Thumping the Bible For Slavery & Against Gay Marriage

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Unions That Divide: Churches Split Over Gay Marriage

By laurie goodstein

Published: May 13, 2012

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The faith divide resembles what the nation experienced in the debates over slavery, said Michael Coogan, a lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew Bible at Harvard Divinity School and the author of “God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says.”

“The proslavery contingent quoted the Bible repeatedly, saying that God has all these commandments about slavery and nowhere in the Bible, including the New Testament, is it stated that there’s anything wrong with slavery,” Mr. Coogan said. “The abolitionists also quoted the Bible, but used the same sort of more general texts that supporters of same-sex relationships are using: love your neighbor, treat others as you would have them treat you, the golden rule.”

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Read full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/us/gay-marriage-issue-divides-churches.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120514

For more “truths” from the Bible, see here:

http://aboutnothing-doug.blogspot.com/2008/07/dr-laura-and-bible_22.html

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President Barack Obama: “same sex couples should be able to get married"

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http://youtu.be/VB6FLZwLj9s

"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

US President Barack Obama - May 9, 2012 

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President Obama’s Courageous Stand Against Prejudice

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A Watershed Move, Both Risky and Inevitable

by adam nagourney  •  May 9, 2012

President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage on Wednesday was by any measure a watershed. A sitting United States president took sides in what many people consider the last civil rights movement, providing the most powerful evidence to date of how rapidly views are moving on an issue that was politically toxic just five years ago.

Mr. Obama faces considerable risk in jumping into this debate, reluctantly or not, in the heat of what is expected to be a close election. The day before he announced his position, voters in North Carolina — a critical state for Mr. Obama and the site of the Democratic convention this summer — approved by a 20-point margin a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. It was the 31st state to pass such an amendment.

As George W. Bush demonstrated in 2004, when his campaign engineered initiatives against gay marriage in a series of swing states, opponents are far more likely to vote on these issues than supporters. Mitt Romney, the probable Republican presidential candidate, was quick to proclaim his opposition to gay marriage after Mr. Obama spoke. And however much national attitudes may be shifting, the issue remains highly contentious among black and Latino voters, two groups central to Mr. Obama’s success.

Yet as Mr. Obama has clearly come to recognize, the forces of history appear to be changing. The president was at risk of seeming politically timid and calculating, standing at the sidelines while a large number of Americans — including members of both parties — embraced gay marriage. That is a particularly discordant image, many Democrats said, for the man who was the nation’s first black president.

Mr. Obama’s declaration may have been belated and unplanned, forced out after his vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., during a television interview on Sunday declared his support for same-sex marriage. Still, it is a huge voice added to a chorus that has become increasingly robust, a reminder that a view that had once been relegated to the dark sidelines of political debate has become mainstream.

The very riskiness of what Mr. Obama did — some commentators were invoking Lyndon B. Johnson’s embrace of civil rights in 1964, with all the attendant political perils — made it hard to understate the historic significance of what took place at the White House on Wednesday.

“If you are one of those who care about this issue, you will not forget where you were when you saw the president deliver those remarks,” said Chad Griffin, the incoming president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group. “Regardless of how old you are, it’s the first time you have ever seen a president of the United States look into a camera and say that a gay person should be treated equally under the law. The message that that sends, to a young gay or transgendered person struggling to come out, is life changing.”

It also was a reminder of just how quickly public and political attitudes are changing. The first organizers of the modern gay-rights movement, after the June 1969 raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in New York City, considered themselves bold in hoping they could pass nondiscrimination acts. They did not seriously contemplate a day when members of the same sex would be permitted to marry.

It has been only 16 years since Bill Clinton — the second Democratic presidential candidate to campaign before a gay audience at an event open to the news media — signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, permitting states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states.

Mr. Clinton advocated the bill in the midst of a re-election campaign after his aides concluded that opposing it might be risky. Mr. Clinton has since said he regrets that decision; Mr. Obama instructed his Justice Department not to defend the act.

In some ways, Mr. Obama is late to the party. Mr. Biden was just the latest prominent Democrat to announce his support, and many now say that it seems unthinkable that by 2016 any serious Democratic presidential candidate would oppose gay marriage. A series of significant Republican figures — Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman, Theodore Olson, who was solicitor general under Mr. Bush — have also been active in pushing gay marriage.

The North Carolina vote in some ways distracts from what polling shows to be a steady increase in the percentage of Americans who say they support gay marriage or domestic partnerships; it is now a majority. The numbers are particularly high among younger Americans, suggesting that this is a wave likelier to grow than to recede.

All of which suggests that there are, in addition to the risks, clear potential upsides for Mr. Obama. His announcement, while symbolic rather than carrying the force of law, could energize big parts of his base, particularly younger voters, and reassure liberal Democrats who had been disappointed with Mr. Obama on this issue. It will no doubt help with gay people, already among his biggest donors.

And Mr. Obama’s announcement came as Mr. Romney has been seeking to shift to the middle; independent voters and women are two constituencies that tend to support gay marriage. Now, though, he is almost certainly going to face pressure from his base to take the fight on gay marriage to Mr. Obama.

“President Obama has now made the definition of marriage a defining issue in the presidential contest, especially in swing states like Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Nevada,” said Brian S. Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage.

In truth, Republicans and Democrats are hardly sure whether this will be a deciding issue in any state, given how pressing economic concerns are, particularly in the swing states.

Polls show that gay marriage is not a huge concern to swing voters. Is Mr. Romney really going to want to spend the next five months talking about gay marriage, rather than the economy and jobs? And Mr. Obama may be no more eager to discuss the issue further, to be drawn into the weeds of this argument.

Yet perhaps on this day, short-term political calculations are not what people are likely to recall in talking about Mr. Obama’s interview in years to come.

“I don’t think it’s about particular states or particular demographics,” said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist.

“He said the right thing,” he said. “He did the right thing. People are going to overanalyze the politics of this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/us/politics/obamas-watershed-move-on-gay-marriage.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120510

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Texas Rapper Adair Lion: "Gay is Okay"

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http://youtu.be/vryCIuU3LxM?hd=1

^^^

Lyrics:

HOOK (full)

Ben most people would turn you away

I don't listen to a word they say

They don't see you as I do

I wish they would try to

I'm sure they'd think again

if they had a friend like Ben

VERSE 1

uh My name's Adair and I'm here to recruit you

What up Hip-Hop Can I spit some taboo

Hello young world can I change your outlook

When I was growing up I was forced to give a frown look

to people who were different than me,

and I just accepted it man but I was so naive

see I was scholarship-ed to a private school

and in the hood I was with my vatos acting a fool

so either way being gay was wrong

it was against the hood laws or the laws of God

so... I didn't see them -they probably were scared straight

but I made a friend I never expected to make....

now, I can see all the hate reaction on your face

this subjects not the type that hip-hop embrace

but its long overdue... where you at Wayne

I said its long overdue where you at Ye? 

I mean...

HOOK (half) 

they don't see you as I do

I wish they would try to

I'm sure they'd think again

if they had a friend like Ben

VERSE 2 

Ben you're my friend in case you unaware

Adair Lion does if nobody else care

and I've never been the type to harp on what others think of me

so there's no wonder why I call out all this bigotry

Being Christian its hard to say this...

but the Bible was wrong this time...

Its in every species and every family I've met

so I don't see why to the world its a crime

you see logistically

and statically

not every dancer dude is gay

not every football players straight

and thats crazy huh, but thats fact yo!

and thats the same anywhere, even rap yo!

oh you don't see that...

you don't believe that...

I guess him over there he chose to be Black...

and her Asian...

and them White...

and those God awful gays chose to live that life, huh?!

HOOK (half) 

they don't see you as I do

I wish they would try to

I'm sure they'd think again

if they had a friend like Ben

VERSE 3

Ben I dont know if my friends will back me up on this

they might turn their backs and say that I'm a bitch

and I know if you come out you'll get the same shit

but we dont need that kind of peeps in our relationship

"gay is okay" the number one thing a rapper shouldn't say...

I said it anyway and I made history...

(and) to all the little dudes learning to mack

the hottest chicks got a gay in their clique, remember that

Ben this songs for you while your growing up

'cause I don't wanna see you break and say you've had enough

It doesn't just get better, it gets awesome homie

what I mean is I just wanna see you blossom homie

its just they never really miss you 'til you (are) dead or your gone

so on that note, Im leaving after this song

you ain't gotta feel any way about Adair for long

but at least let Michael tell you why I'm this way...hold on

HOOK (full)

Ben most people would turn you away

I don't listen to a word they say

They don't see you as I do

I wish they would try to

I'm sure they'd think again

if they had a friend like Ben

OUTRO

Coincidentally, Ben is the name of someone I've never met...my dad.

So why would I ever judge someone who is trying to be two of what I never had?

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Yosemite Range of Light

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by Shawn Reeder

click to play then double click for full screen

http://vimeo.com/40802206

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The Grandma Excuse

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http://youtu.be/cQMFyJ3FRGQ

From now.msn.com:

Who among us hasn't killed off nana to get out of going to work? Well, Argentine job site Zonajobs says it's time find a job you actually want to go to and let grandma rest in peace. To make their point, the site's new ad shows the sweetest little old lady you could ever imagine suffering such ignominious deaths as getting hit by a bus and having a piano fall on her. But with each death, she rises from her grave to provide fodder for a new excuse. Even if you opt to use more removed relatives like cousins and great uncles as your get-out-of-work pawns, this should make you feel sufficiently guilty. And call your grandma while you're at it.

http://now.msn.com/living/0430-grandma-dies-six-times-job-ad.aspx

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President Obama Speaks to Troops at Bagram Air Base

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http://youtu.be/Bl2fSIubA2s?hd=1

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