Monday Meme: Wonder

Bacon Meme

Renaissance philosopher, politician, author and scientist Sir Francis Bacon was a pretty progressive dude for the 16th Century. Unapologetically gay, Bacon didn’t marry a woman until he was 45 and he remained strong-willed and opinionated until his death in 1626. We figured his words on knowledge and wonder were a perfect match for today’s meme.

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Adoption Ban Lifted By Mexican Supreme Court

Supreme-Court-Mexico-400A landmark decision came from Mexico’s Supreme Court on Tuesday when it issued a 9-1 ruling that a Campeche state law barring same-sex couples from adopting is unconstitutional. Children’s rights were cited by the court as the basis for its decision. “I see no problem for a child to be adopted in a society of co-existence, which has precisely this purpose”, said presiding Judge Luis Maria Aguila in the ruling, “Are we going to prefer to have children in the street, which according to statistics exceed 100,000? We attend, of course, and perhaps with the same intensity or more, to the interests of the child.”

This decision comes on the heels of a recent ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court which stated that bans on same-sex are unconstitutional. Currently, same-sex marriages are legal in Mexico City as well as the states Chihuahua, Coahuila, Guerrero, and Quintana Roo.

 

Monday Meme: Mountains

nancy garden meme

Openly gay young adult author Nancy Garden’s Annie on My Mind was a groundbreaking novel in 1982 which continues to court controversy today due to it’s lesbian characters. Because of its content, the book is notorious for getting pulled from school library shelves and yet it is now considered a modern classic. Today’s Monday Meme uses a quote from Annie on My Mind and is inspired by the author’s fearlessness. Here’s to reaching the top and enjoying the view!

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Jamaica Plans First LGBT Pride Festival

2276While security issues have made a traditional LGBT parade impossible, the island country of Jamaica announced this week that it will hold a week-long pride festival. According to The Advocate,

Running concurrent with Jamaica’s Emancipation and Independence celebrations, Pride Jamaica will take place from August 1-8 in the capital city of Kingston. Festivities will kick off with a flash mob, followed by an opening ceremony. Then, over the next few days, there will be an art exhibition, open mic night, flag raising ceremony, and coming out symposium. Gay Star News reports that the symposium will “also feature allies, who will share their experiences of what it is like to publicly support the LGBT community in Jamaica, as well as an acoustic concert for women and a pride party.”

The news of the festival is groundbreaking given Jamaica’s sad reputation for countrywide violent homophobia. Event organizers are working to keep the event safe. Latoya Nugent, the associate director of the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays said, “We will pause the negative vibrations from anti-gay lobby groups and focus on the strides we have made as a community. More importantly, we will recommit to initiatives that see us moving forward as one community.”

Boy Scouts Votes to Allow Gay Scout Leaders

On Monday, the Boy Scouts of America finally voted to end a decades-long ban on gay scout leaders. The Boy Scouts’ national executive board met in Texas and, according to NBC News, “concluded that the policy of excluding gay adults ‘was no longer legally defensible.’ The decision was approved by 79 percent of the board.”

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Effectively immediately, the national ban is gone, however, local scouting units still have the ability to reject gay applicants for leadership positions if hiring them would violate the unit’s religious beliefs. The Boy Scouts stated that it would defend any local scouting group’s “good faith refusal” to admit a scouting leader based upon the group’s religious principles. “For far too long this issue has divided and distracted us,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Scouting’s current president, said in a statement. “Now it’s time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of Scouting to be a force for good in a community and in the lives of its youth members.

Human rights groups, however, say that the vote is a start but the Boy Scouts still has a way to go. “Today’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America to allow gay, lesbian and bisexual adults to work and volunteer is a welcome step toward erasing a stain on this important organization,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin in a statement after the vote. “But including an exemption for troops sponsored by religious organizations undermines and diminishes the historic nature of today’s decision.”