MEN'S WORLD CUP - let's specify the gender

In hierarchies, the top group is supposed to represent everyone. And if we talk about a lower group, we specify that group as separate. Of course that assumes a lower group even ranks a mention.

THE WORLD CUP - you assume it is a men's tournament, right? If we talk about the women's WORLD CUP, we have to say WOMEN'S WORLD CUP. Just like the NCAA Final Four is about men, and if you want to talk about the women's game, you have to specify it.

As the article says, "Why do people consistently claim that Mike Krzyzewski is the winningest coach in college basketball when he is still 115 wins behind Pat Summit, with a significantly lower win percentage (his .763 to her .841)?"

And:  "The male position is not the neutral position. It has a point of view, the male point of view, which not everyone shares, and which is not always superior."

Next time you hear that Landon Donovan is the all-time leading goal scorer for the U.S., remember there are seven U.S. women higher on the list than he.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-alexander/lets-stop-neutralizing-men_b_5558581.html?fb_action_ids=837301679613204&fb_action_types=og.likes

Hierarchy Conservators Showcase Again - SCOTUS

The conservative majority of the Supreme Court of the United States has again highlighted the problems of hierarchies for all of the world to see. In ruling that the Hobby Lobby does not have to fund contraceptives for women in their health insurance, they are allowing hierarchical religions to dictate the rights of people who do not adhere to their religion. People who put themselves on the top of a "morality" hierarchy that they create dictate "morality" for every other view which, of course, they view to be inferior to theirs.

Of course we will never buy products from Hobby Lobby, but for a list of other companies fighting legally to deny women the control over their own bodies, see the link below:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/hobby-lobby-retirement-plan-invested-emergency-contraception-and-abortion-drug-makers

Sexual Assault – Great VIdeo

In sexual assault, as in negative consequences of any hierarchy, the top of the hierarchy (men) don't take seriously their attitudes and behaviors that harm a lower group (women).

KLEPPER: You're telling me that women just spend their whole day just navigating an obstacle course of sexual menace?
WILLIAMS: Pretty much.
KLEPPER: Seriously?
WILLIAMS: Seriously.
KLEPPER: Ha! Sorry. But not all men are bad! Some are still gentlemen, thank you very much.
WILLIAMS: Thanks. I'll keep that in mind the next time a guy says he wants to lick my back when I'm walking to work at eight in the fucking morning.

Watch it!! From The Daily Show.

http://jezebel.com/the-daily-shows-take-on-sexual-assault-is-devastatingly-1596369413

King and Collins – Two Generations of Gay Athletes

Tennis legend Billie Jean King is 70. She won 39 Grand Slam titles in tennis, and won the famous "Battle of the Sexes" against Bobby Riggs in 1973 (Harriet saw that game at the USMA at West Point while attending a Tennessee/Army football weekend with a cadet high school friend). Ms. King was outed in 1981 by a former lover, lost all her money overnight to lawyers, and had all of her endorsements yanked.

Jason Collins, 36, outed himself last year on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and became the first male athlete in a major American team sport to publicly announce he was gay while playing. He is a 7-foot-tall, 13-season veteran of the NBA. He was greeted by a supportive public, friends, and family.

In a fascinating interview, the New York Times talks to them both in a Manhattan restaurant about how things have changed in 32 years.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/fashion/billie-jean-king-and-jason-collins-on-being-gay-athletes.html?_r=1

The United Methodists Move Forward

Rev. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist pastor who was defrocked after performing the wedding of his gay son and his partner, has been reinstated after an appeals panel on Tuesday overturned an earlier ruling against him.

Once Rev. Schaefer was removed from the clergy, he became an outspoken activist for gay and lesbian rights.

Before his defrocking in December, Rev. Schaefer had been the pastor of Zion United Methodist Church of Iona in Lebanon, Pa. He will now resume his pastoral work in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he will minister to college students from the invitation of Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño.

Many predict that the issues of same-sex marriage and ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy will further divide the denomination after this ruling. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/us/methodist-panel-reinstates-defrocked-pastor.html?_r=0

How Long Until the Next Mormon Revelation?

From the mid-1800s until 1978,  the Mormons (also called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or LDS) had a policy which closed the church's lay priesthood to most men of black African descent. This resulted in these members being unable to participate in some temple activities. In 1978, leadership of the Mormon church declared they had received a revelation instructing them to reverse the racial restriction policy.

So now the Mormon Church has excommunicated Kate Kelly, who has formed an organization insisting that women be allowed full access to their Mormon faith. The ruling came down from an all-male panel of judges who say she cannot return unless she abandons her cause.

The Mormon leadership is showing us a wonderful example of how they may state that "man" is made in the image of God, in a hierarchical religion such as theirs, the God they describe is, instead,  made in the image of a man on top of a hierarchy.

Probably before we know it, if they start to lose members, or the social pressure gets to strong, the leaders of the Mormon church will have a revelation about ordaining women clergy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mormon-woman-activist-kate-kelly-excommunicated-n138746

Transgender Clergy Preaches at National Cathedral

In celebration of LGBT Pride Month, a first will happen at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. tomorrow. The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, the Episcopal chaplain at Boston University, will be the first openly transgender priest to preach from Canterbury Pulpit at the cathedral.

Many Christian denominations are proclaiming that people who are not heterosexual should undergo psychological treatment to become heterosexual, according to the God they speak for, and place themselves at the top of their Christianity hierarchy as the "Only Way." We can, however, remember that other Christian denominations believe that the God they speak for accepts people for who they are.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/transgender-priest-preach-national-cathedral-24245955