End Marriage Discrimination

GetUp! ad from Australia. Why do we not have more ads in the US about this issue on national television. Could it be that we are not as "advanced" as other western nations on social issues? No...how could that be???????? Wake up America. So many look to us a s a beacon of hope and progress. Don't embarrass yourself by enshrining DISCRIMINATION into state constitutions. Ste up America! Be that great beacon of hope for your people.

Marriage for all Families: Stories from Minnesota

The following states now allow marriage for all families.

• Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, Iowas and Washington state.

Unfortunately, these two loving mothers from Minnesota still do not have equal protection under the law as a married couple, which means that their children do not enjoy the same benefits as other children of straight married couples.

It is interesting that when I read the comments section there is so much hate and stupidity coming from people who oppose marriage equality. I can understand the opposition I suppose taking into consideration how the church has brainwashed people into believing that only certain kinds of love are acceptable to God (Go figure!). But the hate is so unnecessary and so revealing.

Stories from Maine

Marriage for all families spotlights 2 couples from Maine and their quest for marriage equality. These stories sharply focus the argument for marriage equality as only real life situations can. It is so clear that this is a social justice issue. My hope is that as more people come to see how LGBT people are fundamentally the same as straight folks, denying them of legal rights and protections will come to be seen as a really primitive social stance.

Sir Ian McKellen as Gandolf

Stephen Colbert interviews the great Gandolf.

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Bishop Gene Robinson's Sermon on Gay Pride Day

Diversity is not an easy pill for some to swallow. Our cookie cutter culture would rather everyone fit into a neat little box. Indeed our culture makes it so hard to exist outside the box, that many must suffer lifetimes of internal and external oppression. And often that oppression is sanctioned in various subtle and not so subtle ways by society. The boy scouts come to mind and their stand not to allow gay scouts become Eagle Scouts. That is an oppressive message and it reinforces in the minds of some the idea that being gay is in some way less honorable. Or take the passage of the constitutional amendment in North Carolina defining marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman. This is state sanctioned oppression. Don't ask, don't tell was another form of oppression. But these oppressive behaviors are doomed to fall because they are not in the divine plan. God (or whatever term you use ) wants a fully diverse universe. Listen to Gene Robinson's sermon in which he invites all to participate in the great liberating act of offering water to the oppressed and in so doing quenching your own spiritual thirst for justice.

Brook and Sparrow

Brook And Sparrow

I come to work the earth, my heart
To shape this precious stillness
And exchange my sad stories
For the fragrant humus, my soul's healing
I come to bear witness to time's
Slow downward pull
It slips by, scudding like a low cloud
Across the mountain's spine
I come to hear the ancestor's buried song
To tune the heart's ear
To music of brook and sparrow
And sap's slow descent beneath the bark

I come as well to see...
Not with human eyes
But eyes that pierce this veil 
To see the shimmering thread
Connecting me to cloud and brook and sparrow
Until the "me" becomes luminous space
Where once I was
Then, stretching invisible body
Along warm curving sunlight, and
Aching like a lover...
Yield to Your awakening touch.

WPS
Hawkscry
12/3/12

Hallelujah

A beautiful rendition of the Leonard Cohen song. Even though the song is about negotiating the minefield of interpersonal relationships and the pain that comes from acting unskillfully in those relationships, every time he sings the word "Hallelujah" it is like breathing in some relief that comes from abandoning ourselves to the healing grace that is always available but often seemingly remote because we grasp so tenaciously to our conditioned self.