Sunday, June 19, 2016

49 Names

IN MEMORIAM

Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old

Amanda Alvear, 25 years old

Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26 years old

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33 years old

Antonio Davon Brown, 29 years old

Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old

Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28 years old

Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25 years old

Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old

Cory James Connell, 21 years old

Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 years old

Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31 years old

Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 years old

Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 years old

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old

Paul Terrell Henry, 41 years old

Frank Hernandez, 27 years old

Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old

Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40 years old

Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old

Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 years old

Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32 years old

Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old

Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49 years old

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25 years old

Kimberly Morris, 37 years old

Akyra Monet Murray, 18 years old

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 years old

Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25 years old

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old

Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old

Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old

Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27 years old

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 years old

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24 years old

Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24 years old

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old

Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old

Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old

Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24 years old

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37 years old

Luis S. Vielma, 22 years old

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 years old

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old

Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 years old

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Our Lives Matter - People Just Don't Get It

Russ's comment inspired a poster which I posted on Facebook:


Of course people had to remind me that ALL LIVES MATTER. I was even reminded that ANIMAL LIVES MATTER. Which inspired this response:

PEOPLE WHO JUST DON'T GET IT!
Lets not lose sight of the fact that there exists a deep seated abhorrence of homosexuals in our society and in most religions, including Western and Eastern Christianity, Orthadox Judaism, Islam and others. 

This has spilled over even to non-believers in our society. Civil Laws have been based on this abhorrence for years. For years! 

The fact that I and other LGBT persons have to be vigilant in certain crowds and in certain parts of this country even today, attests to the degree to which we have been hated, despised and discounted and dismissed, not to mention done violence to. 

Yes, all lives matter, but on Sunday, June 12 in Orlando, Florida, LGBT LIVES MATTERED as did LGBT dead and wounded. 

STOP MINIMIZING THIS FACT. 

Not everyone has had to live in a society where their love was called "the love that dare not speak its name", where men and women were arrested for "fraternizing" or dancing in pubs and bars, where people were fired from their jobs if they were discovered to be gay or lesbian, where LGBT partners were denied the right to visit a loved one in the hospital, where the likes of Matthew Shepherd was strung up on fence to die, where families could legally confiscate the estates of sons and daughters they once disowned and leave their dead child's partner penniless, where LGBT individuals could have their heads bashed in just for being seen leaving a gay bar, where 49 of us could be slaughtered in Orlando. I could go on... 

What this tragedy is about is not guns or automatic weapons, though those issues have been rightly highlighted. It is about the deep-seated, visceral hatred of homosexuality and any other sexuality that is not hetero-normative. 

No other minority is, by virtue of their existence, considered EVIL and sinful. LGBT's have been labeled evil, sinful, disgusting, and worse by religious leaders. We were called heretics and burned at the stake - the likely origin of the word "faggot" as in "throw another faggot (wood bundle) on the fire." THEY PICK AND CHOOSE WHICH BIBLE OR TORAH OR QURAN PASSAGES TO THROW AT US WHILE IGNORING "LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR" OR ADMONITIONS AGAINST WEALTH. 

This is what gives bigots and sexually conflicted individuals PERMISSION to KILL. 

Permission to kill those who threaten their strict, myopic, black-and-white world-view. 

YES, PERMISSION TO KILL. 

People who call themselves "pastors" or "preachers" and heads of religion-based organizations, many of them so-called-christians are, at this moment, calling for executing gays and lesbians. They are rampant on the internet. Nut-jobs? Maybe. But there are people who take them seriously. 

And even the "nice" Catholics and Lutherans and Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and AMEZionists, and Evangelicals, and Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons and Greek Orthodox so many other "nice" christian denominations that are not calling for outright execution have contributed to this culture of name-calling and judgement and moral condemnation.

This is the background in a nutshell of the world that has engendered and fostered and reveled in hatred and discrimination toward LGBT/sexual minorities. 

Yes, people. You who cannot stand the fact that we are asserting our rights to live and to love and to exist in dignity along side everyone else. People WHO JUST DON'T GET IT!

Monday, June 13, 2016

Anger, Anguish, Grief and Sadness

Summary from my Facebook page:
MOURNING THE DEAD IN ORLANDO FLORIDA. AND OUR THOUGHTS ARE WITH THE WOUNDED. OUR HEARTS ACHE FOR LOVED ONES AND THE FAMILIES OF THE DEAD AND WOUNDED.

ENOUGH VIOLENCE, ENOUGH HATRED, ENOUGH INTOLERANCE. ENOUGH!And I would add so much gratitude for the brave men and women, both civilians and professionals who assisted the wounded without regard for their own lives and safety. Truly heroes.It is time for ALL religious leaders to condemn hatred and violence toward Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Persons WITHOUT RESERVATION AND WITH CREDIBLE ACTION.


IT IS TIME TO LEAVE BEHIND LEVITICUS and CORINTHIANS and HEBREWS, and the rest of the biblical poetry, AND STOP PERSECUTING US. ENOUGH!

This heinous act may have been inspired by a distorted version of Muslim teaching, but there are distorted versions of Christianity and other religions that inspire hate and violence toward us as well.

Religions MUST figure out theologies or philosophies that are compatible with our inherent dignity as human beings, with our civil rights and with civil respect or THEY SHOULD HOLD THEIR PEACE (i.e. shut up).

We cannot allow religious extremists or even religious conservaives to define the dialogue or the laws or the culture of this diverse nation. ENOUGH!

It is not ENOUGH to PREACH "LOVE"

If religious leaders and other people of faith who have not yet realized that their teachings are dangerous and hurtful, then

THEY ARE JUST AS RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE TRAGIC DEATHS as the gunman. AND THE NRA and all the Republican legislators who they've bought.

BLOOD IS ON THEIR HANDS AS WELL.

Watching news coverage almost non-stop, I am just so outraged that this could happen, especially in view of all of the bullshit that we've been going through since we got marriage equality. And yes the availability of guns is a big issue, but people must realize that people shooting a gun, nay an assault weapon, generally have a target and the belief that LGBT people are evil makes us an easy, convenient and expendable target. I am outraged and angry. I know I will probably cry a river when the reality hits over the next week, with funerals and outpouring of grief. But right now, ENOUGH!

I dread the upcoming week, not for the 50 funerals, not for the tears and sadness that will pour out as we are faced daily with the reality of the tragedy in Orlando, but for what is sure to be the twisted rhetoric from politicians and pundits who will try minimize the fact that this massacre was an act of hate aimed specifically at the LGBT Community. Some are already trying to hijack the conversation to make it about anything but violence toward the LGBT Community. We will not let the fact that a significant culture of outright hatred and bigotry toward LGBT persons, most often nourished by religious fundamentalism of various stripes, gives permission for people who share those sentiments to express their hatred more and more vehemently and to perpetrate violence to us. We must NOT let them get away with hatred in the guise of "religious freedom" nor should we ever, ever, let hateful rhetoric overshadow our love. Because the LOVE THAT DARED NOT SPEAK ITS NAME HAS DARED TO DO SO and WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/06/13/easy-weapon-access-lgbt-hate-made-orlando-masacre-possible/85813508/

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Mourning The Dead

MOURNING THE DEAD IN ORLANDO FLORIDA. 
AND OUR THOUGHTS ARE WITH THE WOUNDED. 
OUR HEARTS ACHE FOR LOVED ONES AND THE FAMILIES OF THE DEAD AND WOUNDED. 
And I would add so much gratitude for the brave men and women, both civilians and professionals who assisted the wounded without regard for their own lives and safety. 
Truly heroes.


ENOUGH VIOLENCE, ENOUGH HATRED, ENOUGH INTOLERANCE. ENOUGH!






It is time for ALL religious leaders to condemn hatred and violence toward Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Persons WITHOUT RESERVATION 
AND WITH CREDIBLE ACTION. 
IT IS TIME TO LEAVE BEHIND LEVITICUS AND and CORINTHIANS and HEBREWS, and the rest of the biblical poetry,
AND STOP PERSECUTING US.
ENOUGH!

This heinous act may have been inspired by a distorted version of Muslim teaching, but there are distorted versions of Christianity and other religions that inspire hate and violence toward us as well. 
Religions MUST figure out theologies or philosophies that are compatible
 with our inherent dignity as human beings, with our civil rights and with civil respect or 
THEY SHOULD HOLD THEIR PEACE (i.e. shut up). 
ENOUGH! 

We cannot allow religious extremists or even religious conservaives to define the dialogue or the laws or the culture of this diverse nation. 
ENOUGH! 

It is not ENOUGH to PREACH "LOVE"
If religious leaders and other people of faith who have not yet realized that their teachings are dangerous and hurtful, then 
THEY ARE JUST AS RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE TRAGIC DEATHS as the gunman. 
AND THE NRA and all the Republican legislators who they've bought.
BLOOD IS ON THEIR HANDS AS WELL.

Friday, June 10, 2016

I Am What I Am

A little classic something for Gay/LGBT Pride Month...
...from back when our Present was a Celebration and our Future was full of Promise.

 



LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails