Jesus had 2 dads....

Dudes,

This was sent over a gay Anglican friend and she asked me to put it up here without comment.

But I will...

LOL!!!

Dudes it is only a cake or is it ?

Dudes,

This one is a story I've been asked to comment on & we can pick up the story from the  BBC : 

'A Christian-run bakery that refused a customer's request to make a cake with a slogan supporting gay marriage could face a discrimination case in court.Ashers Baking Company declined an order from a gay rights activist, asking for cake featuring the Sesame Street puppets, Bert and Ernie.The customer also wanted the cake to feature the logo of a Belfast-based campaign group called "Queerspace".The County Antrim firm could face legal action from the Equality Commission.The watchdog confirmed it is assisting the customer whose order was refused and has written to the baking company on his behalf.'

In this video, the Managing Director of the firm puts his case across as to why he felt the company could not bake this cake: 

Which is fair enough 'cos we all have freedom of belief in this country. 

But if this goes to court, the company's legal advisers must surely explain to them that the courts have by other cases pretty much clarified the discrimination laws in this area and that would indicate this business would loose, big time.

And that is  where I want to say, what the feck? Choose your battles. Isn't there a difference between baking a cake and a community being forced to marry gay couples, against their beliefs? Isn't that where the battle ground should be, if you genuinely believe in religious freedom?

Is being made a martyr and loosing everything, for the business, the employees, the Christian cause generally and the community worth  a dispute over one cake? 

Is there a difference for freedom of religion in refusing to bake a cake, however daft that sounds, for a gay person and refusing to marry them in a religious ceremony?  I can see the difference here, which I am happy to discuss further in the comments thread, but can anyone else? 

Discuss.

Thought for the day ...

Hi All,

In respect of   'Orthodox & observant enough'.

Discuss.

Hey Gay, what about ....?

Hi All ,

Sorry, been busy today, waiting for a new piano to arrive! 

Listed below are the kinds of comments  or questions from  some religious people I've had come my way over the years since coming out .... so here goes. 

Hey Gay! : 

1.  Their ain't a thing called gay, it is A choice
2. U ARE a sin
3. Being gay is OK, but ya  gotta be celibate ...Gay sex is a sin, so is having a gay partner 
4. U need to be cured of it via a miracle
5. Have a relationship, sex lives aren't our business, but religious marriage is for heterosexuals  
6. We don't have gays here and you're no welcome ....
7. You two ain't allowed to have gay sex, which is dirty and sinful, repent! 
8. You must be having sex if you are gay [Even absented of a partner]. But these heterosexuals, not married aren't bonking each other to  a birth outside of wedlock
9. Being gay is the worst possible sin ever
10. If you could take a pill to become heterosexual, would you?

As this is an interactive blog, to readers  I ask : 

• If you are gay, what's been your experiences? 

• If you are not gay, how do you respond to the gay person? 

As to the answer to question 10. No, I wouldn't take a pill to change me. I'm gay, that's the way G-d made me. In the same way I'm shortsighted, left handed, female...in His image, He knitted me together in my mother's womb... 

Worlds best gay city host to 16th pride event

Hi All

Tel Aviv celebrated its 16th Gay pride event in Tel Aviv  Friday 13th  June 2014; attended by over 100,000 people. As The Jerusalem Post said :

"It is no surprise that this event was so heavily attended; the only state in the Middle East that does not outlaw homosexuality, Israel, and specifically Tel Aviv, is host to a large and vibrant LGBTQ activist community."

So yet another reason why Israel is in total contrast to her neighbours as a beacon of liberty and liberal democracy.

From the pictures shown in the post, it looked really fab, with people having such a wonderful time (:

Thank you all : some heart, some theology

Hi all,

I've updated, edited and redrafted some of this  post, which I wrote in haste last night...

Me and my housemates  & other friends are just having a summer BBQ , with Kosher Sausages and Beef burgers.  I just wanted to say on behalf of me and my girlfriend Sarah, THANK YOU for being so lovely and kind to us as we have admitted our feeling for each other & made our relationship public; yes it is an intimate and close one and that is all we want to say about that. Neither of us can tell you what it means to have this support and this love. I've been, for a couple of years,  in a deep black hole for a while, a depressive, suicidal, horrible place where I've struggled with my religion, observance, belief  & sexuality: I've flipped and I've flopped, I've been uncertain, inconsistent, unsure, I've tried to tow the party line & above all I've been afraid of my true feelings and needs.

Should I be a Jew? Or a Christian ? Does Hashem love me? Am I allowed to express my love? Have a companion? A soulmate?

And the answer is, after 10 years of difficulty,  yes ! yes and yes! I am a Jew, proud of my heritage, loving every Jew, every Synagogue, loving our homeland of Israel with a passion that I cannot express. Loving & loyal, but not necessarily, understanding of our G-d and  the Torah. But yet,  I am LOVED by Hashem; as child of the G-d of   Abraham Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, as child of Israel, made in his image, created by him.

I've known great joy, but great sadness and a deep, deep, longing to be loved by someone and to love in return. But, bit, by bit I've been able to understand these issues, thank Hashem. But thanks to YOU guys, my FAMILY AND MY FRIENDS, who have always been there for me, who have loved me and supported me through all the pain and all the difficulties. 

I love you all lots,  THANK YOU !! XXXXXXX

I also know that not everyone is happy at present, that people do struggle, strive and don't get everything about religion and sexuality, or just life :  the pain, the love, the tears, the difficulties, the cultural pressures & how one has to deal with fundamentalist attitudes as the bee all and end all of Orthodoxy. Well, we are here for you .As is G-d. G-d loves all of humanity. You don't need to be a Jew to know him and to love him or to walk in his ways. You don't need to dress up or wear a black hat to worship him, you just need to hear his voice. He LOVES you and all of humanity. 

This is my personal view and passions. But how does this stack up against Judaism and current Rabbinical thought?

Thought for the day- ecumenical

Hi All,

For once, I actually agree with a Bishop of Rome on something  :

Letter to G-d

Dear G-d, 

I hope that you are well. I appreciate that as creator and master of the universe, people might think you probably might not have the time to check this little letter to you, although I understand that you are our  Avinu Malkeinu; our Father and our King.

You know I love you loads,even though I went through a long period of not believing you existed, that I didn't want to bother with you&  you know that I sometimes want to ask you difficult questions, like why did you give us such wonderful stuff in your Torah, only for people to use it badly? Why do people insist that why you gave us your creation and your science, one is told you have to pick you or science? 

You know I've screamed at you before, very loudly, and asked you why me and Rachel never got a chance to meet my mum and dad. Why was life was being taken as it was being given? I know that they are at the Shabbat table in Gan Eden, the place of peace which is like the feeling after sex or the warmth of a sunny day. But I still would like to know stuff.  What do they think of me? My life? My choices? My relationships ? Do they mind if I'm gay? Do they like my beloved, Sarah?  Do they love me? Are they proud of me? What about my brother's  first wife, his son and my sister's daughter?I have mourned their passing, so, so greatly. You know I grieved the loss of dear uncle Hashy, who raised me in difficult circumstances; is he still smoking his pipe? Is he still grumpy and stubborn? Is he with auntie Eleanor? I know that you love all nations of this world and that he followed you all the days of his life. You know that.

You know I'm not the best Jew or the most observant one, I try and meet you through living, the attempts to be kind, to not let my 'inner bitch' come out too much, trying to do and not to do... & friends and family. I enjoy the Shabbat you gave us. We light candles, break bread and drink wine over prayers, sing , eat discuss the Torah, debate & reflect over the week together,often till the early hours of the morning (especially as one of my brothers is now living with us!). You know that, though, because you are with us there. 

You know I've struggled a lot in trying to meet with you; being an atheist, then looking into Christianity, now returned to the Jewish fold. .My brother David says to me what is more important is how we all act in the world, rather than what we say we believe.I know you  understand all of this because I just have that sense of shalom, peace completeness and wholeness . You know that for the first time in a very long time I'm beginning to feel happy. I don't know if that will last, because life is life. Good and bad. But YOUR love,G-d, is eternal as you've said via King David (Psalm 136), it never ceases or ends.

That's what I like about you G-d

Hashem, ani ohev otra

God, I love you loads xxx

The BNP Youth - "heartless Zionists" and "militant homosexuals" are to blame for Britain's ills

If it is one political party I detest it is the so called 'British National Party' or BNP. For  those of  our readership outside of the UK, they are nothing more than thugs of the traditional far right (& have 2 MEP's). Last week, their 'youth wing'  released this video (I'm not going to link via YouTube as I refuse to give such an odious polity, which makes me sick, a visible platform on my blog).As my helpful guide of anti-semitism & anti-zionism showed [here], Jew haters will often camouflage their racism with the term 'anti-zionism' but it pretty much one and the same thing, although nowadays they will often attack Islam and ignore Jews (at least in propaganda), but in this video the mask  has slipped. We see the full vent of their  bigotry, angst and anger against society, whose ills are the fault of the following groups  - 

• "militant homosexuals"
• "cultural marxists", 
• "banksters", 
• "heartless Zionists",
• "capitalists"
• " the media", 
• "UK immigration policy" 

. As Jake Wallis Simons of the Daily Telegraph noted* -

"Earlier this week, BNP Youth released a campaign video entitled Fight Back (above). It is in equal part worrying and comical. Beginning with music that evokes a Death Star fascist aesthetic, it is presented by a handful of (white) teenagers, all of whom look awkward, pimply, nerdy and gauche – the sort of kids who would be stalwart members of the Dungeons and Dragons society if they hadn't been quite so politically aware. And the message they promote, which targets "militant homosexuals", "cultural marxists", bankers, "heartless Zionists", the media, UK immigration policy and (bizarrely) Doreen Lawrence, comes across as little more than unreconstructed fascism."

Thankfully according to the latest polls, this party is heading toward welcome oblivion. But we must always be on guard against such bigotry. I only hope that UKIP isn't anything other than a more 'respectable'  outlet for such radical views, especially after the Farrage meltdown on Friday. 

Time will tell. 

It always does.


* Hannah made a brief skirmish into the comments. She was too nice with the BNP supporters on Jake's blog.

Where is your 'inner bitch' Hannah? 

No fear only Shalom

Hi All,

I had to do write this.  it has been eating me up for a long, long time, but having read about others coming out that they were gay & in a relationship, I'm taking the plunge. I've spoken to my immediate friends and family. I hope people will be as understanding as they have been to me this morning 

( : 

My face is tears like rain

because being able to tell you

something special

has taken away my pain

my feeling of inadequacy, 

my fear, my feelings, 

my potential hypocrisy 

I feel no fear, only shalom

I've got a girl friend

Well more than just a friend

a companion, a soul mate, a lover

I'm no longer having to pretend

I can't help my feelings of whom I love

I feel no fear, only shalom

 

I thank my family and friends for understanding

for being loving and kind always

I know some of you don't understand,

 but love me as a sister

& for wanting to provide a loving welcome

 to my friend

I  feel no fear, only shalom

God created me in his image

He knit me together in my mother's womb,

knows my innermost thoughts

I am one of his children

He does not put a stumbling block before the blind

He restores the years the the locusts have eaten

The Merciful One, blessed be his name,

overlooks what is out of a person’s control

I feel no fear, only shalom

I can't live my life out without companionship and love

God knows this, I hope the rest of you do

Do not judge another person until you have been in their place

Don't judge me by what I am, but what I do

I feel no fear, only shalom

What is more important, the quantity of observance or the quality?

Rather than query what happens in bedrooms 

Praise what's going on in the living rooms 

welcoming guests, keeping Kosher, loving the stranger, 

not bitching, honouring people, 

being part of Torah centred families & values

I feel no fear, only shalom ...

 ...for I shall leave judgement to the Almighty. 

In the meantime we have a life to live and live it to the full. 

Hannah ...... & my girlfriend  Sarah 

Shalom Hashem Aleikhem!