Sunday, March 31, 2013

"Same Gender Loving People - No. 1296"


"Love And Happiness Are The Same Thing..."


Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So everyday, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.


"Reflections On Married Life..."

It was a quiet Easter spent at home today.  


Early this morning, I colored our eggs and made our Easter display.  Then later, I made cupcakes for our dessert this evening.  For dinner, a meatloaf, French Onion Potatoes, green peas and dinner rolls.  We'll watch some television and tomorrow, back to work.


Sometimes, it's quiet when you're married.

"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Artist's Corner..."

"Resurrection"
Acrylic on canvas
Steve Walker



"Gay PDA Is Okay!"


"The Joy Of Love Is Togetherness... Live Fearlessly"




"The Truth About Families..."

They're made of love...






"HAPPY EASTER"

"Fear Eats the Soul"



"This Made Me Smile..."


"Who knew?"




"In The News..."



YOUNGER AMERICANS ACCEPT FULL HUMANITY OF GAYS
By Cynthia Tucker
March 30, 2013

Familiarity breeds ... acceptance. That's why the battle for full equality for gays and lesbians is already won, no matter what the U.S. Supreme Court decides.A generation of young Americans has grown up with openly gay friends, neighbors and family members, teachers, preachers and entertainment idols. They know them in all their humanity: as responsible parents, as respectable business owners, as conscientious churchgoers, as liars, as cheaters, as drunks. For voters under 35, gay and lesbian Americans are no strange breed apart; they are simply people, just like heterosexuals.

As a college teacher, I've observed that casual affirmation of the full humanity of gays and lesbians. Even on a university campus in the Deep South, where many students hail from Republican families and hew to conservative religious beliefs, homosexual students are generally accepted as peers.

Among the cohort called "millennials" by the respected Pew Research Center -- those are adults born since 1980 -- support for same-sex marriage is at 70 percent. The same percentage of millennials believes gays and lesbians can be good parents, according to Pew. Even younger conservative Christians are less resistant to gay marriage than their parents and grandparents, polls show -- with just 44 percent of them opposing those unions.


(Familiarity has also helped to change the views of some older Americans. Note the conversion of Ohio's Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who now supports gay marriage. Portman recently announced that he had shifted from the opposing view after learning that his son, Will, is gay.)

As an adult who grew up when gays and lesbians were still shunned and shamed, I'll admit to having been pleasantly surprised by the views of some of my students. One -- a young woman who described herself as conservative -- told me she is not troubled by the notion of gay marriage because "it doesn't have anything to do with me."

That principle ought to be a bedrock of conservative/libertarian philosophy, the underpinning of its suspicion of an intrusive government. But that's not the way many older conservatives see it. They have fused their religious views with their political ideology, resulting in a curious and confusing philosophy that supports government intervention in the lives of people whose values they disagree with.

In service of their muddled philosophy, they've put forth a number of arguments against gay marriage -- including the strange contention that it would undermine heterosexual marriage. There is no rational evidence anywhere to support that. Nor have I ever heard a divorced heterosexual couple argue that their marriage collapsed because the gay couple down the street got hitched.

Equally ridiculous is the notion -- actually put before the Supreme Court last week by Charles Cooper, who defended California's initiative banning same-sex unions -- that the traditional institution cannot be changed because it was designed to enforce societal norms around procreation. In other words, marriage is for those who plan on having babies. As Justice Elena Kagan pointed out, laughing, that idea would preclude marriage between men and women in late middle age.

Somewhere in those separate but connected ideas -- each is a "pro-family" defense of traditional marriage -- are clues to some of the anxiety eating at opponents of same-sex unions: They are deeply worried over the decline of marriage as an institution. That fear has led them to seek someone or something to blame.


But younger adults don't share that anxiety, either. They know that traditional marriage is already in decline. For the first time, according to the U.S. Census, heterosexual married couples do not constitute a majority of households. Instead, there are multiple other arrangements: single-parent families, never-marrieds living alone, couples living together without the bonds of matrimony, roommates without romantic connections.
There are many reasons for those changes, but gay romances had nothing to do with them. Indeed, one argument for allowing same-sex marriage is to shore up the institution, which is due for some modernizing.
Young Americans seem more than willing to give that a shot.

Cynthia Tucker, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a visiting professor at the University of Georgia.


"Life After Truth..."


In this week's New York Times, there was a revealing article on former New Jersey governor, James McGreevey and his life after what seemed to be his "fall from grace..."  McGreevey and his partner Mark O'Donnell are the subject of a new HBO documentary by Alexandra Pelosi,  “Fall to Grace.”


"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Artist's Corner..."


Jesus Rises
from The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision
Oil on panel
Douglas Blanchard

the Passion of the Christ is re-imagined in the art of Douglas Blanchard.  He depicts Christ as a contemporary young gay man, and in so doing, asks the question, "What If Jesus Were Gay?"






Saturday, March 30, 2013

"Gay PDA Is Okay!"


"Togetherness Is The Truth Of Love... Live Fearlessly"




"It's Not So Funny..."


"Fear Eats the Soul"



"The Artist's Corner..."

"Adam and Andy"
Comic strip drawing
James Asal





"The Truth Today..."


John Corvino responds to those who blame homosexuality for disease, misery, and despair, ultimately turning the tables on those who wield morality as a weapon.

Dr. John Corvino, also known as the "Gay Moralist," is a writer, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the author of What's Wrong with Homosexuality? and the co-author (with Maggie Gallagher) of Debating Same-Sex Marriage, both from Oxford University Press.


"Fear Eats the Soul"

"This Made Me Smile..."


When I was a little boy, the highlight of my week was staying up late on Saturday night (9 or 10 p.m.) to watch "The Carol Burnett Show."  I loved the comedy skits and the dance numbers featuring the Ernie Flatt Dancers left me speechless every week.


"I am always remembering..."



"Same Gender Loving People - No. 1295"


"Love Is An Eternal Truth..."


Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So everyday, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.


"The Truth Is Found In Nature..."



Nature’s Case For Same-Sex Marriage
By David George Haskell
The New York Times
March 30, 2013

BIOLOGY has returned to the nation’s highest court. It’s not Darwin’s theory of evolution on the docket this time, but the nature of sex. Defenders of Proposition 8, California’s ban on gay marriage, base their case on what they call the “objective biological fact” that procreation is an exclusively heterosexual process. Citing the 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone, they argue that marriage should be “founded in nature.”

This invocation of nature echoes other voices. Last December, before Pope Benedict XVI resigned, he used his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia to deplore what he called a “new philosophy of sexuality” that manipulates and denies nature. Roy S. Moore, re-elected last fall as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, once let rip with less measured language, exclaiming in a child-custody case that homosexuality was “a crime against nature and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” Meanwhile, Tennessee legislators have repeatedly sought the prohibition of any sexual education “inconsistent with natural human reproduction.” None of this is, in fact, new: Oscar Wilde’s trials hinged on the courts’ understanding of natural love and unnatural vice.

References to biology coat these arguments with a gloss of scientific rigor. But before we write nature into law, let’s take a stroll outside the Supreme Court’s chambers and check those biological facts. Descending the steps of the court, we enter Washington’s planted landscape, a formal park where nature stands alongside patriotic monuments and federal buildings. There is no shortage of counsel about biology here.




David George Haskell, a professor of biology at Sewanee: The University of the South, is the author of “The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature.”


"Fear Eats the Soul"


"Unintentionally Gay..."

Really?
In a clothing store, not one gay employee spoke up and told 'em this might be a bad idea.





"And The Truth Shall Set You Free..."

Kwame Harris Speaks Out

A few months after the public learned that former 49er Kwame Harris is gay, he’s now speaking out about his experience being closeted in the NFL.

On Friday morning, Harris appeared in his first interview since an alleged assault of an ex-boyfriend publicly outed the former NFL offensive tackle. The interview aired on CNN Newsroom and can be seen in the video above.

In the interview — filmed at Stanford where he played his college ball — Harris discusses how painful it was to keep his sexuality a secret.

“You want to escape the despair and turmoil and your mind goes to dark places,” Harris said. “… I’m happy today, and I’m glad they were just ideas and I didn’t act on any of them.”

Harris said he never considered coming out during his playing days (no NFL player ever has), but that in retrospect, he wishes he could have found the “strength and the fortitude” to do so.

Harris was drafted by the 49ers in 2003 and played five seasons in San Francisco before a year-long stint with the Oakland Raiders. He was released by the Raiders after the 2008 season and has been out of football ever since.

“I’m gay. I’m a former athlete. And I think I’m a pretty normal guy,” Harris said.



"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Truth About What We Want..."



"Fear Eats the Soul"



Friday, March 29, 2013

"Same Gender Loving People - No. 1294"


"Love... Nothing Else Matters"


Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So everyday, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.


"It's Not So Funny..."



Dear Jimmy Kimmel,

While I appreciate that you are a supporter of marriage equality and GLBT people in general.  This is not so funny... maybe I'll see it differently when my GLBT brothers and sisters can actually marry the person they love in any part of the country and when my own marriage will be recognized in my home state of Michigan or anywhere else in the country my husband and I might find ourselves.  Until then, please don't make the fact that I don't have the same rights as my non-gay brothers and sisters a source of amusement... It's just not that funny.

"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Truth About Love..."


"True love always brings joy to ourselves and to the one we love. If our love does not bring joy to both of us, it is not true love."
- Thich Nhat Hanh


"The Imitation Of Life..."


"You're My Thrill" - A beautiful short film from Spain set in the current economic crisis which deals with the theme of how life goes on.  It's about attraction, how we sometimes meet, and when we seek the possibility of love.


"Gay PDA Is Okay!"


"Life Is About Love, Love Is About Togetherness... Live Fearlessly"



"The Truth Today..."



Many LGBT rights advocates have drawn inspiration from the civil rights movement for African-Americans. In response, social conservatives often object that the analogy is illegitimate, because race is "non-behavioral" whereas homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle." Here John Corvino explains why this response misunderstands the nature of racism, the nature of homophobia, and the connections between the two.

Dr. John Corvino, also known as the "Gay Moralist," is a writer, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the author of What's Wrong with Homosexuality? and the co-author (with Maggie Gallagher) of Debating Same-Sex Marriage, both from Oxford University Press.


"Fear Eats the Soul"


"This Made Me Smile..."




"The Artist's Corner..."

"The Age of Innocence"
Acrylic on canvas
Steve Walker



"This Is The Face Of Hate..."


Lest we forget... although many battles have now been won, the struggle against ignorance and hate is far from over. Here is news from my home state of Michigan, where the state's representative to the Republican National Committee is keeping himself busy spreading lies and hatred about GLBT people...

From Salon:

GOP Official Defends Sharing Article About “Filthy” Gays And Lesbians


A member of Michigan’s Republican National Committee used his Facebook page to promote an article about the “homosexual lifestyle” that states, among other things, that “homosexuals live unhealthy lifestyles, and have historically accounted for the bulk of syphilis, gonorrhea, Hepatitis B, the ‘gay bowel syndrome’, tuberculosis and cytomegalovirus gays and lesbians” and that “many homosexual sexual encounters occur while drunk, high on drugs, or in an orgy setting.”

On Thursday, Dave Agema defended sharing Dr. Frank Joseph’s “Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals” on his Facebook page, explaining in a statement to the Detroit Free Press that the article was “worth sharing given the debate over gay marriage that is happening in the Supreme Court.” Agema added: “I strongly maintain my position in support of marriage between a man and a woman and I will not back down from my core beliefs in support of strengthening the family.”

Other excerpts from Joseph’s screed include:

Part of the homosexual agenda is to get the public to affirm their filthy lifestyle, as one homosexual admitted in the October 1987 homosexual rally on Washington: “We are no longer seeking just a right to privacy and a protection from wrong. We also have a right — as heterosexual Americans already have — to see government and society affirm our lives.”

Joseph also argues that “part of the homosexual agenda is to turn people from Christianity” and that “many homosexuals admit that they are pedophiles.”

A group of 21 Michigan Republicans have called for Agema to resign in a statement, arguing that “bigotry in the GOP cannot be tolerated”:

This isn’t about what we believe either politically or as women and men of faith. This is about common decency and realizing that you cannot win an election by insulting a wide swath of the electorate, whose votes our Republican Party needs to once again form a national majority.

But Agema stands by the article and sees the backlash as a hit job by “liberal Republicans,” telling the Free Press: “Some publications and even a few liberal Republicans have chosen to take the words of someone else and cast them as my own.”





"Fear Eats the Soul"


Thursday, March 28, 2013

"A Love Song..."


Love can face anything...

"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Artist's Corner..."

"Sleep Tight"
Digital photo manipulation
Dan Skinner



"Sometimes In Advertising..."


Thanks Bud Light, owned by Anheuser-Busch.


"Fear Eats the Soul"



"Gay PDA Is Okay!"


"Love Is Love, Everywhere And Always... Live Fearlessly"



"It's Not So Funny..."

I get what Gary McCoy was trying to say, but really... 
did we need all the negative stereotyping?

"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Truth About What Just Happened..."



History In Real Time

By Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist
The New York Times
March 27, 2013

Witnessing a historic moment is such an odd and exhilarating thing. It is hard to register the full scope of it because you are chest deep in it. That is how I feel about the gay-marriage arguments made before the Supreme Court on Tuesday and Wednesday.

However the court rules on California’s Proposition 8 and the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act, there is no denying that something historic has just happened: an aggrieved group has taken a stand and given voice once again to the American — and indeed Democratic — ideals of justice and fairness and freedom.

On Prop 8, the justices seemed wary of overreaching, but on DOMA, most of the justices seemed to signal an unease or even all-out contempt for the law. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it, DOMA creates two, unequal categories of marriage: “the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”

And regardless of the final ruling, the tables on this issue have already turned. Democratic lawmakers are jumping over one another to get to a microphone and declare their support for same-sex marriage, and conservatives appear resigned to — or possibly overcome by — the change.

As even Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, who vacillates between reason and hyper-reaction, said on his show on Tuesday, during a segment with his Fox colleague Megyn Kelly on the Supreme Court hearings:

“The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That’s where the compelling argument is. ‘We’re Americans, we just want to be treated like everybody else.’ That’s a compelling argument. And to deny that, you’ve got to have a compelling argument on the other side. And the other side hasn’t been able to do anything but thump the Bible.”

That is quite perceptive of O’Reilly (can’t believe I just typed that, but I must give the man his due). In fact, much of the discord in this country over cultural issues is just that: a battle between compelling arguments of basic fairness and rigid religious concepts.

That said, don’t believe for a second that O’Reilly has seen the light and emerged on the right side of the debate on the place of religion in the public square. Just last week he ranted that the “Judeo-Christian tradition is under attack in America” by “secular progressives” who are “running wild with President Obama in the White House.” Their latest target, according to O’Reilly: the Easter Bunny. I kid you not. He finished his rant with this flourish:

“So, if the far left can marginalize Santa and the Easter Bunny, if they can tell the children ‘those symbols are obsolete and unnecessary,’ they then set the stage for a totally secular society in the future. That’s what you have in Scandinavia, and that’s why the Easter Bunny is on the run here in America.”

Yes, that happened.

Now, if you’re finished laughing — or crying — can someone please tell me where to find the Easter Bunny in a religious text? Would that be Eggsodus 3:31? Help me out, folks.

A Discovery News article last April called “What Does the Easter Bunny Have to Do With Easter?” noted:

“According to the University of Florida’s Center for Children’s Literature and Culture, the origin of the celebration — and the origin of the Easter Bunny — can be traced back to 13th-century, pre-Christian Germany, when people worshiped several gods and goddesses. The Teutonic deity Eostra was the goddess of spring and fertility, and feasts were held in her honor on the Vernal Equinox. Her symbol was the rabbit because of the animal’s high reproduction rate.”

So the Easter Bunny may not have Judeo-Christian origins? Bill, what say you? Will the Easter Bunny be in your upcoming “Killing Jesus” book? Oh, never mind.

Anyway, back to the more somber subject.

I believe that in the end, history will record this period in our country’s development as a struggle over the weight that religious mores should have in our system of government and code of laws.

This is either to be America’s Era of Enlightenment or Entrenchment.

Will we move into the future guided by ancient religious texts or current scientific ones? Will we follow the dictates of supposed deities or the prescript of universal dignity?

This is not to begrudge anyone their faith — whatever gets you through the night, brothers and sisters. Rather, it is to say that you should be free to have your faith govern your life but not to extend it to the governance of others’ lives.

I strongly believe in the sovereignty of self — the idea that you are the sole dictate of your own body and your own life as long as no one else is unwittingly or willingly negatively influenced by your choices.

As they say around the way: Do you.

Which brings me back to same-sex marriage. I haven’t heard a single credible argument — either intellectual or moral — that can long sustain the codification of this particular injustice.

********

"Fear Eats the Soul"


"Same Gender Loving People - No. 1293"


"Love, Marriage And Family... This Is Freedom And Justice"


Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So everyday, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.



"This Made Me Smile..."


I so love these videos... I drive my husband nuts when we go to see a film, because sometimes I can't help critiquing some of the gratuitous departures from the realm of reality... When I discovered this YouTube channel, I felt vindicated, at least I know I'm not alone in seeing these things...


BTW: I loved "Skyfall"


"The Truth Having Been Told..."

After a long and bitter struggle, we've now had our day in court and although what the future holds for GLBT equality is inevitable, when that day will arrive now seems to be the question.  The court should issue its ruling in June or July and this much we can be certain of, things will change and the change will be in our favor.  Whether its incremental or sweeping change that the Supreme Court will bring to our struggle is still hard to tell, but there will be change.

Some perhaps saw our arrival at the Supreme Court as the end of a long battle for equality and justice, but the truth of the matter is this, until every loving couple can marry... until everyone can enjoy the benefits of our society without fear of revealing their hearts, the fight for rights is not over.  The fight goes on in small battles won everywhere everyday as we come out to our friend, families, neighbors and co-workers and let them see that we are just as human, and just as loving, and just as deserving of the freedoms that we all take for granted.

The incredible shift in peoples attitudes and beliefs about us in just the last few years has come about because people now know us and they know us as the people they've always known... we are their sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters and we are the people who have been their friends and loved ones all along.  Coming out is the most powerful weapon we have for fighting injustice and for winning our rights... Come out!  It's the way to freedom... Come out! "And the truth shall set you free..."


"Fear Eats the Soul"


Wednesday, March 27, 2013

"Gay PDA Is Okay!"


"A Simple Band Of Metal Says More Than Words Ever Can... Live Fearlessly"



"A Love Song..."


"Lover's moon is high on the sky...143"




"The Truth About Love..."

"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet." 
- Plato


"The Artist's Corner..."

"Hands In The Sand"
Acrylic on canvas
Steve Walker



"The Truth About This Fight..."

Amid fears that we may not get the result that we hope for from the Supreme Court (I don't believe that), let us not forget what this fight is really about...


"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Poet's Corner..."


A Leaf For Hand In Hand 
Walt Whitman

A LEAF for hand in hand!  
You natural persons old and young!  
You on the Mississippi, and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!  
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! You roughs!  
You twain! And all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to walk hand in hand!


"Fear Eats the Soul"



"Same Gender Loving People - No. 1292"


"True Love Is Found In Moments Of Ubiquity..."


Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So everyday, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.



"I Am Always Remembering..."


"The Morning of the Lover's Moon"

"It's early on the morning of the Lover's Moon
It shines brightly through my window, a beacon of my remembering
It's beams are just as strong as ever they were, just like my love for him
And my heart is pierced yet again, as the light shines down on my soul
It's early on the morning of the Lover's Moon."


"Fear Eats the Soul"



Tuesday, March 26, 2013

"Gay PDA Is Okay!"


"Let Your Love Show... Live Fearlessly"



"The Truth About What We Really Want..."

What is it that we're asking the Supreme Court for today and tomorrow?


This PSA from our friends Down Under does a great job of spelling it out... We just want to be free to love and live our lives together in freedom.  Best wishes to our Australian brothers and sisters as they fight for their rights too... Let's lead the way America!

"Fear Eats the Soul"


"The Imitation Of Life..."


"Shelter" - a critically acclaimed film about discovering self and living life.


"The Artist's Corner..."

"Family By Water"
Acrylic on canvas
Steve Walker



"The Truth About Love..."



"To me, love is a pure idea forged in flesh, awkwardly maybe, but it had to connect to somewhere, despite twists and turns of underground cable. An all-too-perfect thing. Sometimes the lines get crossed. Or you get a wrong number. But that's nobody's fault. It'll always be like that, so long as we exist in this physical form. As a matter of principle."
- Haruki Murakami


"The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is Long But It Bends Towards Justice..."

First Pride March in NYC, June 1970

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall,” 
-Barack H. Obama

In yesterday's New York Times, political columnist, John Harwood examined the remarkable progress of the gay rights movement and the sea change that has occurred in less than 50 years since 1969's Stonewall Uprising.  

Indeed, our progress has been incredible to experience... In my own lifetime, I have personally gone from fear and denial to the courage to accept myself and live my life openly.  It is a rare time in the history of our nation and a privilege to be a part of the fight that brings us one step closer to that fundamental and most evident of truths, that all of us are created equal.



"Fear Eats the Soul"