1. If Jesus did not mention a subject, it cannot be essential to his teachings. 2. You are not being persecuted when prevented from persecuting others. 3. Truth isn’t like wine that gets better with age. It’s more like manna you must recognize wherever you are and whoever you are with. 4. You cannot call it “special rights” when someone asks for the same rights you have. 5. It is no longer your personal religious view if you’re bothering someone else. 6. Marriage is a civil ceremony, which means it’s a civil right. 7. If how someone stimulates the pubic nerve has become the needle to your moral compass, you are the one who is lost. 8. To condemn homosexuality, you must use parts of the Bible you don’t yourself obey. Anyone who obeyed every part of Leviticus would rightly be put in prison. 9. If we do not do the right thing in our day, our grandchildren will look at us with same embarrassment we look at racist grandparents. 10. When Jesus forbade judging, that included you.
Quick update for everyone, let’s see what I have this time. On a side note, I’m finally getting to some really old links I’ve had stored away, so hopefully I’ll be getting through most of them soon, although I’ll have to see how many links still work. Anyway, onto the content.
Quick update for everyone, let’s see what I have today. First up, from Better Book Titles, “The Colour of Magic” which is the first book of an amazing series:
If you haven’t watched it before, a short TED talk by Frank Warren of PostSecret. Fun fact, whenever the conversation comes to who I could have dinner with if I could with anyone in the world, Warren is always on my list. I saw him speak at Pitt and it was amazing, so check out the talk.
Good Old Games is finally able to offer the Quest for Glory series. All five games! I’m totally excited and going to be losing a lot of time to these (one and five are the best, in my opinion). Such amazing games!
I’m trying to find a link, but the rumor I heard on a podcast is that in the upcoming Spiderman tie in game, if you preorder (I think from Amazon), you unlock the ability to play as Stan Lee in one of the levels. Epic!
Sometimes a news story is seemingly tailor made for me to write about. Guess this is one of those times.
Recently, in Ohio, a Cub Scout volunteer leader was forced to resign, because she is a lesbian.
First up, she was a den leader. It can be incredibly difficult to recruit quality volunteers, so the Boy Scouts were certainly shooting themselves in the foot in that respect.
I can sympathize with Tyrrell with wanting her son to be involved, I’ve said it before, Scouting really is a good program. It taught me so much and was such an integral part of my life growing up. I met friends I’m still close with, learned so many skills and really did find a place where I felt safe.
Additionally, studies have shown that young people who stay in Scouting are more likely to be successful later in life, learn leadership and skills that provide for them their entire lives.
So it of course saddens me that this discriminatory policy still exists. The story got picked up all over the net including the Huffington Post.
Even though they revoked her membership, local leaders said it in no way reflects how well she did with the children or how effective she was as a leader. They said it is solely based on her sexual orientation.
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Shortly after registering my son for Cub Scouts, I was asked to assume the role of den leader and was persuaded by a platform of tolerance, acceptance and support. Throughout the year, my cubs performed volunteer service at a local soup kitchen, collected canned goods for area churches to distribute in food baskets, participated in bell-ringing for the Salvation Army, and, at the time of my removal, were working on a conservation project for a state park. My Tiger Cubs earned multiple Scout badges for service and skills, while learning and exercising the 12 Core Values of Scouting: citizenship, compassion, cooperation, courage, faith, health & fitness, honesty, perseverance, positive attitude, resourcefulness, respect, and responsibility. The revocation of my membership came shortly after I was elected treasurer of my pack and uncovered some inconsistencies in the pack’s finances. Within a week of reporting these findings to the council, I received notice that my membership had been revoked, based on my sexual orientation, citing that due to being gay, I did “not meet the high standards of membership that the BSA seeks”
Other adult volunteers in the Pack came to her defense (follow the link to also see her appearance on CNN):
“I’m not a city person. I’m just a backwoods hick, and I don’t think anybody around here have an issue with homosexuals. She did a wonderful job, and what they did to her was just horrible. When I told my son Jen was kicked out because she is gay, he didn’t know what was wrong because he thought gay meant happy. He’s just devastated.””It has been brought to my attention that BSA is now saying that the boys were being taught about sex and other inappropriate subject matter. Those accusations are not true at all. I have three children in Scouts. My youngest Jordan, was a Tiger scout with Jen. Jen has been a great leader in our scouting family. I trust her with my children completely. It is sad that she must be defended against false accusations like these!”
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All of those accomplishments that she achieved with these Scouts: these are first graders. Six years old. Think of how amazing that is! I’ll ignore the part about the financial irregularities, although that does kind of speak for itself being retaliation.
I know this because my moms, too, are lesbian parents, and as an Eagle Scout (the highest rank the BSA has to offer) I am acutely aware of the effects this policy has on families like mine. I joined the Cub Scouts when I was just 6 years old, at the lowest rank on the totem pole: Tiger Cub. The fact that my moms were lesbians was controversial in this conservative, central Wisconsin town of 20,000, but the Cub Scout Pack (the equivalent of a Boy Scout Troop) decided to adopt a wait-and-see approach.
Two years later, my moms had become a regular presence at our Pack meetings, offering their thoughts and advice. Slowly, the other parents learned that my moms were not, in fact, insidious agents advancing some nefarious agenda; they were simply concerned with making sure their son (me!) had an enjoyable and enriching experience in the Scouting program — and this sounded strangely familiar to the other parents.
In 1998 our Pack had grown so much that they needed another adult leader, a Den Leader, to help with the boys in my age group. No other parents stepped up, so Jackie, my short mom, volunteered and became Pack 381’s first lesbian Den Mother.
My grandfather was an Eagle scout, my father was an Eagle scout and I am an Eagle Scout. Other than his family and his Christian faith, the most important thing in my father’s life was the Boy Scouts. The lived and breathed scouting. That is what makes this decision so exceedingly difficult and emotional. However, I know that my father would support my decision.
Best wishes to you, Ohio River Valley Council and the Boy Scouts of America in future endeavors. I hope that the powers that be will look into their hearts and find the wisdom and courage to re-examine the policies of the Boy Scouts of America.
And here is her appearance with her family at the GLAAD awards:
And on the other side of the fence, right-wing organizations are attacking Tyrrell, total victim-blaming.
Is the BSA wrong? Of course it is. Do I blame Tyrrell? No, she was just trying to provide a quality program for her son and other children in her neighborhood, which by all accounts she did. It is a shame to see her kicked out like that, but I do hope that the stir that this has caused will force the National Board to think about how their policies hurt families, communities and most importantly, children.
These policies also apply to youth members, not just adults, but that is not for this post. I would just like to reiterate how much Scouting helped me by giving me a safe place to be myself, even if I wasn’t comfortable with myself or even fully aware of my sexuality at the time. But looking back, especially on my time serving as camp staff, some of the best staff members in the history of our camp are gay. Maybe we all felt like we had something extra to prove, or maybe we’re just like everyone else: honest people trying to do our best in a job we’re given and at the same time, making life-long friends and making positive differences in the lives of children.
Quick update for everyone, let’s see what we have. First up, an awesome mash-up for NES/SNES games and Google Map locations:
An awesome follow-up that I’ve been meaning to share about the Dan Savage issue. Slate nails it:
The American right is undertaking a huge project of trying to put right-wing politics beyond criticism by shouting “religious bigotry” any time someone gets in the way of their political agenda. If they can create a consensus that it’s somehow off-limits to criticize teaching that gay people are subhuman as long as you wrap it up in religion, that gives them a huge political advantage. Taken far enough, merely stating out loud in public that you don’t believe gay people are evil could be cause for the fainting couches to be pulled out and accusations that Christians are being oppressed. Sounds ludicrous? Well, consider that we’re currently debating whether or not it’s oppressing Christians to accurately state what’s in the Bible. Anyone who is actually supportive of gay rights shouldn’t be playing along with this feigned umbrage. It won’t stop until opposing anti-gay actions is considered completely off-bounds on the grounds that it’s an attack on religion.
Dan also weighs in here about the North Carolina amendment which passed yesterday.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Christianist have taken over the Republican party: and that’s a shame. We need to be able to have rational discussion, that is how we will solve our problems, by working together. But if one side just shuts down and cries out when someone disagrees with them or calls them on their bullshit, then we can’t have meaningful governance.
I went backpacking two weeks ago, and rightly so, I was a bit sore afterwards. We did the first part of the LHHT, which is just up and down and up and down. Here is the elevation profile. Check out my pictures here (and thanks to my friends for always making sure to be in them) if you’re interested, including awesome panoramics:
It’s kind of like the merger of this and Warhol’s Phone, where I sometimes, when I remember to, blog about communication in Pittsburgh. But this was too good to not share, courtesy of BuzzFeed:
It’s running in North Carolina where they vote today on a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.
Update for everyone, let’s see what we have today. First up, in major Pittsburgh news, a new program called “Mister Rogers for Adults.” is creating a series of short clips to air before movies and online. I love Mister Rogers so much, so this is just amazing. Check out the story here and subscribe via YouTube here.
NYC may be getting an underground park. Which would be a cool compliment to the raised park that is nearing completion:
North Carolina will vote in less than a week to inscribe anti-marriage equality into their constitution. In a strange and sickening turn, the effort has been endorsed by a White Supremacist group, after it was revealed it was written to “protect the white race.” If that makes no sense to you either, don’t feel bad, it doesn’t to me. Unless they were more concerned about the news that gay couples are more inter-racial and inter-ethnic (could someone explain the difference to me, please) than straight couples.
Fairly big update for you today, let’s see what I have.
First up, pretty awesome spot via Copyranter:
Tampa Bay drafted a paralyzed player, who would have been in this year’s draft class. Very, very classy.
I was just talking about Stephen King yesterday, so it’s nice to see him asked to be taxed, but here is the more important quote:
I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that — sorry, kiddies — you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay — not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay — in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.
Totally not appropriate for work, but I love watching these three grandmas as they watch the Kim Kardashian sex tape:
The Good Men Project has a top ten list, of why you should only read top ten lists. Very clever, I especially like number four.
There’s a big stink about Dan Savage and his recent remarks. I have a lot of thoughts about it, although he sums it up very well. Please have a read here, it’s long, but it’s worth it. And the sad but true follow up, a study has revealed that non-religious are more compassionate that those who are religious. Guess that’s why the “Christian” Right has been able to draw up so much fake outrage and cries of being bullied when someone uses their own freedom of speech to disagree with them and point out some hypocritical facts about parts of religion.
But anyway, go read the first link, totally worth it. Have a great one, I’ll be back with more soon!
It’s been said before, and we’ll keep saying it. Those who protest too much, against anything, are usually secretly turned on by it (see Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, and the list continues ad infinitum).
Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates.
Slog, and AmericaBlog have both covered it. So just remember, that guy railing against equal rights? Huge self-hating homo.
And you wouldn’t want to be thought of as gay would you? Guess you’ll have to stop railing against me.
