Save the Children

Victory against Prop 8!

 

Huffington Post:  Prop 8 Overturned

This is no stock photo! It's my daughter and daughter-in-law who were married at City Hall, San Francisco in October of 2008, during that small window before Prop 8 passed. Their marriage is considered legal because of its timing, their marriage is considered legal in California but the ruling today can only strengthen their union. This is such a victory for California's LGBTQ community and a step-forward toward a national awareness of this issue as being unconstitutional; not just in California but in all fifty states. A small step, but a victory, none-the-less!

Walking Down Castro (among other places)

In spite of the humid, sticky, hot weather in the Northeast, it's good to be home!  In Santa Barbara I needed a light sweater at times, in San Francisco I had to buy a jacket and a pashmina scrarf. At home right now, as little as possible!

Speaking of "as little as possible", I have a ditty about the Castro neighborhood in San Francisco. Walking down Castro, we saw a man walking on the opposite side of the sidewalk, wearing nothing but a sailor hat and cowboy boots. Gasp! Even the locals were impressed!  I fought the urge to take his photo. After all, he was obviously working on his tan, in his neighborhood and minding his own business, right? Not to mention that he gave me a sideways glance that sorta-kinda said "I dare ya".  ;-)

The story continues with WP and I running a quick errand and going back up Castro to the corner where the bar Twin Peaks is. As you will see in the photo, there is this little area with outdoor seating across from the bar, right where the trolley cars turn around.

I leave Wayne at the table, talking to his daughter, go inside Twin Peaks for a glass of wine and leave it outside with him while I return to the bar to use the women's room. I return to what turns out to be a mini-hullaballoo:  my glass of wine has been confiscated and returned to the bar and I am asked to consume it inside the bar. The patrons next to us, obviously regulars, apologized for the inconvenience, while expressing concern over the bar potentially losing its license to service alcohol. Hmmmm...a person can walk up Castro stark naked and The Pagan Sphinx almost gets arrested for bringing her wine outside!  Gotta love San Francisco! And we did and do!

 

The four days in Frisco were a total blast. A few more photos follow; samplings from the Mission, North Beach, Fillmore Jazz Festival and Japantown.

 Vesuvio Cafe
"We were bon vivantes at Vesuvio"

City Lights Bookstore

Beat Museum

The Womens Building on Valencia and 18th Street, the Mission

Women's Building (detail)

And some museum art, of course...

One of the spider sculptures by the late, great Louise Bourgeous, in the sculpture garden at San Francisco MoMA

Thank you to my friends who took the time to stop by and say hello while I was gone. I'm thinking of you all with affection and looking forward to catching up with your blog posts.


I hope you are all having a good early summer. It's hotter than Hades in the Northeast the last couple of days, and from what I understand, we missed the worse of it. Stay cool.

Some water nudes tomorrow night, I hope. A nymph or two and if I can find a Merman, all the merrier!

Love, peace and all Groovy Things,

Pagan Sphinx

The Best Thing I've Read All Year

 I saw this on my niece's Facebook page (thanks Ms. M) and it struck home:  I'm the mother of an openly gay, married daughter and I live just a hair south of the state of Vermont. The "V" stand for "Very"( mixed bag). While marriage equality is now the law, there is this mix of people that appear to really clash over a couple of issues:  not the least of which is civil and legal rights for GLBT people. The battle over legal unions was hard-fought in Vermont in 2000, and in 2009, marriage for GLBT people become legal.


This link takes you to a letter to the editor of the White River Junction, Vermont newspaper, from 2000, yet the spirit of this letter is timeless.

Marie Osmond's Son Commits Suicide

I'm putting this out quickly and therefore I'll be laying it right on the table. This post on my blog friend libhomo at Godless Liberal Homo site on Marie Osmond's son's suicide really hit home. I believe I have to agree with his opinion on this. Here's why.

You may or may not know that my daughter, now 22, happily married and working her way toward graduate school, is a lesbian who came out as "bi-sexual" at age 16. As if the rejection of several of her peers, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her then boyfriend who become irate and deranged when she told him she thought she might actually be a lesbian and not bi-sexual after all, and a parallel bi-polar episode, weren't enough to make her want to kill herself  -  add to that the what-if of if I were a strict Mormon and added the beliefs of my screwed up church to conservations with my daughter, even while I loved her. I would have lost her to suicide. I know that with every fiber of my body. I know myself and there is no way I would choose a church's doctrine over my child's life and well-being.

 My daughter and daughter-in-law, taken during their college graduation week-end in 2009

Be aware that the Mormon church continues to advocate the use of Electro-Shock Therapy for people who are coersed into "treatment" because of their "problem" which had to be caused by the individual him or herself.


I feel for anyone who loses a child and I encounter the affects of that hurt every time I interact with WP's sister who lost her 25 year-old daughter to suicide in 2005. I know the pain my family and I went through knowing our daughter didn't want to live anymore. What I can't understand is why a person can't wrap their heads around the situation and understand that they have to do everything they can to save their child. If one's child is physically ill and needs many changes in order to live, wouldn't you go to the ends of the earth to try to eliminate or add anything you could possibly think of to save them or even to make them comfortable? Then why not chuck the church and the toxic friends and open lines of communication in order to save your child?

If I were a gay teen living in a strict Mormon household, I'd kill myself too.

Pagan Sphinx Entertainment Highlight

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

No on Prop 8

If you haven't already, please think hard about sending a donation, in any amount you can afford, so that Equality California can keep the ad below running through the weekend in an effort to defeat Proposition 8.

Help to allow couples like Supergirl One and Beloved to realize their futures together, legally.

Thank you and peace to you and yours. And don't forget to check the post below for pre-wedding photos of my daughter's wedding in California. The professional wedding photos won't be available for another three weeks or so. :-)

Pagan

The Foes of Liberty & Justice For All

This, folks, is what the bigots have for propaganda to undo marriage equality in California. It's really hard not to be snarky. Thoughts please!

Prop 8 and The New Cohen Brothers Film

The Thorons’ story not only speaks to all of us, but it also reaches out to the 20 percent of voters who still haven’t made up their minds about Prop 8.

Right now, the other side is out-raising us by a wide margin. Soon, their ads – undoubtedly filled with lies and distortions about Prop 8, about us and about our families – will be on the air. Our ads will tell the real story — how real families will be affected if Prop 8 passes. Their ads won’t. We need to keep our messages on the air as much as we can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N99kv6ojn48


My note: Incidentally, I read somewhere that Brad Pitt had donated $100,000 to the effort to keep marriage legal for everyone in California. I was impressed by this and also by Brad Pitt's role in the new Cohen brothers movie Burn After Reading. The excellent Francis McDormand gives another great performance in this film as well.

Telling VoVo - Part Two

Supergirl One stayed up very late with her laptop one evening last week and was joined at some point by her Vovo, who couldn't sleep. On SG1's laptop is a wallpaper photo of her and the Beloved, hugging. Vovo asked her if this was her girl and the discussion began.

Since I was not present, what I'm writing is a reiteration of the conversation from SG1's point-of-view. My mother and I have not yet discussed it. I'm leaving it alone. Unless she brings it up, I don't intend to.

With that said, according to SG1, the discussion went less smoothly for her than it did for me when I introduced the subject of SG1's gayness. Remember also that I left it up to SG1 to tell her Vovo about her marriage plans. Supergirl One said that the marriage plans were not well received; with Vovo going as far as to say that she did not approve of two people of the same gender marrying and adding in no uncertain terms that she refused to attend the wedding. Further, Vovo requested that SG1 not come out in Mid-Size Town, Portugal, as it would cause nothing but gossip and ridicule. I had already heard this from my mother in what I call the "intro" conversation, and it came as no surprise then. Supergirl One was a bit miffed by the reaction to her marriage plans but appears to be taking it well.

Since that conversation, my mother has not changed in the least the amount of love, affection and attention she showers SG1 with. I'm both relieved and grateful that unconditional love is continues to be the family hallmark.

No disrespect against my mother but this situation brings to mind one of my favorite quotations of all time. Please, a little less love and a lot more common decency. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that.
I always think of my parents because though I was raised with tremendous love and affection, it was sometimes respect and courtesy that I needed even more than love.

David Hockney 1937 -

Garrowby Hill

(above)
Self-Portrait with Charlie
2005

(below)
Henry

Pool with Two Figures
1971

Two Peppers

He never really cared what people thought of him and always did as he pleased. He spent afternoons at Sunday School drawing cartoons of Jesus, much to his teachers' dismay. Read more about David Hockney

Peace Tree

Andy Warhol. Just pagan sphinx-y randomness.

If you care to, you can read my little earthquake of a post over at the Peace Tree:

Same Sex Marriage is a Feminist Issue

Happy Birthday, George (and me)

George Sand
July 1, 1804-1876


I share a birthday today with George Sand:
Make of her what you will. ;-)


Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, better known as George Sand, is as infamous for her cigar-in-hand cross-dressing as she is famous for her eighty novels, twenty plays, and numerous political tracts...read more here.




“The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.” George Sand

I tried to edit the piece of the post that contains the jukebox, but blogger won't let me add anything for some reason.

Although it loses a lot of its poetic integrity, here is the translated lyric for Andar Com Fe (To Walk With Faith) from the original Portuguese.

To walk with faith
Faith doesn't usually fail
Faith is a woman
Faith is in the coral snake,
In a peace of bread
Faith is in the tide, in the dagger's blade,
In light, in darkness
Faith is in the morning
Faith is in nighfall
Faith is in the summer heat
Faith is alive with health
Faith is also about to die
Sadly, in solitude
Right or even wrong,
Faith goes where I go,
On foot or by plane.
For those who don't have faith
Faith usually follows
Through yes and through no.

Thank you, Ed, for taking an interest in the meaning of the song. Peace.

A photo of Supergirl One and her Beloved can be found on this post.

I talked about her and failed to put her photo up!