Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Gay or Straight: One Leg at a Time

One of my favorite sources for humor highlighted this topic:
“Same-sex couples are virtually identical to opposite-sex couples when it comes to age, income, and child rearing according to census data released in the United States. … Just goes to show you, gay people really aren’t all that different from straight people. Except for our extrasensory abilities and ability to wither your crops by blinking, that is.”
So, if this is the case, then why do so many straight people still spend their energies spreading the angst and animosity? Seriously. Gay or straight, we all put our pants on one leg at a time. ;)

Monday, March 28, 2011

Moral Math

In a Country where  
1 man + 1 woman 
= moral superiority...

is anyone else intrigued by the popularity of the TLC Show "Sister Wives"?

There is more to say on this topic as it relates to the vitriolic fight in our Country to protect the "sanctity of marriage." But for now, real life and work calls.

 Marriage & Relationship Recognition

Saturday, March 26, 2011

What does it take to be a lesbian?

Well, sort of... tongue in cheek anyway.

I’m not exactly sure why, but this scene with the South Park boys trying so hard to figure out how to become a lesbian always makes me laugh out loud!



They make it sounds pretty simple: “carpet licking,” Birkenstocks, and an Indigo Girls CD. Simple as 1,2,3? ;)

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Meaning behind my blog name


One of my blog buddies posted on this topic and it got me thinking about how and why I started this blog. Let me see here. It was the Fall of 2006...

One of my 3 jobs at the time was working for a non-profit (Christian) counseling center. I liked working there because it brought in a wide variety of clientele consisting of individuals who needed help, but were not finding objective professional help in the church environment. I had been working there about 6 months when the director called me into his office. Not unusual. But this time he had that foreboding look on his face. He stated that they had gotten an "anonymous tip" via email (how can an email be anonymous?). Bottom line? The email sender stated they were going to withdraw their financial support of that counseling center while they were "harboring a lesbian" (rolling my eyes). My boss then gave me the DADT line (you know, "you don't have to say anything"). But how could I keep working there and hiding who I was? So I did "tell"... and was released from my job. I couldn't believe it. This was a professional place of business who employed credentialed professionals to administer mental health services (this was not a church). And this company was actually in a city that had a well known non-discrimination ordinance. The catch? It was a non-profit company and therefore not held accountable by the law.

Sure, I still had 2 other jobs. But the experience was surprisingly disappointing. My partner noted that I should "write about it." I didn't really have a venue to write about it... until my son suggested starting a blog. Perfect. An "anonymous" outlet on the Internet to write about my experiences and feelings. Would anyone read it? Who knew. Who cared! I had a place to vent. And I did, even citing the city ordinance and discussing how ridiculous it is that the "separation of church and state" thing gives non-profit companies the right to ignore the laws of the land.

The name of my original blog at blogger? "Burning or Building Bridges in the Community." That name came directly from the motto of the company above that fired me solely due to my sexual orientation, which was "building bridges in the community." They were not building bridges in the community.

My blog was actually at blogger for about a year and a half, at which time I discovered that my blog had been unexpectedly “locked” and was viewable only by me (if I logged in). I looked into this in blogger’s help groups, and apparently, there were many other blogger authors in this limbo presently as well! Evidently, at the beginning of 2008 blogger began a crack down. (e.g.: flagging what they thought were “spam blogs”). The problem with their “crack down” is the sheer volume of blogs for blogger to scan left lots of room for error. In December ’08 I received the following from Blogger: “Since you’re an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.” Without remedy I just decided to move my blog.

I was very happy with my new blog home at WordPress from April 2008 until about January of 2010. Around that time, some trolls who "knew" me through knowing my partner, infested my blog. I discovered that my "anonymous" blog space to share and vent and write was no longer a safe space. I still wanted to be able to blog from time-to-time, and hoped that the trolls would have actually have moved on with their own sordid lives and were not still  hunting around the Internet to see what I may be writing about. (It's not like there is a First Amendment to the Constitution of America or anything that would protect my ability to freely write whatever I choose to about my life). ;)  I then chose to make the WordPress blog "private." Those who had access could still read it, but it was necessary to close the windows to the unwelcome.

So here I am back at Blogger. My blog name changed slightly with this move to "Bridge Travels on the Journey." The original reason behind the name of my blog no longer really applied to the content, and since my Bridges blog itself had so many travels and I still wanted to share some portions of my journey -- I opted for the name modification. 


That's pretty much the story right there. :-) Thank you to you kind and genuine souls who are still walking the bridge with me all these years later.

A long way down

"There's a little moonlight, dancin' on the sand
There's a warm breeze blowin' by the ocean as your takin' my hand
You need to know, where I'm standin' now
That I'm right on the edge of givin' in to ya
Baby its a long way down.

If I fall, can ya let me down easy
If I leave my heart with you tonight,
Will you promise me that you're gonna treat it right
I'm barely hangin on, if I fall, can you let me down easy

The scent of your perfume, floatin in the air
Lookin like an angel, lyin on a blanket with a halo of hair
And those lips, look to good to be true
Once I taste that kiss, I know what'll happen
I'll be at the mercy of you

If I fall, can ya let me down easy
If I leave my heart with you tonight,
Will you promise me that you're gonna treat it right
I'm barely hangin' on, so if I fall, can you let me down easy

If I fall, can ya let me down easy
If I leave my heart with you tonight,
Will you promise me girl you're gonna treat it right
I'm barely hangin' on, so,if I fall, can you let me down easy
If I fall, can you let me down easy

Let me down easy babe."

Thursday, March 17, 2011

We’re all lesbians... when...

I just LOVE these clips! I think I spit out whatever I was drinking at the time the first time I heard Karen's comment from one of my favorite clips in the video montage:  "Oh, yeah, honey, we're all lesbians when the right guy isn't around, huh?" ;)



**more about "We're all lesbians when..." (posted with vodpod)

Thank you to Rob for being the only place I could find this clip!
Rob's Will & Grace Page

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Who is on your celebrity top 5 list?

You know.. your "list"... almost everyone has a list.
I'll post a pictorial essay of what my list just may look like...


 lesbian-life
 lesbians

You just may be a lesbian

You might be a lesbian, if… (you know, in the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy’s “you might be a redneck.” Think this could catch on?)
…you are a woman who is watching “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and thinking to yourself that Angelina Jolie is way cooler than Brad Pitt in any scene of the movie!
;) ... It's not scientific or anything...

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Wisdom from the Lezzies

Or something like that...

Some women can’t say the word lesbian… even when their mouth is full of one.
Kate Clinton

I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong, and compassionate.
Rita Mae Brown

Everyone is their own kind of lesbian. To think there’s a certain way to dress or present yourself in the world is just one more stereotype we have to fit into.
Portia de Rossi
 
I am a writer who happens to love women. I am not a lesbian who happens to write.
Jeanette Winterson

One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she’s probably a lesbian.
Shirley Chisholm

Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens.
California Sen. Sheila Kuehl


 lesbian-life
 lesbians

 

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Same-sex Sunday silliness

FINALLY!! Someone is commenting on how ridiculous the average depiction of two women (trying to) having sex on garden variety porn is!!!  
Thank you Wanda!
(Lots of other funny stuff in this clip too)



 lesbian-life
 lesbians

Friday, March 11, 2011

The hope that starts

"Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
The life, the love you'd die to heal
The hope that starts the broken hearts
You trust, you must
Confess

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

I've got another confession my friend
I'm no fool
I'm getting tired of starting again
Somewhere new

Were you born to resist or be abused?
I swear I'll never give in
I refuse."

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Reasons to leave the lifestyle

I did not author the below “reasons” and to say that I don't agree with them would be an understatement. Several of them are just so far out of left field… especially when the writer of the reasons stated their goal was to: “To bring people to a closer relationship to Jesus Christ. To express and encourage others who may be struggling with a particular struggle and to offer a biblical lifestyle alternative to their struggle.”
As an aside, it always strikes me as funny when someone labels same-sex relationships a “lifestyle.” Lifestyle can be defined as “a person's pattern of living as expressed by their interests, motivations, activities, desired experiences, and beliefs.” I know the reason they label it a lifestyle is so that they can assert their belief that one can simply “choose” not to live a certain lifestyle.

Here they are, “Top 10 Reasons to Leave the Lesbian Life Style” as defined by that author.
*(Comments in red are mine.)
10. In order to get rid of your Reprobate mind. (Reprobate? “not of standard purity or fineness; disallowed; rejected”… who decides what rejects a person and their mind in this manner? Aren’t there a whole list of things that “straight” humans can engage in to be “reprobate”?)
9. No more feeling like everyone is watching you and staring at you (because they are.) (Well now, there are many people who are just that self-conscious… and I highly doubt it has to do anything with their sexual orientation!)
8. No more worring [sic] if you look gay (because you did.) (A show of hands please, anyone who is gay or lesbian out there… is this really a worry for you? And if you did “graduate” from “exodus intl.” would that change how you look?)
7. No more trying to please God and your lover (you can now just please God.) (My mom is a heterosexual… and she could never please God and her spouse. When she came home from church, my father regularly accused her of loving God more than him. This is not a sexual orientation issue, it is a poor quality spouse issue.)
6. No more feeling like your [sic] never good enough (becuase [sic] you were not.) (Many people who reveal that they don’t feel like they are “good enough” do not give sexual orientation as their reasoning.)
5. No more feeling jealous everytime [sic] your lover didn’t phone or call. (This one also is no respecter of sexual orientation! If this exists in a relationship, it is unfortunate, but it is another of these reasons that is not inherent to same-sex relationships!)
4. No more fighting with your abusive lover. (There are as many, or more, opposite sex couples that this would be descriptive of--so it is not simply a "benefit" of casting off a same-sex relationship.)
3. No more feeling like you can’t live with out that person (because you can.) (Pardon me? See any of my above comments as to why this also is not inherent to same-sex relationships.)
2. No more feeling guilty about going to church. (Because now you can go and be guilt free.) …(what?)
1. Heaven it’s a wonderful place. (Now you can feel good about going there.) (For anyone out there who is gay and Christian… do you have a thought on these last two? Sounds like “works salvation” to me.)

Friday, March 4, 2011

Ways to "convert" gay Christians (not)

Here are some ineffective ways to “convert,” convince, coerce or change gay Christians.
  • Quote scripture at them. Using, or misusing passages from the Bible bent to suite your purposes does not work! Many of the same verses are used over and over, without the user fully having studied the context or meaning of the text.
  • Question their salvation. Pretty presumptuous for any human to determine for another their spiritual destiny.
  • Call them an “abomination.” You mean like eating shellfish, coming to church with glasses on, or playing football without gloves on “abomination”? Another selective (mis)use of scripture (more at this link).
  • Use the “sinners aren’t going to heaven” argument against them. What about: “there are NONE righteous” and “ALL have sinned”? (Ro. 3:10 & 23). A Christian is only saved by grace and faith. Name one single person that attacks LGBT individuals who is not a "sinner."
  •  Telling them their love is a “counterfeit.” Really? How? And don’t say because “gay couples cannot (naturally) conceive children from their union.”
  •  Telling them they are not good (or even “fit”) parents. It is not true, and it will only push them farther away from anyone or anything like the person attacking their parental nature!
  • Label them “reprobate” or aberrant. This is definitely not how to “win friends and influence people”! I know those trying to “convert” gays are not trying to “make friends” but seriously, this is not at all an effective influence tool.
  • Use shame.
  • Lump them in with pedophiles or porn addicts. Baseless and cruel, solely for the purpose of fear mongering.
  • Use condemnation.
  • Tell them that their “lifestyle” is unacceptable. What is all this about “lifestyle”? What is so different about what “I do” than “you do”? I work, feed my kids, pay my bills, go to church, go to the grocery store, help in my community (more at this link).
  • Treat them like “lepers.” It was my first day in Grad school. It was ethics class. There was a very large couple sitting amongst the students. When talking about various individuals one might encounter and have an ethical obligation to, the gay population came up. The couple then said in concert together: “I could never counsel THOSE people!” How sad! Definitely not a “WWJD?” perspective, but unfortunately, all to common amongst Christians and their gut reaction to gay persons.
  • Look like you are going to “vomit” when you find out someone you know is gay. After a wedding attended with friends, one was talking about how much she liked one of the bridesmaids. The other looks at her and said: “Duh! She is gay!” And that person, no kidding, looked like she was going to vomit! I knew right then, no matter what, I could never “come out” to them.
  • Withdraw relationship/fellowship from a person. You will be “rid” of that “sinner” friend or family member that way, but you will not have moved them to “covert”… only moved them to find a more loving and affirming place to hang out.
  • Send them to go to a fundamentalist retreat in order to get them “healed.” Ex-gay “ministries” or the like are simply fruitless.
  • Telling them “If God doesn’t judge you people, He will have to apologize to Sodom.” I have heard it said: “People don’t know what the Bible says about homosexuality, they only know what they have been TOLD that the Bible says about it.” Why is it, that of all the things mentioned in the Bible, this is THE one that is at the top of their worst “sin” list? I heard a professor answer a class that was clamoring about “gay marriage” with a question to them. What is the ratio in the Bible of number of times “homosexuality” (or references to it) is mentioned vs. the number of references to how God expects us to treat the poor? Silence, then some guesses. 7 to 1? 10 to 1? No, he answered: “700 to 1. So until we get it right as far as how God expects us to treat the poor, I have no right to condemn gay people.”
 gay-christians


 glbtq-christians