Blue Truck, Red State: For MLK Day

Monday, January 18, 2010

For MLK Day

9 comments:

Mareczku said...: Thanks for sharing those clips, Russ. I actually know that song "A Change is Gonna Come" by heart. I had it on an album that I got when I was a kid and still have it. I never saw Adam Lambert sing it. That was very moving. Hope that you are having a good Martin Luther King Jr. Day.; January 18, 2010 at 10:36 AM
Russ Manley said...: Glad you liked, buddy.; January 18, 2010 at 5:08 PM
Gary said...: Good stuff, Russ! I never knew about Bayard Rustin, so thanks for enlightening me.; January 18, 2010 at 7:07 PM
Russ Manley said...: You're welcome. Yes, a gay man was one of MLK's big helpers - something that ought to be more widely known.; January 19, 2010 at 12:14 AM
Stan said...: Gay marriage was just recently defeated here in NJ and to make matters worse we get a new right wing conservative, catholic, governor today. UGH!
Yes I knew about Rustin but he's the secret they always don't want to ever talk about.; January 19, 2010 at 11:18 AM
Stan said...: Oh I forgot to add that our new governor is a Republican too and buddies with Donald Trump. Great news if your rich! UGH!; January 19, 2010 at 11:20 AM
Tom said...: Good stuff in this post, Russ. Rustin is one of those incredible gays that is lost in the hetero shaping of history.

Jeepguy, there's a great documentary about him called, "Brother Outsider: the Life of Bayard Rustin" that came out in 2003. It's definitely worth seeing.

In some ways, so much hasn't changed. Those who were against the civil rights movement tried to paint King as a gay, because of his friendship with Rustin. People still believe today that we can "convert" heteros. Ignorance.; January 19, 2010 at 12:54 PM
Russ Manley said...: Would one of you fellas kindly repost the formula for converting heteros? I seem to have misplaced my copy. I want to go covert me some of my own - pickings are so slim out here on the gay side.; January 19, 2010 at 2:52 PM
Russ Manley said...: And Stan - the Prop 8 side is trying to argue that we gays are not politically powerless anymore. But at least what's happening in NJ and other places shows how powerless in fact we are.; January 19, 2010 at 2:54 PM

Prayer for Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?

It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.

If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.

--Archbishop Desmond Tutu