Supreme Court extends same-sex marriage nationwide - indeed, America is for freedom

Every human has a God given right to eat, drink, wear and believe whatever he or she wants, and marry whoever he or she wants. Some among us may not agree with the idea of same sex marriage, but that is the ultimate freedom.  Freedom guaranteed to one is freedom guaranteed to all.

When God gave the options to Adam and Eve and explained the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, and yet they chose to eat it, God did not stop them or slapped them for the wrong doing (at that time), instead God lived up to his word. That is when the freedom took seed and it is God given.

Freedom is a God given gift that we should cherish! God could have stopped Lucifer from tempting Adam and Eve, he could have stopped Adam from consuming the forbidden fruit, and he could have prevented Jesus from the crucifix, Moses did not have to speak up against Pharaoh, Muhammad (pbuh) did not have to endure persecution. God Almighty could have stopped everyone in the tract, but he did not, he gave us the freedom to choose how we deal with conflicts and restore harmony.

If Hilary gets elected as President, America would have achieved the ideals laid out by the founding fathers - that we are all created equal. Indeed, each one of us should have the equal opportunities and equal access to everything.

Congratulations to the GLBT community, now they can live freely without apprehension.  I hope the Evangelical Imams don't issue any Fatwas against this or blame this SC decision for the water crisis in California.

Once again, we appreciate President Obama to open the first official door.

Dr. Omid Safi reflects on Same-sex Marriage :
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Let me pause, though, and say a word about what I have witnessed in the last few days about the Muslim public discourse regarding same-sex marriage and the Supreme Court ruling. I have been impressed by what I see as increased nuance in our public discourse from many people, including many who are personally and religiously opposed to homosexuality but recognize the importance of the state not imposing exclusionary practices on citizens.

However, there is one item that I am concerned about, and I would add, disappointed in regarding a number of these public statements. I have seen quite a few Muslim leaders articulate something along the lines of "From the perspective of mainstream, normative Islamic law, any type of sexual union outside of marriage is unethical and immoral."

If that is what we are going to state publicly, then let us be honest and transparent and state that this normative Islamic law also included--and includes--the possibility of concubines and polygamy.

Both are sanctioned in the Qur'an, and in Islamic law. Neither is likely to be viewed with great favor in the public discourse, which is why I suspect Muslims leave them off of our discussion.

Naturally, I have no interest in advocating for concubinage or polygamy: in the case of the first a hierarchical institution and in the case of second one that is open to many kinds of abuse (though I recognize there are times that it may work for some, and God knows better than I do.).

But yes, if our appeal is going to be to existing, historical "mainstream, normative law", then we have to be willing to publicly defend and stand by concubinage and polygamy. To leave them off and pretend that "traditional" sanctioned models of Islamic marriage only include that between one man and one woman united in marriage is at best intellectually weak and at worst dishonest. The same thing goes, of course for others who present a "Biblical" model of marriage.

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Thank you,
Mike Ghouse
AmericansTogether.org
(214) 325-1916

Mike is a speaker, thinker, writer, pluralist, TV-Radio commentator and a human rights activist committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His info in 63 links atMikeGhouse.net and writings at TheGhouseDiary.com 

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Supreme Court extends same-sex marriage nationwide

http://cjonline.com/news/2015-06-26/latest-supreme-court-extends-same-sex-marriage-nationwide

Who said History is boring? A way with words

Who said History is boring? | AmericansTogether.org

 You are in for a big surprise when you learn the sources of idioms like, ‘dirt poor’,  ‘it cost me an arm and a leg’, ‘bring home the bacon’,  ‘chew the fat’ and ‘kick the bucket’ etc. If you know something that is not here, add it below.  NPR has a program called , ‘a way with words’ it is fascinating to hear the origins of the worlds, and it is worth listening.    

Source: unknown but developed.

An expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usualmeanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one'shead, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the tableround for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London, which used to have a gallows adjacent to it. Prisoners were taken to the gallows (after a fair trial of course) to be hanged. The horse-drawn dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''. If he said YES, it was referred to as ONE FOR THE ROAD. If he declined, that prisoner was ON THE WAGON. 

So there you go ... More bleeding history.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "piss poor", but worse than that were the really poor folk, who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot, they "Didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:  Most people got married in June, because they took their yearly bath in May and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.  The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies.  By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.  Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!" 

   

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.  When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.  Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."   

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying; "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance. Hence: a thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
 

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight, and then start over the next day.  Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: ''Peas porridge hot, peas’ porridge cold, pea’s porridge in the pot, and nine days old''.  

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over they would hang up their bacon, to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "Bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around talking and ’’chew the fat''.  

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death.  This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. 

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ''The Upper Crust’’.  

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and  wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake''.
 

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people, so they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.  Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus someone could be, ''Saved by the Bell ''or was considered a ''Dead Ringer'' And that's the truth. 

Now, whoever said history was  boring ! ! !

An arm and a leg – when you say, it cost me an arm and a leg – it has to do with pre-photography era, where portraits were painted – usually of face and busts,  as it was expensive to do the full picture, and they artists charged to add and arm and a leg, thus the phrase, “it costs me an arm and a leg”.

Add yours in the comment section below.
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Americans Together committed to building a cohesive America.

Mike Ghouse to FBI on Fox News - Robert Mueller, take that poster down

Mike Ghouse on O'Reilly Factor,  Fox News tonight with Laura Ingram at 8:00 PM EST about the offensive poster. ‘Offensive to Muslims’: Mike Ghouse and Dem congressman Jim McDermott calls on FBI to take down photos of terrorists.

Mike Ghouse to FBI on Fox News -  "Robert Mueller, take that poster down"

Fox News Video: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/index.html#http://video.foxnews.com/v/2499144942001/poster-of-terrorists-under-scrutiny/?playlist_id=86923

The O'Reilly Factor - Laura Ingraham - Mike Ghouse 6/21/2013

First of all, as a society, we have a responsibility to keep law and order and faithfully guard the safety of every citizen. Hate is one of the many sources of disrupting the peace in a society and it is our duty to track down the source of such hate and mitigate the conflicts and nurture goodwill.  

FBI routinely posts the pictures of  the wanted terrorists in the post offices and public places, and even displayed on TV networks – so, if people spot them, they can report. 

Look at the stupidity of FBI – these terrorists are not in America, how will an American ever spot these dudes? That ad should be posted in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, not here in America. That is waste of tax payer dollars.

Poster on Seattle Bus- needs to come down

The 2^nd Mistake is. Terrorists come in all colors, religions and races – to place the Muslim ones exclusively is damn stereotyping and a cause of hatred and disruption. This ad has got to go.

No American has to live in tension, apprehensions and fear of the other, that is the kind of cohesive America we want to build. 

I had warned Fox news right here on September 23 and again on October 8,  in two different appearances (http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/19631912/2012/09/25/controversial-anti-muslim-ad)  that the posters in the New York subway by Pamela Geller was dangerous to fellow Americans, particularly Muslim women wearing a scarf, Catholic women coming from a Church, Sikh Women, the older Hindu women with part of the Saree covering their head, the Non-Muslim women from Africa donning their cultural headdress. Does the city have a role in imbuing a sense of security in her people, or each citizen is on his or her own? Did you know a Hindu man was killed on the subway on mistaken Identity, is the security of that person means nothing? Who is responsible for the death of that individual? 

I am proud of Congressman, Jim McDermott from Washington State to work against stereotyping any one. The Daily Caller reports the following:

McDermott, a Democrat from Washington state, voiced his “deep concern” about the ad, which shows mug shots of international terrorists, and asked the FBI chief to “reconsider publicizing” it.

 According to McDermott, the “ad featuring sixteen photos of wanted terrorists is not only offensive to Muslims and ethnic minorities, but it encourages racial and religious profiling.”

 McDermott continued, “Representing terrorists, however, from only one ethnic or religious group, promotes stereotypes and ignores other forms of extremism. The FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists List‘ includes individuals of other races and associated with other religions and causes, but their faces are missing from this campaign.”

My previous appearance on The O'Reilly factor -  http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/06/ghouse-on-bill-oreilly-about-indonesian.html

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel,India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive Americaand offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

Early Voting begins today

BE AN ACTIVE CITIZEN – BE A PART OF YOUR CITY

One of the many duties of a citizen is to elect the right representative to govern so we can have the right dudes and dudettes in the governance. Indeed, the early voting begins today in most of the City and Municipal elections – just google your City and go the to City site – and you will have the polling booths listed there. This enables one to be active and participative Citizen. It just takes 10-15 minutes at most during early voting with shorter or no lines.

Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net

Texas Faith: Should leaders love their country more than their souls?

No matter how much a president loves his country, justice should be the core value to sustain the harmony and trust in societies and no compromise to be made.

URL- http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/02/texas-faith-should-leaders-love-their.html
  
Texas Faith: Should leaders love their country more than their souls?
By Bill McKenzie / Editorial Columnist
Dallas Morning News, Published on February 5, 2012 

New York Times columnist David Brooks touches upon this theme in this essay. Here’s one excerpt:

“In the real world, a great leader is called upon to create a civilized order for the city he serves. To create that order, to defeat the forces of anarchy and savagery, the virtuous leader is compelled to do hard things, to take, as it were, the sins of the situation upon himself.

“The leader who does good things cannot always be good himself. Sometimes bad acts produce good outcomes. Sometimes a leader has to love his country more than his soul.”

That’s pretty disturbing. Should a leader really love his country more than his soul? If so, does that mean country should come before faith?

To me, this is one of the more challenging parts of the intersection of religion and politics. I would love to hear your thoughts about whether leaders must on occasion love their country more than their soul.

Fourteen panelists contributed to this forum, to read the contributions from all the panelists, please visit - http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/2013/02/texas-faith-should-leaders-love-their-country-more-than-their-souls.html/


MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism and a Speaker on interfaith matters, diversity and pluralism

Do the means justify the end? Both the politicians and spiritual masters have made those decisions and have justified their actions. But there is always a price to be paid for all such actions, either in the moral deprivation of the society or the long-term destruction of justice.

When it comes to justifying the means, the Second World War always jumps out at us, and we continue to justify the bombing of Hiroshima-Nagasaki and, of course, Germany. Even the anti-war pacifists among us justify it to save greater number of lives, and in particular preventing the annihilation of Jews in the Holocaust. The Torah and Qur'an share this wisdom, “Saving a life is like saving the whole humanity.” With a tag that killing one is like killing the whole humanity, have we been able to balance between the two?

President Lincoln balanced the need to keep the nation together for the right purpose, and it was difficult on him to justify the war. Indeed, he loved America more than his soul. He could have listened to his advisers and not gone to war and lived his life. But the America he envisioned, which we benefit from today, justified the means.

The drone attacks in Pakistan are killing innocent civilians and creating more hatred towards us than taking the individual bad guys out. In that case, the end does not justify the means and we must speak out against this nonsense.

The unjust Bush war had its price, which we will continue to pay in terms of carrying the spiritual burden of mass killings of the innocent and destruction of the nations who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on us. President Bush was a revenge-seeking machine rather than someone who wanted justice.

Unfortunately, not all people feel that way, but the torch bearers of the conscience will live through it and question ourselves for not protesting the war that brought untold miseries to others and us in terms of unemployment, foreclosures, suicides among our soldiers and plain destruction of our nation.

Animals settle their disputes by locking their horns or tearing each other apart. Humans, instead, were endowed with the ability to dialogue and bring resolutions to the conflict.

No matter how much a president loves his country, justice should be the core value that sustains the harmony and trust in societies.

Additional writing:

Of course, how many Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist leaders follow their religion? 

Quran condemns offensive war, and no one is to wage a war against the other, unless it is in self-defense. The guidance even extends to the individuals, when someone throws you out of your own home forcibly, harasses you and your family, then you have a right to search, and wherever you can find them on your property, you have a right to shoot (American Terms) the invader and be not responsible for it. It further adds, if the intruded begs for mercy, he should be given a chance, for God loves those who forgive and create harmony in the society. 

I believe in the Reagan Doctrine, peace through strength, use the strength to bring peace.  Animals settle their disputes by locking their horns or tearing each other, humans were not given the horns to do the same, and instead, they were endowed with the ability to dialogue and bring resolutions to the conflict. Reagan did that successfully.

Post morteming the events, no matter how much a president loves his country, justice should be the core value.


 ....... Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

Ghouse on Hannity Show on Fox News Tonite

Sean Hannity offers the conservative perspective, and I will be on his show tonight to offer pluralistic solution on issues of the day. A moderate's point of view for our friends on the right as well as the left, to see the bigger world. I may not talk a whole lot, but I will precisely make a few points.  This must be my 40th or 50th appearance on the show, I don’t keep track of it nor do I save it any more.

TONIGHT ON HANNITY SHOW @ FOX TV
8:30 PM EST | Monday, February 11, 2013

In the last few weeks, Sean Hannity has been called names on my forums and the Facebook, what we need to realize is that Hannity is a patriotic American who keep our government in check. I am glad Hannity does not give a pass to Obama or any one. Had he grilled President Bush, we would not have been in the mess we were. Obama should not be spared either, no matter how good he is. 

We don’t have to agree on anything, but we have to talk, even if it is unpleasant. My favorite media heroes are those who nail the respective governments down, and keep them on their toes. Imagine an America without criticism, but without it, our democracy will not be fully functional.  

http://www.hannity.com/guest/ghouse-mike/10804

 

Mike Ghouse, President,
America Together Foundation
........ Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.