My better half has crafted an incredible post addressing the recent shooting at the Unitarian Universalist Church and many more things. It’s well worth reading so pay a visit to the Lavender Newswire and check it out. While it’s intended as a message to the RRRW I believe others will gain benefit from it as well.
The Hotel Preston, located near the Nashville Airport, has decided to do away with the traditional nightstand Bibles. Instead guests will be offered a variety of different texts they can request from a “Spiritual Menu” and have delivered to their rooms.
Oregon-based Provenance Hotels, which owns the Hotel Preston, is breaking away from a longstanding tradition of placing Bibles from Gideons International in its rooms. The goal is to offer variety to travelers who aren’t Christians or to visitors looking to learn about a different faith, Nishioka said.
“Our guests come from different places and they definitely come from different cultures, backgrounds, ethnicities, so we want everyone to feel welcomed and comfortable,” Nishioka said.
Brian Ruf, president of the Travel and Tourism Research Association, said the idea of a spiritual menu is so “leading edge” that the international organization has not done research that would show whether Hotel Preston is on the cusp of a trend. Ruf said he thinks the switch might be politically controversial but said travelers with a more international perspective might appreciate it.
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The laminated spiritual menus will be rolled out in the next three to four weeks.
Gideons International spokesman Steve Smith said the Nashville-based organization had not heard of the change at Hotel Preston, and would not comment on “issues regarding Scripture distributions.” The Gideons organization has been distributing Bibles since 1908.
A team of Provenance managers came up with the spiritual menu’s lineup, Nishioka said, which will feature the King James Version of the Bible and the New American Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Tao Te Ching, The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, the Book of Mormon, books on Scientology and Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text.
“We’ve only had positive feedback because we’ve included the Bible and we’ve actually added on to it to have two versions. I think we’ve made everybody happy,” she said.
Joe McInerney, president and CEO of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, said this is the first time he has heard of a spiritual menu, but he thinks Hotel Preston’s managers made a good business decision.
“If they want to be ecumenical, that’s a great way to do it,” McInerney said. “It’s taking a positive look at a thing that has been commonplace. What could be wrong with it if they’re providing an opportunity for all religions to read their scripture?”
I like this idea and I hope it catches on. Diversity and choices are a wonderful idea. Hopefully in the future they may even decide to offer some reading options for non-believers
As you may have read here previously, Representative Stacey Campfield (R) proposed a bill whereby elementary and middle schools in TN would be banned from teaching or discussing any form of sexuality other than heterosexuality. I’m pleased to report that his attempt failed miserably.
“I’m trying to find out where this bill came from or is it part of your re-election legislation,” an annoyed Rep. Ulysses Jones asked sponsor Rep. Stacey Campfield, a Knoxville Republican.
AdvertisementThe lawmakers argued and were gaveled into silence at times when they raised their voices, and in the end, the House panel sent the bill to the State Board of Education, effectively killing the proposal.
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Lilith Jackson, 9, her hair highlighted in bright pink, sat on the front row at the meeting with her two moms, Audra Kelly and Ardyce Mercier.
They think teachers at her school, the Brown Academy public magnet school in Chattanooga, should be able to talk about families with two mommies or two daddies as being healthy family structures.
“They should be teaching about other kinds of relationships and families,” Kelly said. She agreed that teachers should not being talking about sexuality in terms of “who is sleeping with whom.”
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Groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Tennessee Education Association said no Tennessee schools are promoting gay rights.
“There is not a problem here,” said Hedy Weinberg of the ACLU of Tennessee. “It is a clear attack on one community.”
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Campfield said he had heard complaints from two school districts but had not verified them. He went on to say that the Education Department could opt to include the topic as part of school curriculum.
“It is possible,” said Bruce Opie of the Department of Education. “But it’s highly unlikely and highly improbable.”
Campfield noted a 2006 resolution by the National Education Association saying that activities and programs must increase “acceptance” of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people.
Tennessee Education Association lobbyist Jerry Winters insisted that TEA does not advocate for gays in schools.
Campfield lost one other battle: He asked for a roll call vote on any motion. Chairman Rep. Joe Towns denied the request. It appeared the subcommittee voted along party lines, with Democrats choosing to send the bill to the Board of Education.
My take? Campfield pulled the two “complaints” out of his backside as part of his anti-gay agenda. Kudos to Rep. Jones for his refusal to tolerate Campfield’s blatantly bigoted proposal. It’s high time such hateful legislation be recognized for what it is.
Several days ago I wrote about a proposed law in TN that would prohibit discussion in elementary and middle schools of any sexual orientation other than heterosexuality. Identical bills in the TN House and Senate would prohibit unmarried cohabitating couples from adopting children–be they straight or gay. And in Florida the ACLU had to intervene when a high school repeatedly restricted student’s 1st Amendment rights to speak up for GLBT equality by deeming such behavior “disruptive”.
Again Florida is in the news, this time for a “marriage protection” amendment backed by the RRRW group Florida4Marriage. This amendment barely got the required number of signatures by the deadline, and has met with significant opposition from a wide variety of individuals and groups within the state. Why? Because it is so broadly worded that it harms not only gay people but straight people who are not married to one another. Once again the RRRW hatemongers are so virulent in their need to harm gay people and “defend” their narrow definition of marriage that they do not care who else they harm in the process.
As a broad-based coalition of state, local and national organizations, Fairness for All Families will continue to educate voters and mobilize volunteers across the state. Many of our seniors rely on domestic partnership benefits that could be taken away by the so-called “marriage” amendment. Also at stake are other basic employment and health care benefits from local governments and businesses received by thousands of families including police, firefighters and other municipal employees. Why would we take away benefits that Florida families rely on? The law should not make it harder for families to take care of their loved ones. We should strengthen, not take away family protections. It is wrong to single people out and vote on the fundamental rights of others.
They have struggled to place this on the ballot because Floridians are learning just how intrusive and harmful this amendment is for our families. We are confident that fair-minded Florida voters will vote NO at the polls in November.”
When will legislatures learn that bigotry does not belong in our laws or our constitutions? These hateful, harmful bills and amendments need to be stopped before they even get started. The only benefit to over-reaching laws such as this one in Florida is that it may wake people up to their hideous unfairness sooner than later.
Legislation designed to restrict the rights of LGBT individuals and couples is by no means unusual. But laws that go as far as to restrict straight individuals and couples, and even children, in the process of restricting LGBTs are becoming commonplace as the anti-gay lobby advances its agenda. Such is the case in Tennessee where two proposed laws would ban adoptions by any unmarried cohabitating couples, be they gay or straight. SB3910 and HB3713 are identical acts proposed in the TN Senate and House that would prohibit adoptions by “cohabitating adults in a sexual relationship” whether straight or gay.
It is the opinion of the general assembly that:
it is not in a child’s best interest to be adopted by a person who is cohabitating in a sexual relationship that is not a legally valid and binding marriage under the constitution and laws of this state.
Somehow single parents are acceptable to the general assembly though cohabitating parents are not. Methinks it has less to do with the children and more to do with hating gay people. I’m amazed they didn’t simply ban gay parents outright with the traditional “kids need a mommy and a daddy” argument. But perhaps they believe they’re creative with this method.
Maybe if straight couples rise up and fight, or if there’s a sudden dearth of adoptive couples the insanity of these bills will be made apparent. Sadly often takes such extremes for the oppression of the minorities to be overturned.
The NEA (National Education Association) issued a resolution in 1994 indicating their support for equal treatment of LGBT students in school settings. To that end they recommend accurate information on the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities as well as anti-bullying measures.
But Representative Stacey Campfield of Knoxville won’t hear of it. He filed a bill last week that would prevent elementary and middle schools in TN discussing any sexual orientation other than heterosexuality. Not only would heterosexual students not be told of the existence of LGBT students, but LGBT students (or students with LGBT family members) could not discuss matters of importance to them. Effectively LGBT people would not exist to elementary and middle school students.
“This is the kind of bill that you would have seen introduced back in the 1990s as a reaction to SpongeBob SquarePants or Heather Has Two Mommies,” says Tommie Simmons with the Shelby County Committee of the Tennessee Equality Project. The group advocates equal rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people.
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“I think the schools should stick to the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic. And maybe some civics,” says Campfield. “But teaching transgenderism to middle school students … I don’t think that’s the road we should go down. I think that’s what parents should be doing.”
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“Why does [Campfield] feel the need to take control of what’s taught in a school system away from local boards of education and away from local communities?” asks Earl Wiman, president of the Tennessee Education Association. Campfield’s bill allows discussion of heterosexuality because he wants students to learn biology and the science of reproduction.
“If I were to say ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’ or ‘George Washington and Martha Washington were husband and wife,’ there are groups out there that would say we were pushing a heterosexual agenda. To keep those lawsuits from coming, I thought we should still be able to talk about that side of it,” Campfield says.
Over the years, Campfield has proposed other controversial legislation, such as replacing the state’s food tax with a tax on pornography and requiring the state to issue death certificates for aborted fetuses. In 2005, Campfield compared the state’s Black Caucus to the Ku Klux Klan when they refused to let him join because he is white.
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Wiman worries the bill could lead to further alienation of gay students or students of gay parents.
“We have such a high adolescent suicide rate, and a large number of those killing themselves are struggling with sexual orientation,” Wiman says. “It’s a real concern for us that we be able to help boys and girls without some kind of arbitrary restrictions.”
This sounds like another deluded RW attempt to thwart the so-called “Homosexual Agenda” by preventing any mention of the existence of LGBT people to young children. It seems to be analogous to their “abstinence only” sex-education policy whereby they believe that if you merely tell teens don’t do it, then say nothing of birth control or anything else they’ll never consider having sex. The truth is that LGBT people are born every day, and ignoring their existence will not erase them from reality. Nor will it stop them from being L, G, B or T.
I hope that TN does the right thing and tosses this piece of proposed legislation in the wastebasket where it belongs. The teachers and students deserve better.
