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Op-ed: Why This Major Organization Is Changing Its Name
Being your authentic self is a revolutionary act for millions of LBGTQ people. Here’s why one major organization is going to do the same.
Rea Carey
www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/10/08/op-ed-why-major-organization-changing-its-name
Pope Francis Gets A Lecture From A Devout Married Couple About Welcoming Gays In The Church
The Vatican’s synod on family is underway, and it’s not exactly going as planned. In a surprise that clearly discomforted a number of bishops, an Australian couple hand-chosen to talk to the bishops about the importance of marriage gave an impromptu lecture about the importance of loving gay people–and about sex.
Ron and Mavis Pirola, an Australian couple, have been married for 55 years. They have four children and eight grandchildren and are practicing Catholics. In short, everything the Vatican would like to tout as the ideal couple. So no doubt, the couple’s statement at the synod was about as welcome as a, well, a gay couple.
“Friends of ours were planning their Christmas family gathering when their gay son said he wanted to bring his partner home too,” the Pirolas recounted to the 200 assembled bishops (and one nun). “They fully believed in the Church’s teachings and they knew their grandchildren would see them welcome the son and his partner into the family. Their response could be summed up in three words, ‘He’s our son’.”
Not content to stop there, the Pirolas then told the bishops that they should follow that example: “What a model of evangelization for parishes as they respond to similar situations in their neighborhood! It is a practical example of what the Instrumentum Laboris [the Synod’s working document] says concerning the Church’s teaching role and its main mission to let the world know of God’s love.”
But that wasn’t all. The Pirolas also spoke eloquently about the joy of sex, which had the group of (presumably) celibate clerics squirming. “Gradually we came to see that the only feature that distinguishes our sacramental relationship from that of any other good Christ-centred relationship is sexual intimacy, and that marriage is a sexual sacrament with its fullest expression in sexual intercourse,” the couple said.
As for Church teaching on sexual matters, the Pirolas politely described it as “from another planet.”
The bishops somehow mustered a round of applause for the Pirolas, though perhaps it was an attempt to get them to shut up. What the episode proved, however, is that the Vatican is out of touch with many of its most faithful members. The question is, will it deign to do anything about it?
JohnGallagher
LGBT community gears up for marriage after ban struck down
LGBT community gears up for marriage after ban struck down.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqiX86i4YKA&feature=youtube_gdata
LGBT// We deserve to be happy
my first Youtube video song// Kissing In Cars by Pierce the Veil Come on U.S legalize same sex marriage.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wIHakQYZSA&feature=youtube_gdata
Stereotypical LGBT Questions feat. Lauryn King! || Adrian Logan
check out and subscribe to Lauryn!: youtube.com/user/L4urynking twitter: @sail0r_adrian instagram: @osnapitzadrian.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuMeLhViCgQ&feature=youtube_gdata
PSA LGBT Bullying
MLA Citations "Bullying & Sexual Orientation | Violence Prevention Works." Bullying & Sexual Orientation | Violence Prevention Works. Olweus Bullying Prevention Program, n.d. Web. 05 Oct….
These States Still Won't Issue Same-Sex Marriage Licenses
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Conservative officials in some of the six states where Supreme Court action this week likely cleared the way for same-sex weddings say they won’t issue marriage licenses to gay couples until their hands are forced. Now, gay rights advocates are preparing to do just that.
James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, called the court’s action a “watershed moment for the entire country,” and other gay rights activists described plans Tuesday to challenge remaining bans. On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans. Couples in six other states — Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming — would be bound by those same appellate rulings that were put on hold.
In Kansas, Attorney General Derek Schmidt noted that to date no court has squarely decided whether the Kansas Constitution’s prohibition on same-sex marriage is invalid, and he said that the state will deal with any litigation as it comes. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, fighting a close re-election battle, has said the state should defend the ban.
“The people have spoken on this,” Brownback said. “I don’t know how much more you can bolster it than to have a vote of the people to put in the constitution that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.”
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has said that the state’s attorney general will continue defending its constitution defining marriage between a man and a woman and that the U.S. Supreme Court refusal to hear appeals of gay marriage bans had no impact on a state case contesting that definition.
South Carolina’s attorney general said if a court specifically rules against its gay marriage ban, he will then decide how to proceed.
Meanwhile, some of the indirectly affected states didn’t feel the need to wait. In liberal Colorado, which is also covered by the same 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as Kansas, gay marriage is now officially legal. Attorney General John Suthers said Tuesday that all of the state’s counties must issue the licenses.
Nationally, the ACLU plans to fight state bans from circuit court to circuit court, said staff attorney Joshua Black, noting Tuesday’s decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of striking down Idaho and Nevada’s bans on gay marriage.
In Kansas, where the state constitution specifically bans same-sex marriages, the ACLU affiliate spent Tuesday reaching out to lawyers to join its legal team for a federal challenge that would seek an immediate court order blocking the ban, given the precedent in the 10th Circuit. It could be filed as soon as next week, said Doug Bonney, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri.
In Kansas’ Reno County, Julia and Regina Johnson were given the necessary paperwork Tuesday for a marriage license before a clerk called them hours later to say their application was denied.
Reno County Chief Judge Patricia Macke Dick said she had no choice because there is no case that specifically overturns the Kansas same-sex marriage ban.
The only gay marriage-related lawsuit now in the Kansas courts is a narrow case filed by two couples who married in other states and sued Kansas over tax treatment. Their case is being heard next month.
In Wyoming, three same-sex couples and the gay rights group Wyoming Equality have a lawsuit pending contesting the state’s definition of marriage as solely between a man and woman. It is set for a hearing in December. An attorney for Wyoming Equality took issue with Mead’s comment that the Supreme Court action had no impact on the state case.
“At the end of the day, the 10th Circuit’s ruling is now the law in Wyoming, which means that same-sex couples now have the fundamental right to get married in Wyoming and the governor and the AG’s office are trying to interfere with that right,” said attorney James Lyman.
South Carolina’s Attorney General Alan Wilson says no ruling has been made in a lawsuit by a same-sex couple legally married in Washington, D.C., who live in South Carolina, and that he was required to keep defending the state until a judge rules that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling applies to the South Carolina lawsuit.
“When those options are gone, we will have a discussion on how the state moves forward,” Wilson said Tuesday.
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ Opens on Broadway: REVIEW
BY NAVEEN KUMAR
The best plays, like the best fiction, force us to see the world in a new way. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a breathtaking new play by Simon Stephens adapted from Mark Haddon’s book of the same name, goes one step further—plunging us deep into the frenzied, myopic mind of an uncommon boy investigating the murder of a neighborhood dog. Directed by Marianne Elliott (Tony winner for War Horse), the electrifying National Theatre production, which arrived on Broadway Sunday at the Barrymore Theatre, cracks open the imagination and kicks it into the most thrilling kind of overdrive.
Fans of Haddon’s best-selling 2003 novel may remember its unusual narrator, Christopher Boone: a 15-year-old, self-proclaimed “mathematician with behavioural difficulties.” Though Haddon has written that his book is not a story about Asperger’s or autism, Christopher has qualities consistent with points along the spectrum and, above all, his mind is an extraordinary sort of kaleidoscope through which to observe and navigate the world.
Stephens’ adaptation begins as the novel does, with Christopher (played with dizzying precision and sensitivity by Alex Sharp) discovering his neighbor’s dog, murdered in the yard. In the ensuing interactions, first with a policeman and later his father, Christopher’s particular way of seeing and relating quickly becomes clear: he doesn’t like to be touched except for palm-to-palm, he always tells the truth and his relentless devotion to logic finds ultimate solace in math while leading him to think (quite reasonably) that metaphors are really just lies.
Christopher’s recount of the play’s events is narrated, initially, by his teacher Siobhan (a robustly heartfelt Francesa Faridany) as a story he has written for school. As the plot launches from his canine recon to shattering revelations about his family, Christopher is thrust onto a collision course with his most terrifying mental roadblocks—including a narrow capacity for emotions, paralyzing fear of sensory chaos and limited ability to move about the world.
A nimble, multi-talented ensemble morphs into the drama’s many characters and creates the show’s people-powered stage magic (who says a boy needs suspended cables to dream of flying?). Sharp, a recent Juilliard grad, makes a dazzling Broadway debut, animating Christopher’s every frenetic mental shift with mesmerizing agility. As his parents, Richard Hollis and Enid Graham reveal the heartbreaking heft of raising and loving a child like Christopher.
Every facet of Elliott’s deftly imaginative production works to visualize Christopher’s inner life—from his revelatory, often moving flashes of mental clarity to moments of overwhelming terror. An ingenious team of designers does stunning work creating a world ordered around Christopher’s experience—lines, light, noise, arithmetic—all imbued with a sort of magical realism.
At first, organizing his experience into words is a way for Christopher to cope with being an outsider; Siobhan reading them aloud acts as a kind of validation. Watching Christopher take control of his own story as the play unfolds is as beautiful as it is empowering—particularly for anyone who’s ever felt like a misfit.
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Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar (photos: joan marcus)
Naveen Kumar
CRCDS The Christian Faith and LGBT Experience Lecture
Rev. Ray Bagnuolo, Chaplain and Minister Director for That All May Freely Serve. Lecture: "It Is More Than — what it is."
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