Safe PICS For All Ages, Rated G
- Did you complete your Diet Journal today? Get it done!
- Did you do any physical activity? If not, make a point of it by tomorrow!
- It is our hope that these photos shall inspire you!
Consider joining:Today's Health/Exercise Special Message:The painful moments are survivableýBrattleboro Reformer / Oct 11, 2010 / By Rev. PEGGY J. YINGSTRaymond Chase, Tyler Clementi, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Billy Lucas and Phoebe Prince.
In just the past month, those five boys and young men killed themselves. Phoebe Prince died in January.
Raymond Chase, a 19 year old, openly gay sophomore at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, died by hanging himself in his dorm room last Wednesday.
Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers freshman, jumped to his death last week after he discovered that his roommate had allegedly hidden a camera in their dorm room and broadcast a live video stream on the Internet of him kissing another man.
Asher Brown was a 13 year old, eighth-grader in Houston who killed himself 10 days ago. He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students. Some bullied him because of his small size, some because they accused him of being gay.
Two weeks ago, Seth Walsh, a 13 year old middle-schooler killed himself after several years of anti-gay harassment. Police, meanwhile, say they cannot prosecute any of the kids responsible for his torment, since school bullying is not a crime in California.
Earlier in September, Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old high school freshman from Indiana, killed himself following a relentless period of antigay bullying at school that went unaddressed.
Phoebe Prince wasn't harassed by her classmates because she was presumed to be gay, she was the new girl at a South Hadley high school who endured months of taunting and harassment because, as everyone knows, new girls have no right to date the captain of the football team. So after an entire day of bullying, Prince hung herself in her family's apartment. She was 15.
My heart goes out to their survivors.
The sadness that these stories brings is beyond words; but the knowing that there are people -- even children -- in our own communities and families -- who are capable of such prejudice and hatred, defies imagination.
These deaths have exposed acts of cruelty that have no place in a civil society. No religious, political or personal viewpoint could ever justify bullying another human being, especially a child. We are all diminished when hatred and prejudice define our actions.
Nationally, more than 80 percent of gay and lesbian youths said their teachers never, or rarely, interrupt homophobic remarks, according to a 2007 survey by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. The survey found that while some teachers might look away due to their own biases, most teachers failed to interrupt these remarks because they didn't understand their obligations or know how to help.
A 2002 study from the National Mental Health Association found that 50 percent of all youths said gay students are bullied most or all of the time in their schools. When gay and lesbian students were asked directly in the GLSEN survey, 86 percent said they experience verbal bullying and nearly a quarter of them said they are physically assaulted in a typical school year.
It is estimated that someone kills him or herself every 7 minutes. And while there are four male suicides for every female one, women attempt suicide twice as often as do men.
Suicide is the third leading cause among persons who are 15 to 24, and 1 of every 3 kids who kills himself is a gay or lesbian teen. so when you consider that only 10 percentof all teens are gay or lesbian, and that they account for 1/3 of all teen suicides, you know that we have an epidemic on our hands. What might that number be if shame and bullying didn't exist?
Suicide touches all of our lives.
In the past week, when I have talked with others about these stories in the news, I have listened to several personal stories of suicide deaths from their survivors, those family members who have been left behind.
Those who have been left behind are people in our own families, congregations, neighborhoods, and work places. Some of us have may have attempted suicide, and others of us have made sure a relative or friend who had threatened suicide got help. Many of us have mourned and anguished over the suicidal death of a loved one, and others of us will some day experience this unspeakable grief and suffering.
Suicide testifies to life's tragic brokenness. We believe that life is God's good and precious gift to us, and yet life for us ourselves and others sometimes appears to be hell, a torment without hope.
Shame is such a driving force, isn't it? Shame-based attitudes seem eager to punish those who exhibit suicidal behavior and often blame the living for suicidal deaths. These attitudes create an environment in which people resort to hiding their suicidal behavior and persons with suicidal thoughts are reluctant to talk about them.
As God's disciples, we all need to be responsible to act in ways that will stop this epidemic. Each of us needs to reach out to the troubled kids in our lives, to listen to their stories with an open heart, and to love and accept them for who they are. We should teach kids now that being gay is just another form of love. And that bullying anyone over anything is wrong. We can lobby our government bodies to enact laws that regard bullying a crime.
We must change this culture of bullying and intolerance. We must do this together.
We must model behavior to our children and to each other that even though life can be filled with pain, it is still worth living. Worth joining with others whose struggle is also painful, in order to be of use, to be part of the creation that the God of the universe is always creating.
The painful moments are survivable. They are survivable in community, and, also in community, we can create something else, patterned after God's love for us. We can join in the dance freely, knowing that pain will surely come, but joy is abundant. Let us listen to each other, abide with each other and let us find joy together.
- Members of Peckers Pics should join our President Barack Obama group . (Health Care & Gay Rights, Gay Marriage, Repeal DOMA &, Don't Ask Don't Tell)
http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/ObamaBiden 2008/join - Bearhug Submission - Roommates (Wrestling fiction)(Your Yahoo Profile must have Age, Gender, Location before you apply for membership!).
Take Action:
- Boycott advertisers of Glenn Beck on Fox News as well as all of FOX NEWS! Glenn has lied about Health-care, called our President a racist, and is anti-gay rights.
- We demand immediate end of DADT. It is out-right discrimination.
- Boycott Bill O'Reilly and FOX News and their advertisers. Bill discussed a French commerical by McDonalds that was meant to show that McDonalds is Gay Friendly. Bill said what is next? Is McDonalds going to get be Al-Qaida friendly as well? Further, Bill said that McDonalds would never show a gay friendly commercial in the USA. Imagine, Bill is comparing Gays to Al-Qaida.
- Boycott Arizona because of their uncivilized anti-Immigration Law that encourages racial profiling and increases hatred towards minorities. A remedy: Demand Republicans to support Immigration Reform.
- NEW: Boycott Target and Best Buy for donating money towards anti-gay political candidates/organizations.
This group is called "Peckers Pics." The English - slang definition of "pecker" is to pluck at the truth. Therefore, we peck at items such as Gay Men's Health, Male Fitness, Gay (LGBT) Politics & Issues. In this section you may peck at each photo in order to decide the winner of the "war of the fittest!" Whereas, who is the model that may inspire you to exercise and "get fit?" Warning: This may stoke you!Remember your participation in discussion of health and news articles in this message is greatly appreciated!
Joburg, South Africa - Gay Pride; Oct 2, 2010
Atlanta, Georgia, USA - Gay Pride; Oct 10, 2010
Aaron Belkin / Oct 12, 2010 / Huffington PostLast month, District Court Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy barring openly gay troops from serving was unconstitutional. Today, she issued an injunction to the military worldwide, with one simple directive: The policy must end now. Since DADT "infringes the fundamental rights of United States servicemembers," all branches of the military must immediately halt all discharges, separations and investigations of service members under the policy. DADT is still on the books, but it is now unenforceable.
Opponents of this discriminatory policy, however, should not be popping corks. The Department of Justice -- which already sought unsuccessfully to limit the injunction's effect to the plaintiffs, the Log Cabin Republicans -- will almost certainly ask the Court to stay today's injunction and will appeal Judge Phillips' ruling. Then, as the case works its way through the courts, discharges of qualified men and women who serve our country will continue for years to come.
This does not have to happen. Legal experts have concurred: President Obama can permanently end "don't ask, don't tell" today, simply by ordering the DOJ not to appeal the Log Cabin ruling. This is now the White House's ideal option for ending "don't ask, don't tell," for no shortage of reasons.
First, DADT is harmful to our military. Leading DADT expert Nathaniel Frank looked at the history of the policy, and found the disturbing facts: Far from improving unit cohesion, performance, and morale, DADT undermines it by encouraging gay and lesbian service members to be dishonest. It has harmed recruitment by making the military a discriminatory, anti-gay institution in the eyes of our young people. And it has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Perhaps most crucially, it has led to the discharges of hundreds of specialists serving in the very fields -- linguistics, intelligence, and medical services -- in which recruitment is sorely lacking.
Ending DADT now is not only good for the military; for the White House, it is also good politics. Nearly every article about the upcoming election has made note of the vast "enthusiasm gap" that has Republicans far more excited to vote than Democrats. Much of this gap can be traced to the failure to accomplish key Democratic priorities. If Obama's Department of Justice declines to appeal the Log Cabin ruling, he will not just fulfill a promise he has repeatedly made from the campaign trail to this year's State of the Union address -- he will awaken his base and their faith in his leadership.
Those who favor appealing the Log Cabin case will make several predictable arguments. They will argue, as the White House has done thus far, that the task of repealing "don't ask, don't tell" should be left in the hands of Congress. But the Senate shirked that responsibility in September when it failed to pass the bill that would have allowed for the end of "don't ask, don't tell" next year. That bill is unlikely to pass during the lame-duck session, at least not with the repeal language intact, and with Republicans certain to make major gains in Congress in the upcoming election, legislative repeal could be quite difficult during the next congressional term.
In ruling so decisively against "don't ask, don't tell," Judge Phillips has presented President Obama with a stark choice. He can appeal the ruling, excuse this decision with the fiction that Congress is poised to act on repeal, and guarantee that these unjust and discriminatory discharges will continue for years to come. Or he can strengthen our military by allowing thousands of gay and lesbian service members to openly serve our country.
Mr. President: For the good of our military and our country, choose the latter. The time has come to kill "don't ask, don't tell," and Judge Phillips has just handed you the axe.
Remember: Boycott Target and Best Buy for donating money towards anti-gay political candidates/organizations and to Proposition 8 (California) to prevent gay marriage. The Formal Boycott began this past weekend. I stopped shopping these stores - even though I want a new washer/dryer and new clothes for the Fall. I would not purchase "Blood Diamonds," nor should a person / organization be contributing funds to both Hitler / Nazi's and the Jews at the same time! Obviously giving money to the Jews and not Hitler/Nazi's is the right thing to do. Hence, these companies violated my trust and well-being. They gave money to my enemy who would terminate me from my job, deny me housing and send me to a Internment camp. Therefore, goodbye Target and Best Buy! The CEO's of these companies have been insensitive to our reaction and do not even comprehend their actions! What takes so long to "fire" these Neanderthals?
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