Saturday, May 10, 2014

JMG HISTORY: First Same-Sex Couple Legally Marries In Southern State, Witnessed By Lawyer Who Brought Down Arkansas Ban


UPDATE: The Associated Press reports.
An Arkansas clerk issued the state's first gay marriage license on Saturday, breaking a barrier that voters put in place with a constitutional amendment 10 years ago. Carroll County Deputy Clerk Jane Osborn issued a license Saturday morning to Kristin Seaton, 27, and Jennifer Rambo, 26, of Fort Smith. They had slept in a Ford Focus after arriving in Eureka Springs at 2 a.m. Saturday and were the first of about 10 couples to line up outside of the courthouse before it opened. When the license was issued, Rambo said, "Thank God." Seaton and Rambo, who have been together four years, then held a marriage ceremony on the courthouse steps. A woman in a rainbow dress officiated.

Reposted from Joe Jervis

Via Daily Dharma


The Rope of Mindfulness | May 10, 2014

It is mindfulness that places the mind on the chosen object of meditation and returns the mind to that object when it wanders. As a well-known meditation instruction says, ‘Tie the wild elephant of the mind to the post of the meditation object with the rope of mindfulness.’ Mindfulness prevents distraction.
 
—Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., “Which Mindfulness?”
 

Via AmericaBlog: Anti-gay (former) HGTV stars: “We love homosexuals, Muslims,” hate their “agenda”

The adorably-pastel-shirted Benham brothers, sons of anti-abortion extremist Flip Benham, went on CNN to clarify that they truly love the homosexual and the Muslim. What they hate, however, is the homosexual and Muslim “agenda.”

The Benham boys, David and Jason, are smarting from the cancellation of their new home-flipping show on HGTV, after word leaked out of the Benham’s anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-Muslim activism, as first reported by RightWingWatch.

David Benham even compared the fight against gay marriage to the fight against Nazi Germany. (Don’t recall that one in the Bible.) And then invoked the Leviticus passage that calls for gays to be put to death.

The Benham boys, doing heterosexuality proud in their pastel shirts and perfectly coiffed hairdos.
The Benham boys, doing heterosexuality proud in their pastel shirts and perfectly-coiffed matching hairdos.

As is always the case with these folks of late, they’re now claiming that they’re the real victims.  Because their victims stepped up and got to them first.

The Benham’s line, which is typically self-deluded, is that 85% of America is Christian, so how come all these gays and Muslims and pro-choicers keep getting their way?

Um, because 85% of America isn’t YOUR kind of Christian.  This is a common fallacy on the far-right.  They think they speak for God, and all Christianity, without realizing that they’re relative newcomers to the whole Christian game, and that lots of faiths, Christian and otherwise, don’t share their hatred of gays and Muslims, and don’t get terribly involved in the whole abortion debate.
The Benhams also pulled the victim card out, because it’s a terrible thing for freedom when a minority gets in the way of you denying them their freedom.  If this keeps up, everyone is going to want to be free.

Make the jump here to read the full article