I DON´T THINK IT WILL ALWAYS BE EASY: When Your 7-Year-Old Son Announces, 'I'm Gay'

"My 7-Year-Old Son Is Gay, and I'm So Proud To Be His Mom"

¨Considering that my son has a longstanding crush on Glee's Blaine and regularly refers to him as "my boyfriend," I thought there was a fair chance that he would someday say, "I'm gay." But my kid is only 7 years old. I figured I had a few years before we crossed that threshold (if we ever did), probably when he was 14 or 15. I never thought it would happen this soon.

Six months ago "gay" wasn't even a word in my son's vocabulary. He has always known that some of our male friends are married to men and some of our female friends to women, and it is such a normal part of his life that he never needed a special word to describe them. When he did notice the word and asked what it meant, I told him that when boys want to marry boys and girls want to marry girls, we call that "gay." He didn't seem very interested and quickly went off to do something else more exciting than a vocabulary lesson with his mom.

Fast-forward a few months. I was on the phone with a relative who had just discovered that I was blogging on The Huffington Post and openly discussing my son's crush on Blaine. I was in another room alone (I thought), explaining, "We're not saying he's straight, and we're not saying he's gay. We're saying we love who he is," when my son's voice piped up behind me.

"Yes, I am," he said.

"Am what, baby?" I asked.

"Gay. I'm gay."  there is more, please read it all, HERE

NOTE:   I´m Leonardo Ricardo/Len and I knew I was ¨Gay¨ at least by age 7 too.  As described in Amelia´s entry at Huffington Post, ¨I didn´t know what the language for *it* was and I was afraid *it* was wrong to be who I was born to be...the authentic me.  My parents were loving and accepting of me (and my friends) at all ages/stages of my life even though we never had much conversation on ¨Gay¨ specifically. Thanks, Len

·  Thanks to Amelia, Mother, Wife, Partner and Breadwinner
·  Thanks to The Huffington Post, sidebar
·  Thanks to End Bigotry in Venango County, HERE

HELP! Anglican Archbishop John Chew Hiang Chea: Serial gang-attacks on transgender women in Malaysia increasing!

¨At least 13 transgender women have been assaulted in Kuantan, the state capital of Pahang, in the last six months – stirring fears that the same gang is responsible for the attacks, The Star newspaper reported on Thursday quoting a friend of several of the victims.

One of the victims, identified in the press as Mona, received 18 stitches after being assaulted and slashed in the neck at Jalan Haji Abdul Aziz on Sep 1 last year.Photo: The Star The attacks occurred in Jalan Bukit Ubi, Jalan Pasar and Jalan Dato Wong Ah Jang, besides Jalan Haji Abdul Aziz. One of the victims, identified in the press as Mona, received 18 stitches after being assaulted and slashed in the neck at Jalan Haji Abdul Aziz on Sep 1 last year.

The two victims of the latest attack, which occurred on Wednesday, are a make-up artist and her friend who were set upon by six men on motorcycles and beaten with chains, steel bars and crash helmets. They both suffered cuts and bruises.

“They hit me non-stop till I fell, and then hit me some more. They sounded very angry,” one of the victims was quoted as saying in the paper. She received five stitches to close a deep gash on the back of her head...please read it all, HERE

· Thanks to Fridae, sidebar

http://blog.noanglicancovenant.org/

COUNTERLIGHT´S PECULIARS: ¨My Advice to Right Wing Christians Tired of Being Portrayed As Unreasonable Bigots ...

Stop acting like unreasonable bigots.¨

¨Not getting your way in every policy debate and not having everyone else defer to your beliefs is not oppression.

Getting fired from your job, getting evicted from your home, getting constantly harassed and threatened, getting declared deviate and criminal, getting the shit beaten out of you, or getting killed just for being yourself, now THAT'S oppression.¨   HERE

·  Thanks to Doug, Counterlight´s Peculiars

PROFESSOR MARILYN McCORD ADAMS APPOINTED AS NO ANGLICAN COVENANT COALITION’S FOURTH PATRON -- Professor McCord Adams joins Bishops John Saxbee and Peter Selby, and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch*

Professor McCord Adams

¨The No Anglican Covenant Coalition today announced that Marilyn McCord Adams, Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, has been appointed as the Covenant’s fourth Patron. The Coalition’s news release can be read here

“The proposed Anglican Covenant was conceived in moral indignation and pursued with disciplinary intent,” according to Professor McCord Adams. “Its global gate-keeping mechanisms would put a damper on the gospel agenda, which conscientious Anglicans should find intolerable. The Covenant is based on an alien ecclesiology, which thoughtful Anglicans have every reason to reject.”  Marilyn McCord Adams

Marilyn McCord Adams (born 1943) is an American philosopher working in philosophy of religion, philosophical theology and medieval philosophy.

Since 1 July 2009, Adams has been a Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before that she was, in reverse chronological order, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, the Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale University, and a Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. She is also a former President of the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy.

Adams was ordained priest in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 1987 and was until recently a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. HERE

Español

La Coalición No Pacto Anglicano ha anunciado hoy que Marilyn McCord Adams, Distinguido profesor investigador de filosofía en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte, ha sido nombrado Patrono cuarto del Pacto. El lanzamiento de la Coalición de noticias se puede leer La Coalición No Pacto Anglicano ha anunciado hoy que Marilyn McCord Adams, Distinguido profesor investigador de filosofía en la Universidad de Carolina del Norte, ha sido nombrado Patrono cuarto del Pacto. El lanzamiento de la Coalición de noticias se puede leer aquí AQUI . Un extracto:

"El Pacto Anglicano propuesto fue concebido en la indignación moral y la persigue con una intención disciplinaria", según el profesor McCord Adams. "Sus globales de mantenimiento de los mecanismos de la puerta que poner un freno a la agenda del evangelio, que los anglicanos de conciencia deberían encontrar intolerable. El Pacto se basa en una eclesiología extranjero, que los anglicanos reflexivos tienen toda la razón para rechazar ". Marilyn McCord Adams

Marilyn McCord Adams (nacida en 1943) es una filósofa estadounidense que trabaja principalmente en las áreas de la filosofía religiosa, teología filosófica y la filosofía medieval.

El 1 de julio del 2009, Adams fue designada Profesora Distinguida de Investigaciones de Filosofía en la University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Anteriormente había sido la "Regius Professor of Divinity" en la Universidad de Oxford, la Horace Tracy Pitkin Profesora de Teología Histórica en la Universidad de Yale, y Profesora de Filosofía en la UCLA.

En 1987 Adams fue ordenada sacerdote en la Iglesia episcopal en los Estados Unidos de América y hasta poco tiempo atrás fue canónica de la Catedral de Oxford. AQUI

*PROFESSOR MARILYN McCORD ADAMS APPOINTED AS NO ANGLICAN COVENANT COALITION’S FOURTH PATRON -- Professor McCord Adams joins Bishops John Saxbee and Peter Selby, and Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch. 

The Revd Dr Lesley Crawley, Moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, and Dr Lionel Deimel, the Coalition’s Episcopal Church Convenor

MY SCHOOL DAYS/DAZE VALENTINE BOXES (would you or wouldn´t you be my Valentine?)

When I was a little kid.  A kid in Grade School.  I remember each Valentines Day we´d have a Valentines Day Party in our classroom.   I think the Mom´s brought in refreshments and the last couple of hours in the afternoon on Valentines Day were devoted to frolicing about, playing lovey-dovey games and opening the individual Valentine mail boxes we had wrapped and decorated for OURSELVES!  Yes, there they were all those former shoe boxes now all decorated with cupids, hearts and various throbs of electriclike love designs!  Surely you remember them, that is, if you were a kid when kid´s were still celebrating holidays like Valentines day in Grade School?  

Anyway, those little ¨mailboxes¨ , one each for each pupil in the class, actually received the paper valentines from fellow classmembers.  Some of the Valentines came in sets of Valentines and they all looked alike and all I had to do was sign my name, after Happy Valentines Day, seal the envelope and then address it, one for each classmate, and then deposit them in the lavishly gushy shoe boxes with the mail slot on top...of course, for SPECIAL friends, there were always larger, individual Valentines that would upstage the everyday/ordinary ones that everyone else would receive.  

Oh, how I worried day after day (Valentines were deposited in secret during recess/etc) that on the final day during the party when I opened my VALENTINE BOX, mine would be empty...yes, it´s true...fret, fret, fret, I was aware that I was ¨different¨ from the others at a very early age and I knew I couldn´t give BIG valentines to those secret recipients that I longed to give them to...and, of course nobody would know that I wanted a BIG VALENTINE  from one, or two, of them too!  

Well, it wasn´t as bad as all of that but I did worry about being ¨different¨ and being alone with my heartshaped unexplained longings.  ALAS! When the boxes were delivered, each one, one by one, to our desks during the Red Glazed Heart Shaped Sugar Cookie Party, my BOX was always full.   Filled with all the cards personally addressed to me from my fellow happy Valentines Day well-wishers...boys, girls and teachers too...it wasn´t a cause for worry as it turned out because year after year many of you, boys, girls (and later older versions too) remained/became my Valentines. 

You know who you are and since I´m now into my sixtyth (something) Valentines Day celebration I wish to tell you that I LOVE and APPRECIATE every one of you...you have been my Valentines, year after year and my Valentine box runneth over with love from many of you...let me count the ways that I love you tooeth...millions of ways I love you and I am thankful for each one of you...thanks be to God for all of you...I need not have worried, you´ve always been there for me when my heart opened (fear and despair falls away from me).

You are a big deal.

Love to you,

Lenny, Len, Leonard, Leonardo, Leo (all of us)
Valentines Day 2012

CORRECTION AND APOLOGIES TO KING ZWELITHINI: The Zulu King, never called gay relationships “rotten” – Never said what the media said he said!

His Royal Majesty,  King Zwelithini

Zulu King is owed an apology
by Abdul Milazi

¨Gay rights and other rights activists have for the past weeks vilified King Zwelithini for having allegedly called gay relationships “rotten” – now it appears he never did.The media took a stance and condemned the King in centimetres and centimetres of editorial comments. To the media the King was guilty of whatever he was accused of. Interestingly, my colleague Sithembiso Msomi, who had listened to the recording of the speech, cautioned in his weekly column that this nationwide condemnation emanated from what he called “lost in translation”.Now isiZulu is my mother tongue and I was fortunate to listen to a discussion on Ukhozi FM (formerly Radio Zulu in my youth) and they played the parts of the King’s speech that was supposed to have called gay relationships rotten.

To my shock and horror, the King never said what the media said he said, even if translated literally.The King said when you are a man or woman abusing another man or woman, you are rotten. He was talking about abuse and not sexual abuse. He used the word “ukuhlukumeza” which means abuse in a general sense. If he had intended to abuse in a sexual context, he would have used the word “ukunukubeza” which is the IsiZulu word for sexual abuse.What he said was, any person abusing another, whether man versus man or woman versus woman, is rotten...¨ HERE

·  Thanks to Abdul Milazi
·  Thanks to Behind the Mask, sidebar
·  Thanks to Times Live,   HERE
·  Thanks to Ukhozi FM

WINTER SOLSTICE 2012: The end of a Maya calendar cycle and a rebirth of the Maya culture for the new cycle

Elizabeth Bell, Author, Historian and award winning Notable Citizen



The new b’aq tun begins on the winter solstice 2012
¨Calendars reflect how cultures and societies view the organization of time and space over the centuries. Many calendars have emerged and many have disappeared or been modified: the Julian calendar, the Republican calendar, the Gregorian calendar and the Maya calendar to name a few. Each one involved astronomical calculations and incorporate harvests and religious or spiritual fiestas.

I remember in the late 1970s, we all studied how it would be the “End of the World for the Maya” in 2012; we thought it was “pretty neat” as to how it tied into other doomsday calculations of other cultures. With very little bibliography by Maya writers at the time (in fact none in English), we continued to believe that indeed the world—at least in Mesoamerica—would end in 2012. I have recently referred to this as a “California spin.” Watching a recent TV program on the subject, I noted that the experts were all from California. I wondered why a Maya expert was not a participant!

Talking to the experts, we find it is the end of a Mayan calendar cycle and a rebirth of the Mayan culture for the new cycle. Some great references include: The Order of Days: the Maya World and the Truth about 2012 by David Stuart (Schele Professor of Mesoamerican Art and Writing, University of Texas/Austin), 2012: Science & Prophecy of the Ancient Maya by Mark van Stone, Ph.D., and Ri Rejqalem Kisamaj Ri Ajk’ Exelom Chuqa ‘Ri Ajq’ija by Calixta Gabriel (Maya spiritual guide/Thesis Universidad Rafael Landívar), which are all outstanding. Also, refer to the Dresden Codex.

The Maya Long Count calendar started at 13.0.0.0.0. (not “0”) in 3113 B.C. and comes to a complete cycle at the winter solstice this year. This marks a new cycle. There are two calendars that work together. The solar year (365 days), known as haab, has 18 months (20 days each) and a five-day period before the next year. A day (q’ij), a 20-day month (winäq), a year (tun), a 20-year cycle (katun) a 52-year cycle (tzolkin) and so forth up to the end of a b’aq tun (Kakchikel spelling). The sacred calendar, known as tzolk’in, has 13 months (20 days each), for a 260-day count. Each day has a nawal, look yours up in the calendar. The new b’aq tun begins on the winter solstice 2012—time for another fiesta but this one will be BIG!  please enjoy it all,  by Elizabeth Bell, HERE

·  Thanks to The Revue Magazine, Guatemala´s English-language Magazine
·  Thanks to Elizabeth Bell, award winning historian, author and notable citizen
·  Thanks to http://antiguatours.net/

DEAD SERIOUS -- FATHER CHRISTIAN TROLL: ¨Feeling sexually attracted to people of your own gender isn´t any more a sin than feeling attracted to people of a different gender.¨

¨Feeling sexually attracted to people of your own gender isn’t any more a sin than feeling attracted to people of a different gender. Despite what some (often very dishonest) Christians claim, being gay, or lesbian, or transgendered, or anywhere in between, doesn’t mean you can’t follow Christ without pretending to be someone you’re not. Nor does God hate your sexuality, and "biblical" arguments to the contrary are exactly the same as those once used to justify obscenities like slavery, as well as idiocies like the idea women shouldn’t vote, drive cars, or operate office typewriters (yep – people really did once use the bible to justify that last one).

If you’ve somehow wandered here from the type of places that want you to believe God doesn’t love you as you are, and you find the idea of walking away from self-hatred and guilt frightening, then – please – remember you’re not alone. A lot of people have been along that path before you, and their journeys are proof that you also can find life and the light of Christ on the other side of “ex-gay” judgmental bitterness.

Anyone wanting support along the way in North America should try contacting Integrity HERE those in Great Britain can get in touch with the wonderful team at Changing Attitude HERE. Or you’re always welcome to email me and I’ll do my best to confidentially find the details of someone in your region. Just please don’t ever buy into the lie that the Pharisees speak for God.

They don’t, and the love for you God revealed in Jesus proves so.¨  please read it all, HERE

‘Fr. C.’

·  Thanks to GAFCON, sidebar
·  Thanks to Father Christian Troll

WASHINGTON STATE ¨YES¨ TO GAY MARRIAGE: Home of my heart in the Great Northwest, Land of Beauty, Heavens Best -- Emerald State I love you...*

Gays and Lesbians can now marry in Washington State.

¨Lawmakers in the US state of Washington have passed a bill legalising gay marriage, making Washington the seventh US state to back the measure...¨  HERE

·  Thanks to Counterlight´s Peculiars, HERE
·  Thanks to BBC News
·  Thanks to The Legislature of Washington State
·  Thanks to Democratic Governor Chris Gregoire
·  Thanks to *Blue Monday, A song written by her (when I was a child), honoring Washington State

Thank Washington Governor Chris Gregoire For Making Marriage A Reality HERE

PARENTAL GUIDANCE ADVISED: There are dangerous G.O.P. ¨religious nuts¨ running as fast as they can all around us!

Beware of ¨Religious Nuts¨

Dearest Friends and fellow victims of some Republicans and their ¨religiouslike¨ nonsense heard on the 2012 Presidential campaign prowl!

Ít´s true, what ever happened to the decent men and women who are/were Republicans?  Those nice people? Where did they go?  Did they die off along with, President ¨Tricky Dick¨ Nixon, Wendell Willkie, Martha and John Mitchell,  Herbert Hoover, J. Edgar, Joseph McCarthy  and Anita Bryant  (oops, she´s not dead yet) ?

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.^[1] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate

My very own Mom and Dad were modest citizens/Republicans (unlike any of the above mentioned) of the All American, yet tolerant of others, 4th of July celebrating/President Lincoln variety (and my Moms parents too) . They were level headed, sane, hardworking, generous of spirit, hospitable and God loving (as opposed to God fearing) Christians.  My folks lived industrious lives and helped build their/our American Dream and were NOT bigots, braggards, thieves, exploiters of others or greedsters covering themselves as ¨trickle downers¨ grandstanders and opportunists. 

Gracious, welcoming, friendly and ¨hardworking¨  my Dad the Republican

¨Generous of spirit and hospitable¨ my Mom the Republican

My parents were the ¨Golden Rule¨ type Christians who tried, very hard, and succeeded in staying out of demeaning other peoples religious beliefs (even when they really thought they were off-the-wall and extremist loons). 

My Republican parents weren´t bigots. Everyone, I mean everyone, were welcomed into our home (including me and my heterosexual older sister and all of our acquaintances and friends). 

I know, I was there, a Gay son who witnessed their unending kindness and genuine caring for me and my LGBT close ones whom I introduced them too.  My parents knew my friends and treated them with not only warm respect but also with a gracious and sincere welcome...their arms wide open! 

The ONLY time I heard either of my parents refer unkindly about anyone was when they warned me to be very cautious around/about ¨religious nuts¨!  

My devoted Republican parents, happy, loving in retirement (with adored grandbaby)

Although my parents have now passed on to the greater beyond of their well deserving, I feel I must speak up for them!  I speak for me and for the kind of quality people they were, their Republican friends were and for the inclusive America that evolved/evolves into ¨being¨ because of many generations of people just like them and just like all of the American welcoming WE´S!  Leonardo Ricardo