on suspicion of killing him.
Best political advice of the day
“[T]he one advice I give to Republicans is stop calling [Benghazi] a huge scandal. Stop saying it’s a Watergate. Stop saying it’s Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves. Have a special committee, a select committee. The facts will speak for themselves. Pile them on but don’t exaggerate, don’t run ads about Hillary. It feeds the narrative for the other side that it’s only a political event. It’s not. Just be quiet and present the facts,”
5/14/13
Today's signing of the marriage equality law in MN honors the courage of Jack Baker and James McConnell, who tried to marry there in 1970
From the NYTimes:
Jack Baker was a student at the University of Minnesota, where he was a well-known gay-rights activist, when he and his partner, James McConnell, showed up at the county clerk’s office to apply for a marriage license. The year was 1970. Minnesota law set out the logistics for obtaining a license and marrying in the state, but contained no explicit requirement that members of the couple be of the opposite sex. Nonetheless, and not surprisingly, the county clerk turned them down.
Imagine going to your high school prom with a same-sex date...these boys did!
This photo makes my heart soar.
Quote of the day
With Jason Collins coming out and letting everybody know he was gay, it forces you to deal with it. If you’re someone who is against gay people, then my question is what you’re going to do once a player comes out in your locker room? Are you going to quit football?
If you’re a coach and you don’t like the fact that a player is gay, are you going to stop coaching? I don’t think so. It would force guys to deal with it and you’d get over it. I’m sure there are probably players in the locker room who have thought another player was gay in the past. It’s not going to stop you from playing football. Life will go on and everybody will keep going out there doing their job.--NFL cornerback Charles Woodson
5/13/13
An emotional story is told by this Jewish Minnesota lawmaker, Steve Simmon. "The moment when night ends and a new day begins is the moment when you look into the face of a stranger and see the face of your brother,”
From the Huffington Post:
In the past, Steve's comments have drew national attention, including: "How many more gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually wants them around?" Simon argues that sexual orientation is a "gift from God" and not a choice.
The Majority Leader for Minnesota state senate is a good man: listen to his speech today. It gives me shivers...
This man is a real Christian and someone who makes me proud to be an American and a Democrat.
5/12/13
Happy Mother's Day to my mom
Fabi Rodriguez. She's on the left and is one amazing person! A big, heartfelt thanks to her.
5/10/13
With its spire in place, One World Trade Center is the tallest building again in the Western Hemisphere. New York City triumphs over the forces of fear
From CNN:
Construction workers bolted a 408-foot spire into place atop One World Trade Center on Friday, symbolically capping New York's comeback after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The spire brings the iconic building to a height of 1,776 feet -- an allusion to the year the United States declared its independence. It also makes the building the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the third-tallest in the world. The company developing the building in partnership with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey confirmed the installation. While the building still has significant construction before its scheduled 2014 opening, the installation brought cheers from New Yorkers, and from people around the country.
5/9/13
5/8/13
Today, on my 53rd birthday, I feel grateful for life and my life...
Today, at 53, I celebrate life and the wonderful things in it now more than ever. My relationships with family and friends are most important to me, followed by good health, meaningful work, LGBT activism, exercise, and lots of movies and books. I am fortunate to be alive, happy, and healthy, contributing in whatever ways I can to society and those people and things that I love.
BTW, a friend sent them this awesome birthday video:
How to resist the urge to be always checking your smartphone...
When you are really bored, the best thing you can do is sit down and let yourself experience the boredom more fully. It may not be a deep or satisfying state, but at least you are not indulging in the things with which you usually cover up this kind of experience. Your real state of mind is more nakedly exposed, because for the time being there are no distractions. If you can stay with the experience of boredom, you can try to feel your way through into something deeper, truer, and more spontaneous within yourself.
An excerpt from Staying with Boredom, from Tricycle.com
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