Daily Kos

Reposted from joedemocrat by mapamp

Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meetup for prayer* and community at Daily Kos.  We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing is welcome.

A couple months ago I found a link to a very touching interview with gay Christian musician Ray Boltz. I found his story very touching that I wanted to share it for tonight's meetup.

I believe his personal story illustrates the hurt inflicted on so many people all because  many churches and people of faith fail to understand that people are more important than religious dogma. Jesus always put people first, if He even considered religious dogma at all. In the New Testament, the only people Jesus had any harsh words for were the religious leaders who abused their power to control and oppress people.

A few highlights from the above linked interview on You Tube:

At around the 1:45 mark, he talks about how he became a Christian at age 19. He kept his same sex attraction secret, because he thought he could overcome it. But he could not and he spent the next 30 years hiding who he was because he was too ashamed and afraid of rejection.

At around the 5:30 mark, he talks about his depression and feeling suicidal and his realization 30 years later he wasn't ever going to change. So he decided to be honest with his wife and children and tells them he is gay.

At around the 13:25 mark, he talks about how his struggle influenced his music. The song (links are to the songs on You Tube, if you want to listen to the music) "Does He Still Feel The Nails" was about Ray's feeling he had failed because he couldn't change. The song "The Altar" was about his own feeling broken.

At around the 15:50 mark, we are introduced to one of his newer post "coming out" songs "I Will Choose To Love." This song is about his decision to be who he is no matter what anyone else thinks. Again, the link is to the song on You Tube, if you wish to listen to the music.

Here is a link to a New York Times article about his story. His family was supportive:

Around Christmas 2004, in the midst of a family dinner, Mr. Boltz’s son Phil asked, “Daddy, what’s wrong with you?” This time, Mr. Boltz told the truth: “I’m gay.” His wife and his children, startled though they were by the revelation, told him they still loved and supported him

.

His former wife Carol subsequently spent time on the Board of Soulforce a group dedicated to ending religious oppression against LGBT people.

While he came out to his family in 2004, he still hadn't come out to the nation. In September 2008, Ray Boltz decided to go public in an interview with The Washington Blade, a Washington D.C. based LGBT newspaper.

Unfortunately, the nation's reaction was different from his family's. There were a lot of people who sent him a lot of very nasty messages. There were people who mailed him back his albums saying they would never listen to his music again. He also received a lot of positive messages. There were also a lot of people who told him they were in the same position - gay, but married with children too ashamed to tell anyone.

He has written songs since he came out in 2008. The links are to the songs on You Tube for those who would like to listen. I already included a link to one of his newer songs "I Will Choose To Love". He also wrote the song "God Knows I Tried" about how hard he tried to be someone else but he couldn't be anyone but himself. His newer song "Following Her Dreams" is about marriage equality. Last, here is an embedded video of another newer song "Don't Tell Me Who To Love.". This song is about marriage equality and the music video was made at a Gay Pride parade.

We talk about stereotypes. There have been a lot of negative stereotypes about LGBT the last 30 years. Well, I began to develop a positive stereotype almost 30 years ago. I came to believe if I met a gay or lesbian person, they were more likely to understand me and accept me for who I was. Why do I think that?  I've experienced it. In college,  I had a gay teaching assistant. He took the time to understand a reading problem I'd had that nobody else did. His class seemed to draw gay students - no other class did. These kids were not mean to me. I was used to people rejecting me due to social skills. They didn't. Was that why?  I didn't know but I assumed it was.

In the early 1990's, I had a mental breakdown. I got very depressed and obsessive-compulsive. My co-workers didn't understand. To them, I was just some weirdo who couldn't get himself together and needed a lot of reassurance. Well, the few who did understand were mostly gay co-workers. Was that why?  Again, I didn't know but I assumed so.

To me, gay and lesbian people understood what it felt like to be rejected and were much less likely to do it to somebody else. People who go through the rejection Ray Boltz did usually emerge from that more, not less empathetic.

I watched a lot of TV. I ran across a gay TV channel. I watched this TV show about AIDS. This man was diagnosed with AIDS. This was announced at his work, and people reacted by shunning him. The program asked "Is this how people would react if he was diagnosed with cancer?" There were other shows - all of which illustrated the pain in gay and lesbian people's lives due to rejection. I knew rejection, so I connected with the programs.

At the time, I was in an Assembly of God church. I got invited there, and in 1-2 weeks I had people calling me to see if I was okay (something they did well). That gave me a bit of a support system. I was bothered when I heard people talking bad about gay and lesbian people. I decided to talk to people about this. I told them about the TV shows and some of the people I had met. I wasn't confrontational, more naive. I received the standard reply about "love the sinner, and hate the sin." I was also told about ex-gay therapy and how there were many formerly gay people now married and heterosexual. I was confused by that. Was this possible?  Do people want to?  I didn't know what to think at first.

But nobody could convince me I was wrong. There was part of me that wanted to learn I was wrong, because I didn't want to be rejected. After all, I didn't like conflict and I didn't make friends very easily. But I was a "big picture" guy. That "big picture" was based on my limited interaction with gay and lesbian people. I viewed them as more, not less moral. I viewed them as people who understood what it was like to hurt, and they used their pain to make them better, not bitter. As a "big picture guy" there was no way 2-3 Bible verses negated that. I also had a hard time defining morality in terms of a persons sexual orientation, or much else the church considered relevant. I defined it by what was in a person's heart. And it really disturbed me that people Jesus would consider "the least of these" seemed invisible and were kicked to the curb. That's true with many issues from health care to unemployment policy to poverty.  Again, this went back to people being more important than beliefs.

While nobody could convince me, I couldn't argue such and such Bible verse didn't say this or that or the other thing. But I knew there was more to this. I decided to research the topic. Remember this was 15-20 years, before the internet. I could find only one book and that was "The New Testament and Homosexuality" by Robin Scroggs. I had to special order it, and took a long time to arrive. Today, there is a lot more written on the subject. While I'm not a theologian, I could now argue back some!

In time, I quit going to church. I got more and more disillusioned for this and other reasons. I came to feel the church was an institution that did little to no good, and was just part of the Republican infrastructure. The so called "unholy alliance" between big business conservatives and religious conservatives.  

After that, I didn't go to church for over 10 years.  I felt almost all churches were like that or were simply upscale country clubs. In time, I learned there was a Christian Left. One day, I felt ready to go back. I talked about that in my last Brothers and Sisters diary.

But back to my original point. Yes, people are far more important than any theology or ideology.

The floor is yours to participate however you feel led - sit back and just enjoy music, or share whatever is on your heart or submit prayer requests.

Reposted from Green Canticle by Eowyn9

Well, it's garage sale season again, and yesterday was the Saturday when everyone in my eastern Canadian city descends upon a particular neighborhood that -- for a single glorious spring day -- turns into a giant paradise of garage sale mania. The real bargain-hunters, those with an eye for antiques and memorabilia, get there at the crack of dawn. Most crowds start pouring in mid-morning, around 9 am. I split the difference this year and got there well before 8.

A few hours later I'd filled my bags and was well on my way to emptying my wallet. I was making my way back towards my bag-drop station but simply could not resist at least glancing at each table as I walked by.

And so it was as I was looking through your table of knickknacks (nice enough, though rather outrageously priced by garage sale standards) that, out of the corner of my eye, I saw you stalk over to my end of the table and heard your voice raised in agitation. "Goodbye!"

Startled, I glanced up and saw you making shooing motions at someone standing to my right. "Goodbye! Goodbye! I have nothing at your prices."

Your tone was brusque and dismissive. With a final whisk of your hand, you turned on your heel and stalked off to the other end of the table. Unsure and puzzled, I glanced to my right. My eyes landed on a group of three women belonging to a visible minority -- and my mouth literally dropped open as I stared from the women, to you, and back again.

The women were still standing there, talking among themselves. Perhaps they hadn't fully understood your meaning, or perhaps they were used to such treatment -- resigned, even. And maybe you'd been half-counting on that -- that your racist remark would go, for all intents and purposes, unheard and unremembered.

But I heard. And as I fully realized what had just happened, my heart sank and I felt sick to my stomach. Dropping the object I'd been holding, I took a step back  -- then turned and walked away from your table, never to return. Not this year, and not next.

And maybe, if it had just been your table on your front lawn, that would have been the end of it. You would have lost my business yesterday. But it wasn't.

Reposted from roseeriter by Ojibwa

What would Jesus do you ask? Apparently we are all about to find out. Religious owned Hospitals will Minister to the most important Health needs of women, poor, elderly and the dying...

It's The Family, the Family, the Family! (Not your family, that weird political, religious Family...)

Biblical Medicine? How Religious Corporations Are Gobbling Up Healthcare Facilities

But the Vatican hasn’t survived for 1,500 years by being stupid. And as my devout family members like to say, “Where God closes a door, he opens a window.” The window the bishops found open in Washington takes the form of independent hospitals with financial problems.
---
In the words of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, Catholic hospitals and healthcare corporations are “healthcare ministries” and “opportunities:”

New partnerships can be viewed as opportunities for Catholic healthcare institutions and services to witness to their religious and ethical commitments and so influence the healing profession. . . .For example, new partnerships can help to implement the Church’s social teaching.
---
Under these agreements, the patient-doctor relationship becomes a patient-doctor-church relationship: “The Church’s moral teaching on healthcare nurtures a truly interpersonal professional-patient relationship. This professional-patient relationship is never separated, then, from the Catholic identity of the healthcare institution.” Furthermore providers who work in these systems are required to sign binding contractual agreements to adhere to the religious directives, whether or not they are Catholic: “Catholic healthcare services must adopt these Directives as policy, require adherence to them within the institution as a condition for medical privileges and employment, and provide appropriate instruction regarding the Directives . . . .”

Reposted from DKos Sangha by Ojibwa

Good morning!  Welcome to the DKos Sangha weekly open thread.

This is an open thread for members of the DKos Sangha and others who are interested in discussions concerning how we integrate our progressive political activism into our spiritual practice.  If you have observations about the political discourse of the week, or about practice, or about anything else related to walking a spiritual path through the political world, if you wish to share, or if you seek support, or if you simply want to say hello, please do; this space is for you.

If you would like to host a weekly open thread, please let me know.

If you care nothing for spiritual practice and only wish to denigrate and disparage, please do so elsewhere, and respect that this is a community diary for the DKos Sangha.

Reposted from National Atheist Party by NationalAtheistParty

Wait – What just happened? A roundup of the week in news, May 26, 2013

Go Home Pope, You’re Drunk
Earlier this week, Pope Francis said that all who “do good” are redeemed and will go to heaven, even Atheists.

Alas, the Vatican issued an “explanatory note on the meaning to ‘salvation’”. Reverend Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, clarified that people who know about the Catholic Church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.”

First off, bad choice of words, Rosica. Second, just a little reminder. Atheists don’t actually believe in heaven, hell or religious salvation. Nice try, though.

Racial profiling: unreasonable suspicion
This week, the trial on the NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” program proved two things (well, two things OTHER than the program was a blatant exercise in racial profiling):

White New Yorkers are twice as likely to be carrying a weapon than an African American or Latino
 African Americans are 1/3 as likely as Whites to be carrying contraband on their person
84% of the “Stop and Frisks” were done to African Americans and Latinos. One officer testified that he was explicitly directed to target “young black men” and not just anyone deemed “suspicious” as the City argued in its defense.

89% of the stops resulted in no charges. Well, unless you count the $22 million class action lawsuit waged against the city.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, self-proclaimed “America’s toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio violated the constitutional rights of Latino drivers in an effort to crack down on illegal immigration.

“The great weight of the evidence is that all types of saturation patrols at issue in this case incorporated race as a consideration into their operations,” ruled U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow.

Arpaio is also well known for his tireless dedication in investigating the validity of President Barack Obama’s U.S. birth certificate. The Sheriff is steadfast in his claim that the certificate is a computer-generated forgery.

Welcome to Sunday All Day Brunch. This is an open topic thread so help yourself to the goodies and sit a spell and let us know what is going on in your life. I have always loved roses. Roses are interesting flowers. They are beautiful and have a wonderful smell. They also have thorns. In the book The Little Prince the Prince was looking for something to protect his flower. He thought his flower was unique unto all the world. When he saw a garden full of roses he was very upset because his flower was a rose like all the others. One of the lessons from the book is that his rose was unique because he loved it and lavished attention on it.

My Mom loved roses. When picking out an urn for the ashes I made sure that the urn had roses on it. Now whenever I see a rose I am reminded of my Mom.

Reposted from National Atheist Party by NationalAtheistParty

I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.

30/70/22/6.

"Hate crimes are down this year, almost 30%, but anti-gay hate crimes are up over 70%," said NYC Commissioner Ray Kelly.

There have been twenty-two hate crimes reported in New York this year already. Six of those were within the last 30 days.

Reposted from MannyGoldstein by JKTownsend

When I was growing up, Papa Goldstein, a veteran, told me of how a Catholic member of his Army unit said he felt really sad, because my dad was a nice guy but he was going to Hell. Jewish, you know. Fate was sealed.

Similar thing happened to me in college. In the midst of a session involving adult beverages, I jokingly asked a Catholic fraternity-mate if I was going to Hell. His response was no joke - he tensed up, got defensive, and wouldn't answer. I was blown away. And this was not Liberty University, if you know what I mean.

I wasn't actually worried about going to Hell, of course. And it was disturbing to see such a high-functioning individual believing in such things. But what blew me away was the sense of separation I suddenly sensed between me and my buddy. He didn't think of us as exactly a brotherhood of people: he saw me as an outsider, a very different person with a very different trajectory.

As I've moved through life, I've come to accept that seeing others as outsiders is the root of all evil. We cannot hurt what we know to be the same as us. When we think others are different, the hurt becomes more abstract and easier to inflict for a few shekels or some other cheap thrill.

So it gives me tremendous pleasure to read that Pope Francis seems to believe that good people are good people, that Catholics don't have a monopoly on redemption. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it seems like a tremendous step forward for the Church and for humanity. We are all basically the same schlubs, trying to have decent lives, who basically want to do the right thing.

Reposted from Frederick Clarkson by Frederick Clarkson

In a recent post, I discussed the apparent lack of sufficient seriousness with which the Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic Bishops still treat the matter of child sex abuse by clergy. The Associated Baptist Press picked-up on that post and added that while the SBC insists there is nothing it can do, it has nevertheless added a resource page on its national web site for local churches to deal with the matter.  Its not much, but its a start.  

But the scandal of the Louisville, KY-based Sovereign Grace Ministries, which began as a national network of  charismatic evangelical churches but eventually adapted a Reformed theology -- suggests that the problem of child sex abuse and the seemingly inevitable cover-up in conservative churches -- is a pattern that is deep and wide.  And part of that pattern is that too many leaders enable the abusers with their silence, their refusal to consider that the accusations might be true, and/or their efforts to silence the victims.  Child abuse investigator Boz Tchividjian thinks the silence of Evangelical leaders regarding child sex abuse in evangelical churches is not only "deafening" but speaks "volumes".

Indeed. It speaks volumes about the character and moral vision of the leaders of the conservative denominations that comprise the base of the Christian Right.

Reposted from Progressive Atheists by linkage

You may have heard about this exchange between CNN's Wolf Blitzer and a victim of the recent Oklahoma Tornado who, unbeknownst to him, is an Atheist.

Blitzer: Well, you’re blessed. Brian, your husband, is blessed. Anders is blessed… and I guess you gotta thank the Lord, right? Do you thank the Lord? For that split-second decision?

Vitsmun: I… I… I’m… I’m actually an atheist… [Laughs]

Blitzer: Oh, you are! [Laughs] But you made the right call!

Vitsmun: Yeah, yep. We are here! And, you know, I don’t blame anybody for thanking the Lord.

Blitzer: Of course not.

The significance of what Vitsmun did may not be immediately appreciated to someone outside of the Atheist community. However, for us it was indeed significant, and many of us are proud of the bravery that she displayed. The pervasive nature of religion can be so oppressive at times, demonstrated best by Blitzer's presumed questioning. It would have been so much easier for Vitsmun to brush off the offense, and to just nod and give some affirmation to the assumption that she should Thank the Lord, at the very least just to get past the awkwardness of the questioning. But in the end, she stuck to who she really was, did so in a tactful and inoffensive manner, and provided the public with a valuable humanized portrait of an Atheist.

Since that fateful interview, a large groundswell of support has come out of the Atheist community for Vitsmun and her family. In a matter of hours, the American Humanist Association raised $10,000, and a campaign begun by Comedian Doug Stanhope, originally set to last 60 days, reached its target goal of $50,000 in the first 17 hours (over $75,000 as of this writing).

Organizers for the FreeOK Oklahoma Freethought Convention are also selling "I'm Actually An Atheist" T-shirts, with proceeds going to Rebecca Vitsmun. (Edit: Just bought myself a tshirt)

Lest you think the generosity of Atheists extends only to other Atheists, other Atheist organizations have also collected a sizable amount for all Tornado victims and the overall relief efforts. Foundation Beyond Belief has already collected $40,000 to be distributed to relief groups on the ground, and We Are Atheism, through Atheists Giving Aid, has collected $17,000 to be distributed either to local organizations or directly to families.

This is not to take away from all the aid provided by religiously-affiliated or -neutral organizations, but where this form of generosity is something most people automatically associate with religious organizations, this facet of the Atheist community often gets overlooked.

One of the more maddening aspects, though, probably even to some religious folks, that comes into play when charity is tied to religion, is highlighted by another Atheist comedian, Ricky Gervais:

"Beyonce, Rihanna & Katy Perry send prayers to #Oklahoma #PrayForOklahoma"

I feel like an idiot now… I only sent money.

Obviously, whatever your religion, if you found a way to help out the victims of this terrible tragedy, in a tangible way, you should be commended.

Many people in society do not see any positives in supporting the Atheist community. However, efforts like these, and the courage of people like Rebecca Vitsmun, will hopefully go a long way toward changing these perceptions and showing all the good that comes out of this misunderstood community.

Welcome to your Fuzzy Friday Coffee Hour where all are encouraged to share their thoughts, their causes, their projects, their problems and their triumphs-- or just their desire to sit a spell and sip a comforting beverage and relax. It's an open thread which means you can ignore my fluff and be free and uninhibited in the comments.

This weekend I'll be visiting my garden so I hope to have an update on how well the appetizers I'd set out for the slugs were received but perhaps that can wait for next week and a proper photo diary. Nothing like pictures of cute, contentedly well-fed slugs to take your mind off the world's troubles for a brief while ...

So instead, this week I'll be bringing you my latest self-improvement project. I'm working on a digital painting using Adobe Photoshop CS5 and a tiny, old Wacom tablet. If you step over the permed orange hairball I'll share a bit of my step by step--

Reposted from Lollardfish by Ojibwa

Like many people (including this very popular diary and discussion), I first read Francis' statement on atheism and "doing good" to be a clear, explicit, statement that Atheists who do good will be saved. That's not what he said. Sure, in his worldview atheists can be saved, but that's because God can do whatever God wants to do. Humans are bound, in Catholic thinking, to the sacraments. But God is not.

We could spend a lot of time (believe me, I spent a lot of time!) parsing the particularities of Francis' statement, linking them to Aquinas, Augustine, and documents from Vatican II (on goodness). That's fun stuff for a medieval scholar like me, but I think the focus on atheism misses what's really important here. I wrote about this for the Atlantic today, but thought I'd expand a little here with thoughts aimed directly at our DailyKOS community.

Francis is calling for pluralistic engagement across all divisions, focused on doing good, on dialogue, and on finding common ground. We live in a world seemingly divided by caste, creed, nationality, orientation, and so many more markers of division. But the pluralistic view, the progressive view, is that we can honor our identities while meeting others around shared goals, and around a shared humanity.

For a Catholic like Francis, that humanity emerges out of our status as Created beings. For me, I'm more driven by secular principles of universal human rights and secular humanism, but I find the Francis message powerful. A Catholic church pushing for pluralism will be a powerful force in the world, isolating extremists, even (especially!) Catholic extremists.

So if you are angry at the Church for its extremism, for all the wrongs the hierarchy has committed, for the positions on LGBT people, on women, for protecting pedophiles, for all these things. Know that in the Vatican there seems to be a man who wants to effect change.

Can he? Will he?

Time will tell.

I am a long-time DailyKOS member, but also a public opinion writer. Please consider following me on Twitter (@Lollardfish), my public facebook page, or my blog: How Did We Get Into this Mess?

EDIT: Thank you for the many thoughtful comments and for the recommends. I am out most of the day, but will wade into the comments and reply to everything later. Please check back. I look forward to dialogue.