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A victory against hate and judgment . . . S
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Senate votes to end military ban on gays
Obama expected to sign it next week, although change wouldn’t take immediate effect
Dec 18, 2010WASHINGTON In a landmark for gay rights, the Senate on Saturday voted to let gays serve openly in the military, giving President Barack Obama the chance to fulfill a campaign promise and repeal the 17-year policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Obama was expected to sign it next week, although the change wouldn’t take immediate effect. The legislation says the president and his top military advisers must certify that lifting the ban won’t hurt troops’ fighting ability. After that, there’s a 60-day waiting period for the military.
“It is time to close this chapter in our history,” Obama said in a statement after a test vote cleared the way for final action. “It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.”
The Senate vote was 65-31. The House had passed an identical version of the bill, 250-175, on Wednesday.
Repeal would mean that, for the first time in American history, gays would be openly accepted by the military and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out.
More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the 1993 law.
Story: House passes repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’Rounding up a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate was a historic victory for Obama, who made repeal a campaign promise in 2008. It also was a political triumph for congressional Democrats who struggled in the final hours of the postelection session to overcome GOP objections on several legislative priorities before Republicans regain control of the House in January.
“As Barry Goldwater said, ‘You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight,”‘ said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to the late GOP senator from Arizona.
Sen. John McCain, Obama’s GOP rival in 2008, led the opposition. The Arizona Republican acknowledged he didn’t have the votes to stop the bill and he blamed elite liberals with no military experience for pushing their social agenda on troops during wartime.
“They will do what is asked of them,” McCain said of service members. “But don’t think there won’t be a great cost.”
In the end, six GOP senators broke with their party on the procedural vote to let the bill move ahead and swung behind repeal after a recent Pentagon study concluded the ban could be lifted without hurting the ability of troops to fight.
‘Long fought battle’
Advocacy groups who lobbied hard for repeal hailed the vote as a significant step forward in gay rights. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network called the issue the “defining civil rights initiative of this decade.”Supporters of repeal filled the visitor seats overlooking the Senate floor, ready to protest had the bill failed.
“This has been a long fought battle, but this failed and discriminatory law will now be history,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
The Pentagon study found that two-thirds of service members didn’t think changing the law would have much of an effect. But of those who did predict negative consequences, a majority were assigned to combat arms units. Nearly 60 percent of the Marine Corps and Army combat units, such as infantry and special operations, said in the survey they thought repealing the law would hurt their units’ ability to fight.
The Pentagon’s uniformed chiefs are divided on whether this resistance might pose serious problems.
‘Distraction’
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos has said he thinks lifting the ban during wartime could cost lives.“I don’t want to lose any Marines to the distraction,” he told reporters this week. “I don’t want to have any Marines that I’m visiting at Bethesda (Naval Medical Center) with no legs be the result of any type of distraction.”
Adm. Mike Mullen and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, respectively, have said the fear of disruption is overblown. They note the Pentagon’s finding that 92 percent of troops who believe they have served with a gay person saw no effect on their units’ morale or effectiveness. Among Marines in combat roles who said they have served alongside a gay person, 84 percent said there was no impact.
One combat veteran comments:
I am a Combat vet. I have served for 13 years. I have been with the same guy since high school. We joined the military as a couple and have mostly (amazingly) managed to end up at the same post’s. I have gone down range with him and without. We are happy with our life in the military over all. When he is not with me I carry his photo with me. I worry about him the same as Heterosexuals worry about their loved ones when they go done range. We write letters to one another in complexly coded letters just in case someone intercepts them. We both love our nation, we are both willing to die for it. He was injured badly a few years ago. When they flew him to Germany, do you think that I was able to go be at his side? No. His parents had to give me updates from across the planet. I had to wait state side while he suffered. When all I wanted to do was be with him. I don’t want pink ACU’s or to ware a rainbow flag or put one on my POV. I’m not asking to have pride parades on post or even march in them off post. I AM NOT checking all the other naked guys out in the showers or in the men room. I’m not going to run around post telling everyone about my privet bedroom habits. I’m not even going to run around telling anyone anything about my life unless asked outright. What I do want is to be able to be at his bed side if he is hurt. I do want to be able to send him E-mails and letters without having to come up with a cover text that say’s nothing while the real letter is tucked away in it. I do want to be able to live my life without fear of losing one of the great joys of my life. I want to be able to honor our love instead of worrying about being seen when we go out to eat. My buddies don’t have to hide their wives on post little lone off post. Why should I have to hide him or him me? Do people really think that all the “HOMO’S” are planning some huge coming out party on post? If you do, your foolish. No such thing is going to happen. A few MAY come out but a lot fewer then people seem to think. I don’t have angry words for people like smartonetx. I do wonder if such people would be willing to take my places, go to the forward FOB’s and live the way we do out there, do the jobs I do out there? I hope they do the right thing here and take this ban away. I hope they give us the same freedoms we have fought for other to enjoy. I hope but I’m not sure I believe they will.Really surprising publication from Jeffrey Hopkins himself.
Quite recently Steven told about his experince from Tarot reading, so if in the future also this comes topical (maybe as an information only), or for somebody else of course as well, there is also proper manual existing.
Sorry, but my intention is not to be anyway nasty, but this is in my opinion somehow in the air.
JEFFREY HOPKINS Sex, Orgasm, and the Mind of Clear Light: The Sixty-four Arts of Gay Male Love
HOWDY
What did my Tarot lesson have to do with
this book you cited? I don’t follow.If you were meaning to give the book
a positive review, maybe you could explain
why you liked it so much.Unless, of course, you were just being immature.
Please clarify.
S
Well, in my opinion not everybody has so inquisitive nature that they are able quickly to check if something is worth of further investigation, whether it’s Tarot cards or anything else. One must be a searcher and one must have been a searcher long enough to be able to discriminate.
I’m not giving to book any kind of review because I haven’t read it, but only seen it in Era Nova, which is a local New Age book shop. I don’t also have anything to do with homosexual practices (I don’t really even know personally anybody who is), so I don’t want to pass any judgements to this or that direction.
What is special is that Jeffrey Hopkins, who is, as I have heard, openly gay himself, is speaking about Clear Light in this kind of connection.
I was only thinking that if one is firmly for pro-gay equality, and has also been Healing Tao USA bookstore manager, maybe this manual could also have it’s place among Daoist sex manuals, which there are many for heterosexual couples.
HOWDY
Below is still a link to some discussion (two years old). I’m mainly thinking Lama Shenpen Rinpoche’s posting.
His point is that behind the sexual techniques are something which is hardly attainable for homosexual couples.
I’m myself not any way prejudiced about these things, but I also think that what he says about “The Three Pillars of Path”, here the Renunciation is important, is very much true.
So be a soldier and gay is something, and to be on the Path is something very different.
So I wanted to mention Hopkins’ version of Gedun Chopel’s manual for the informative purposes.
HOWDY
Well I appreciate the suggestion, but I don’t
think that it would be a good fit for the bookstore.
While we do have gay/lesbian/bisexual students in the Healing Tao,
and in fact, there are some senior HT instructors that are in
committed homosexual relationships, this book is not Daoist.
Mostly we just have Daoist books.Not to say that there is anything wrong with Tantra
(be it straight or a re-envisioning for the gay community), but
it’s not our specialty, and we already have a large enough
inventory as it is.As for the book itself you mentioned, it appears that it is
just a rewrite of a Tantric manual geared for heterosexual coupling.
Personally I feel that trying to fit homosexuality into
a polarity model is a kludge and a wrong approach.S
I think Lama Shenpen Rinpoche has a very immature view.
Homosexual behavior is not sexual misconduct.
Sexual misconduct is rape, adultery, sexual promiscuity.
Two people in a committed relationship, be it gay or straight,
is not misconduct. The Zen temple I go to is fairly
clear about this. In fact, they have brochures inside their
temple for gay/lesbian/bisexual people about this very issue.When people have judgments against such things, it really
just reflects their own insecurity. Love is so hard to
find in the physical world, that when two consenting adults
find it–be it opposite sex or same sex–it should be celebrated.
The lifeforce is naturally diverse and does not discriminate.
It is simply love and acceptance.S
So maybe you ask from Michael Winn whether Healing Tao should also have ‘Sex, Orgasm and the Mind of Clear Light’ in the bookstore if you will still be bookstore manager during the retreats?
Gay people should be as welcome as anybody. Even there are restrictions for example consuming alcohol and doing drugs, homosexual behavior shouldn’t be regarded as misconduct.
HOWDY
I think you need to read my posts again.
Maybe there is a language barrier issue here
and you just misunderstood me.The issue with not having the book in the store,
is that it is not a Daoist book. It is not
an anti-gay stance. In particular, we don’t
have *heterosexual* Tantra books in the store
either. Do you follow me?We don’t have general cookbooks in the store,
but that doesn’t mean that chefs are not welcome.S
what have you got against chefs? are you white, male chefinists pigs?
(in case the image doesn’t come across, it is a smile 🙂
As a tantric practice, yab-yum is akin to the kaamamudraa or loveseal (sometimes karmamudraa or actionseal). This is the tantric yoga involving a physical partner.
-WIKIPEDIABogomils were dualists in that they believed the world was created not by the Abrahamic God, but by an evil demiurge – the Devil. They did not use the cross nor build churches, preferring to perform rituals outdoors.
-WIKIPEDIA about BogomilismSpiritual homosexuality & ritual buggery?
My posting is not meant to be any kind of joke nor do I have any intention to ridicule anybody or anything.
I learned buggery expression from Martin Booth’s Aleister Crowley biography, which I read some time ago, though I actually prefer personally more Booth’s books about cannabis, opium and “dragon syndicates.”
Crowley’s some time “Scarlet Woman” Leah Hirsig used to call Mr. Crowley affectionately her “buggery beast.”
My question is simply, if there is any Universal or Healing Tao instructor who is openly gay?
Or if there is somebody who wants to share his spiritual realizations through male love.
I am anyway sorry, if my posting is someway offending, because it was never meant to be.
Reasong for asking something like this also purely related to have more information and understanding.
If I don’t remember wrong, it was Crowley’s Bartzabel Working, which had only men participants engaging in Sexual Magick.
HOWDY
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/18/xin_581001881100515235975.jpg
(shaolin monk demonstrates non-breathing qigong)Ps. Picture above is not some Shaoling monk practicing erotic asphixiation but definitely Buddhist monk demonstrating his non-breathing qigong.
I was still thinking Cultivating Male Sexual Energy by Master Chia & Michael Winn.
I mean I just remembered that old posting by Steven, where he taught how to “take it up to our asses.”
That could well be suitable addition to afore mentioned text, that it would be real Daoist manual for gay men as well.
In my opinion, as preparation for coitus itself between men, aswini mudra (mare as a female horse) & one finger kungfu (better greased, but still as deep as possible into the anus itself) would probably be best special techniques sto start with,
which are not to be found from the text.Though, because I am myself not gay, I can’t really say.
HOWDY
Ps. By the way I would still ask if yab-yum-yum-yum is sexual misconduct i.e. group sex where one male sexually satisfies his multiple female partners in same session? It should have been, at least in the past, very Daoist to do.
>>>My question is simply, if there is any Universal
>>>or Healing Tao instructor who is openly gay?I am *not* aware of any; certainly not any that read this forum.
There are a few instructors who are semi-open,
i.e. meaning they are not “closeted”, but do not advertise
or talk about it with people who are unknowns.
When I say this, I include both genders,
not just male-male.>>>Or if there is somebody who wants to share his
>>>spiritual realizations through male love.Unlikely you’ll find that, given what I said above.
However, I wouldn’t expect any such realizations
to be much different from that of a heterosexual coupling.
Sexual chemistry is the spark that draws people together
in union. However, it is the merging of two people’s
hearts (potentized by sexual amplification) that
leads to spiritual realization. The genders of the
people involved, be it male-female, male-male, female-female,
is ultimately irrelevant.S
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