The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
As a joke with my friends, I sometimes cite that I no longer have birthdays, but instead have anniversaries of my last birthday -- the last birthday I had at age twenty-nine. Minus that original twenty-ninth birthday...well, I've celebrated the anniversary of my twenty-ninth birthday twenty-one times.
So, today is the anniversary of when I joined the U.S. Navy as...umm...apparently as a three-month-old.
From there, I spent 20-years in the U.S. Navy, my whole career dealing privately with with my internal struggles of being trans-in-the-closet.
I was married. In 1996, after 13-years of marriage, my ex-spouse and I split. I knew I intended to finish the next four-some years, and also knew I was going to be discussing my gender identity/gender expression issues -- after my scheduled retirement in 2000 -- with a therapist.
I couldn't hide my gender identity/gender expression issues during my last four years of military service. I was sexually harassed in late 1999/early 2000. My presentation, even when I was trying to publicly suppress my gender identity/gender expression issues, left me being perceived as being gay. Apparently, I was just too feminine in my mannerisms, dress, and in my verbal and written communication -- so apparently that's why I was sexually harassed for being perceived as gay.
Despite that experience, I still made it to retirement. Just barely, but I made it.
So, today, I'm a disabled (service connected) U.S. Navy twenty-year retiree/veteran. I'm also transsexual; I also identify sociopolitically as transgender. I'm not unique in being a trans person with a personal history of military service, but I've met less than a half-a-dozen over the years that actually did enough time in the military to retire.
But more broadly, I identify as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) veteran. My military history makes for an interesting personal history, for sure.
The point of pointing out this anniversay? Well, we have a very diverse LGBT community. As a disabled woman; as a trans woman; as a woman veteran who didn't serve in the military as a woman -- I live at the intersection of many personal and community identities.
So do many of you. Perhaps all of us shouldn't forget that the broader LGBT community intersects with many other identity communities, and using the internal LGBT community diversity as a tool to find commonalities with other communities is perhaps a worthy thing to think about.
This is a piece I originally posted at the Ex-Gay Watch on February 11, 2007. Given the recent media attention on Caster Semenya, I thought reposting this piece here at Pam's House Blend would create some space for good discussion.
The
Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) has disbanded since I originally wrote this piece, so I updated the links to archives of their previous pages. Same with a few other articles that now are not longer at the URLs I originally used for this piece -- just wanted to make sure the current links to the original information were active, and the original information found in the original links was still available for view.
And too, because I wrote this piece for the
Ex-Gay Watch as a response to conservative "Christian" commentary, this piece speaks a lot to intersex and trans issues in terms of Christian faith.
Some of the information in this piece below may not be as up to date as it would be if I write this piece from scratch now (again, I originally wrote this piece in February of 2007), but if anything there is more fresh data to support the conclusions -- the conclusion that there is a scientific problem with the concept of a rigid sex and gender dichotomy.
Perhaps an update to this piece is a diary for another day.
~~Autumn~~
P.S. My views on sex and gender constructs has changed, somewhat. I now believe in a rainbow of sex and gender experience, just as there is a rainbow sexual orientation and sexuality experience. Believing in genderqueer and other sex and gender contructs doesn't tear down any male or female contructs, but I've instead embraced the diversity concept that all of these are just part of a sex and gender rainbow of human experience.
...I can see how in a different circumstance (different city, family, influences) I might have gone down the road of transgenderism. A lot of people have backgrounds similar to mine, but didn't end up struggling with same-sex attractions like I have. We're all different and broken in different ways--but we can still understand one another.
Furthermore, transgenderism represents to me one of the biggest loopholes in the new sexual ethic of our society. We're told gays can't and/or shouldn't change because people are supposedly born gay, but then the T segment of the LGBT community is encouraged to do everything--therapy, drugs, surgery--to change the way they truly were born.
Anywho; I could get into the whole why-I-believe-in-male-and-female thing, but that's a whole new post.
The piece as a whole is an outpouring of how he believes he could of ended up transgender -- it reads as anotherArgument from Spurious Similarity. But beyond that, he seems to indicate a belief in sex dichotomy determined by biological forces.
Dalton makes a statement in her short commentary that appears to verify what appears to be her conservative Christian model -- there is only one way to be female and one way to be male:
"Real women" have two X chromosomes, and they do not have a male sex organ.
My personal goals don't include tearing down male and female social constructs. Being a transsexual, I put faith in the differences of gender -- I buy into the female construct because I identify as female.
However, I can believe -- and should believe based on the evidence -- that there more ways to be biologically sexed than XY - male and XX - female. Eric Vilain, (Ph.D., chief of medical genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA) seems to agree in a piece he wrote for the Los Angeles Times:
Sex should be easily definable, but it's not. Our gender identity our profound sense of being male or female is independent from our anatomy.
But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.
On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.
How does one take a diary about one famous blogger's comments on trans people and turn it into a thread where white gay men are attacked with a broad brush? Especially with the diversity focus of Pam's House Blend? Incredible.
Frankly, I'm more than a bit disgusted with some of my trans peers who commented on in that thread, and I've sent out warning emails to a few telling these particular commenters that painting white gay men with a broad brush in unacceptable. That kind of commenting is considered widely offensive in accordance with the Pam's House Blend Terms And Conditions Of Service.
So to my trans peers who want to slam white gay men as a group for Aravosis' comments: Enough already. That behavior is unacceptable at The Blend, and should be unacceptable everywhere within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
I'm disappointed that a number of my trans peers don't "get" the messages of Martin Luther King Jr.:
The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.
And...
We have flown the air like birds and swum the seas like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.
I wish those of my peers who make broad brush comments against a fellow subcommunities of their broader community would get that LGBT civil rights are about human rights. And, white gay men are human too, and they deserve the equal rights that they don't enjoy within our society as much as trans people deserve the equal rights they too don't enjoy.
For what it's worth -- and I don't know how much it's worth -- let me say how very sorry I am that white gay men who read this blog were so wrongly attacked in the afore mentioned thread. I certainly didn't mean for my commentary about one white gay man to be unjustly applied to white, gay men as a group. Believe me when I tell you that that kind of broad brush painting is as offensive behavior to me as it was to many of you.
Pam has a link up on the top of our blog that is titled Please read this note about civility on the Blend.... Please do. Pam's House Blend is designed to be a virtual LGBT coffee house where friends discuss a wide range of issues -- just like one would at a brick and mortar LGBT coffee house. Personal attacks, community attacks, and subcommunity attacks are just not acceptable behavior between friends.
And too, please take a read also read the Pam's House Blend Terms And Conditions Of Service. The statements there on widely offensive comments apply to everyone on The Blend -- not just "the other guy."
And as a last comment, we're setting aside July 10th here at The Blend as Civility Day. It's a day we're going to talk among ourselves about being civil to one another, and being civil to others outside the LGBT community. If you have thoughts about civility among ourselves and/or among various communities, that's a day where baristas and blenders alike are welcome to post diaries about the subject.
NOTE FROM PAM: I want to second the call for civility. Autumn volunteered to help with the onerous duty of monitoring some of the threads on PHB because I have so little time to watch each comment or post. [I've been offline for most of the last few days for medical reasons (new fibromylagia med side effects gone horribly wrong), so I missed the first post altogether -- and it didn't take much to see it would be contentious -- until it was way out of control.]
I'm really shocked by some of the tone coming from regular commenters, not just newbies. None of it is excusable -- everyone receives the TOS when they sign up for an account. At this point a link to a post on civility is right up at the top of the blog. No one has an excuse for the kinds of comments toward one another we're seeing, even over a contentious topic. Count to 10 and really think whether you would say some of the things you plan to say online you would say offline in the real world. If that's the way you would converse without the cloak of anonymity the Internet provides, it may be time for you to find another virtual coffeehouse.
I love this -- the fundies are rebuffed by the state. The Arkansas Family Policy Council has been told by the state's Attorney General Dustin McDaniel to stay out of the case brought to challenge the ban on gays and lesbians adopting.
The council notes in its Jan. 16 request that McDaniel previously opposed the measure to ban unmarried couples living together from adopting or fostering children. The ban went into effect Jan. 1 after voters approved it in November. The council said McDaniel may not make the same arguments that supporters would in court, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Saturday.
McDaniel's political action committee also gave $1,000 to a campaign against the measure last fall.
In addition, the council questions Gov. Mike Beebe's commitment to rebuff the lawsuit because the governor previously opposed the ban, saying it would limit the number of homes for children who need them. Beebe is a defendant in the case as the state's chief executive.
Bring out the tiny violin. An even more hilarious objection by the organization is that it spent money to get the ban passed, therefore it's owed the chance to help defend the law.
The council also argues it should be allowed to intervene because of its efforts to put the measure into writing and successfully campaign to get it on the November ballot and approved by voters. The council said the effort cost 20,600 man-hours and $92,716, and gives the group a special interest in defending the law.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network will be meeting with your U.S. Senators and Representatives in the coming weeks to encourage them to sign on as co-sponsors of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (MREA), which would repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." It was sponsored last session by Marty Meehan (D-MA).
Your help is needed.
Thousands of people have already signed SLDN's petition (yours truly included!) asking the new Congress to pass MREA, which would establish a law that replaces "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with a non-discrimination policy. But we haven't yet reached our goal of 12,500 signatures.
The Atlanta Black LGBT Coalition last week called on Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historic church where Dr. Martin Luther King served as pastor, to remove Pastor Rick Warren as the keynote speaker for its upcoming MLK Day service.
"Rev. Warren's hateful opposition to civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and reproductive rights for women, and his intolerance of diversity contradict the values of freedom and equality that this day represents," the group said...
"Bestowing Rev. Warren such a prominent role does not foster greater understanding between divided communities. Instead it drives more wedges between disenfranchised communities that are continually pitted against each other by the agents of racism and homophobia," the gay coalition said.
The keynote speaker last year? Warren's BFF Barack Obama, who famously told the audience that "our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community," in part because "we have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them." Guess they didn't get the message.
The MLK Day service takes place on January 19th, one day before the Obama inauguration. Looks like Warren successfully negotiated a package deal.
Pretty much right after I came out to my Mom as a transsexual -- a transgender woman -- my Mom entered an Orthodox Christian monastery as a novice nun. I was never quite sure if my coming out wasn't the "last straw" event that led her to join the monastery; however, she left her particular order about a year-and-a-half after joining it.
For those who aren't aware, the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church split in 1057 over the idea of a Pope being in charge of the church -- the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are pretty similar in their approach to Christianity otherwise.
Within this past year, my Mom converted to Catholicism, so she has chosen to embrace a church where I believe the doctrine states that the Pope is infallible -- at least, as a non-Catholic, that's how I understand the doctrine to be. Does my Mom believe the Pope is infallible, or at a minimum speaks with tremendous spiritual authority? I have no idea -- I never asked her what her thoughts are on the subject of her faith regarding the Pope.
But, with that thought of an infallible Pope in mind and my Mom's recent conversion to Catholicism, perhaps I let things news like this get to me a bit too much: The Pope's Christmas message included the message that the world needs to be protected against gays and transsexuals.
Without actually using the word, Benedict took a subtle swipe at those who might undergo sex-change operations or otherwise attempt to alter their God-given gender. Defend "the nature of man against its manipulation," Benedict told the priests, bishops and cardinals gathered Monday in the ornate Clementine hall. "The Church speaks of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is respected." The Pope again denounced the contemporary idea that gender is a malleable definition. That path, he said, leads to a "self-emancipation of man from creation and the Creator."
This goes a bit beyond what the Catholic Church has said about transsexuals in the past (here, here, and here).
So, Merry Christmas, gays and transsexuals, from the Pope!
If a group calls for a "gay contingent in President-Elect Obama's 2009 Inaugural Parade," do they have an obligation to call for a diverse contingent of more than just gays and lesbians?
It's a real situation -- In The Parade is calling for "Lesbian/Gay Representation in Barack Obama's Inaugural Parade":
Marching is an important symbolic act, and the symbolic value of a gay contingent in President-Elect Obama's 2009 Inaugural Parade will say a lot about our new president's sincerity and authentic desire to include everyone in his definition of unity.
Our goal is to secure lesbian/gay representation in the Inaugural Parade on January 20th, 2009. If you come IN and join us, we will succeed.
There's a grassroots effort under way via the Web to have a queer contingent march in Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inaugural parade. Only thing is, the individuals who are trying to mobilize participants totally omitted any mention of bisexuals and transgender individuals on their In the Parade Web site. The tagline alone seems like enough to make any trans or bi person feel alientated and excluded: "Help Secure Lesbian/Gay Representation in Barack Obama's Inaugural Parade."
Amid all this renewed activism sparked by the recent gay marriage ban, this surely isn't the first instance in which the "L" and the "G" in "LGBT" are solely represented, particularly in language used on Web sites and forums organizing such efforts. Day Without a Gay, anyone?
In The Parade definitely could have called for diverse representation within an LGBT contigent in the Inaugural Parade, or directly called for representation of bisexuals, trans people, queers, intersexuals, genderqueer people, LGBT allies, LGBT people of color, LGBT veterans, etc.
So what's your thoughts on this call for a lesbian/gay contingent in President-Elect Obama's 2009 Inaugural Parade, and the critism of it?
Wow. I've been busy with daily, detail-oriented, deadline-driven work until just now. So, I missed this. It probably isn't news to anyone else, but half the day goes by before I get to catch up news, etc.
The California-based company will begin providing same-sex matches under as part of a settlement with New Jersey's Civil Rights Division.
Garden State resident Eric McKinley filed a complaint against the online matchmaker in 2005.
Under terms of the settlement, the company can create a new or differently named Web site for same-sex singles. The company can also post a disclaimer saying its compatibility-based matching system was developed from research of married heterosexual couples.
Neither the company nor its founder, Neil Clark Warren, admit any liability.
In addition, eHarmony will pay the division $50,000 to cover administrative costs. It will pay McKinley $5,000 and give him a free one-year membership to its new service.
A separate site, huh? How, uh, Jim Crow-esque of them. ("We'll just put those people over here, dear customers. So you can go right on pretending they don't exist.")
Here's the audio file of the Ron Reagan show on Air America, with guesthost Nicole Sander.
BlenderCharles Merrill comes in and talks about adoption and our community about half way through the first segment (about at the 6:30 mark in the audio).
Before I launch into this post, let me just be clear about one thing. I'm not sure of much anymore. But I am fairly certain that I shouldn't be writing this, or much of anything having to do with politics these days. For starters, I'm not that relevant as a voter. Based on everything I've read, seen, and heard, as black gay male, a member of the upper middle class, a college-educated white collar worker, and a non-Christian and non-theist, who doesn't reside in a southern state, a rust-belt state, a battle-ground state, a small town or a rural area, and someone far enough to the left to be out of the mainstream much of the time, I am one of the most irrelevant, least important voters in this election.
I am also not a "real American" living in the "real America." At best, I am an "ersatz American." (The use of the word "ersatz" automatically disqualifies me as a "real American.)"
But this is something I - and the rest of the country - already know and have known for a while.
Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, making that state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions.
The divided court ruled 4-3 that gay and lesbian couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry under the state constitution, and Connecticut's civil unions law does not provide those couples with the same rights as heterosexual couples.
"I can't believe it. We're thrilled, we're absolutely overjoyed. We're finally going to be able, after 33 years, to get married," said Janet Peck of Colchester, who was a plaintiff with her partner, Carole Conklin.
Justices overturned a lower court ruling and found in favor of the plaintiffs, who said the state's marriage law discriminates against them because it applies only to heterosexual couples, therefore denying gay couples the financial, social and emotional benefits of marriage.
I haven't had time to read the entire decision, but here's what I'd call the "money quote" from the decision.
So, will future 007 films leave tradition behind and give Bond a male lover? I doubt it but I have to admit I found it really interesting that not only does Britain's MI-5 not care if your gay, they're actively recruiting gay applicants. You read that right, according to Time:
For Britain's domestic intelligence agency, it was revealed this week, now not only welcomes but actively seeks gay applicants. "For the sort of work that MI5 is doing - not just in operations but in terms of technical support and linguistics - the caliber of people is terribly important to its effectiveness," says Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall. Sexual preference is a nonissue.
Summerskill has an unusual insight into the recruitment strategy of Britain's intensely secretive domestic intelligence agency. He was contacted "some months ago" by MI5 and asked to help encourage gay men and women to consider careers with the service and set up a network for its existing gay and lesbian employees. The move inspired punning headlines in the British press ("The Guy Who Loved Me") and raised a few eyebrows among older generations, who remember that for many years, gays and lesbians were explicitly barred from working for Britain's intelligence and diplomatic services.
Now if only the US could follow the lead of the 51st state. . .
Trigger Warning: This post contains descriptions of child abuse, which my be a trigger for some abuse survivors.
I've never spent much time in or near family court. Even when Parker's adoption was finalized, D.C. family court was having an "adoption day," where almost nothing was on the docket but adoption finalizations. Our attorney told us that the judges really loved "adoption day, " because it was such a welcome change from what they saw on a daily basis. But that day, we were so happy that we didn't give much thought to what the family court judges see all day. After all, we hadn't seen it.
But yesterday was different. We were among four families finalizing adoptions yesterday, but it wasn't adoption day, so much as "adoption hour." And we were in among the other families, who are in and out of family court for reasons a lot less joyful than our reason for being there. We sat beside some of those families, talked with them, saw the judge, finalized Dylan's adoption, and went home.
As you're reading this, I'm either on my way to, in, or on my way back from New Jersey. There reason for the trip is incredibly happy one. Today is the day we're finalizing Dylan's adoption. Last week we got a letter from the adoption agency's lawyer, confirming the court date. Wanting to make sure that Seven months after we first got word that he'd been born - and after his birthmother chose us to be his adoptive parents - and set out to lay eyes on the newest addition to our family, the judge will declare that Dylan is finally a member of our family; and that we legally and officially what we've known we were since day one: a family.
In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has left many Republicans unsettled about his ideological bearings by toggling between reliably conservative issues like support for gun owners' rights and an emphasis on centrist messages like his willingness to tackle global warming and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Those tensions were apparent in the interview as well, as Mr. McCain offered a variety of answers - sometimes nuanced in their phrasing, sometimes not - about his views on social issues.
Mr. McCain, who with his wife, Cindy, has an adopted daughter, said flatly that he opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption," he said.
Frankly, I don't need John McCain to "believe" in my family. But his statement is an opportunity to talk about something I've been thinking about for a while.
When gay men discriminate against transsexual men who identify as bisexual, are we supposed to approve of the discrimination within the LGBT community? This is apparently what CEO Joseph Lee and Technical Director Brian Brown of TangoWire wants gays and lesbians to do, according to the Bay Windows article Bi personals site boots trans member.
"[BisexualDatingNow.com] say[s], tell us about yourself in your own words. And I stated, 'I'm a 25-year old trans guy living in Boston.' ... I didn't want to mislead anyone looking at my profile, so that's why I put that," said Teich. Within a day he had received three "smiles," which members send to express their interest in getting to know each other.
Teich thought little of his decision until he wrote to the site's customer service staff about a problem he was having using the site. He exchanged e-mails with a customer service representative named Kiar Dupuis, and after reading his profile Dupuis informed him that the site does not allow transgender users.
"I am sorry, as a transgender, our site would not meet your needs. I am afraid we have to remove your profile," wrote Dupuis, according to an e-mail provided to Bay Windows by Teich. His profile was deleted shortly after he received the e-mail.
Here's what technical director Brian Brown stated when questioned by Bay Windows about the policy:
Brian Brown, chief technical officer for TangoWire, confirmed that the company does not allow transgender people to create profiles on the site. When asked why identifying as transgender would exclude someone from identifying as bisexual and placing a personal ad on a bisexual dating site, Brown reiterated that TangoWire's site does not accommodate transgender people.
"It's that T side [in LGBT] that we have not been able to fully accommodate within our program. That is shown [by the fact] that in our registration, transgender is not one of the options we provide, and we don't provide that as such. ... That identity is not an identity we have an ability to support," said Brown.
So why isn't adding transgender identities to the list of programmed choices the solution, vice excluding people who publicly identify as transsexual and/or transgender in their profiles? -- Especially as the Why Choose Us? section of BisexualDatingNow.com's site states of the business:
TangoWire was founded by, is directed by, and is run by gay personnel. We don't discriminate against our straight co-workers - they're cool people, too, and just as committed to your great experience on our site.
But, they do make no bones about discriminating against transgender people.
Daryl Herrschaft, director of Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) Workforce Equality Project, said that HRC works to educate gay-owned businesses about the transgender community, but he could not recall an instance of a gay-owned business being so blatant in discriminating against transgender people.
So is it ever okay for a gay or lesbian owned and operated business to fail to accommodate potential transgender patrons -- whether these businesses are web or brick and mortar based? And, is it more egregious, or less egregious discrimination to transgender people if it's gay or lesbian people failing to accommodate transgender patrons because of the concept of LGBT community?
~~~~~
Further reading:
* Dating Web sites usually are not big revenue generators (references how TangoWire uses their database of dating profiles for multiple dating websites)
~~~~~
Related:
* eHarmony and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act
* Married White Man Seeks Big Black D*ck
(Trigger Warning: I've never used a "trigger warning before" but there are some descriptions of severe abuse after the jump. So I wanted to warn anyone whose memories past trauma might be triggered by the descriptions.)
As I write this, it's getting late, and I'm tired. It's the day after Father's Day; the end of the day after Father's Day. Aside from Parker's usual swimming lessons, we had Capitol Pride.
We marched with the Rainbow Families contingency, after spending the afternoon decorating bicycles, strollers, and wagons, meeting other families, and watching the kids play with together. We walked with Parker on his bicycle and Dylan in his stroller. It was great, being together as a family, walking with other families, and hearing the cheers of support from the people watching the parade.
I should be asleep now, especially since it will be just a few hours before Dylan wakes up, and it'll be my turn to get up and get him back to sleep. But there's something I've been wanting to write about since the California Marriage decision came down; something that's been on my mind since I read the decision. Something that changed in a way that overwhelmed me so much that I had to walk away from my computer for a few minutes. Something changed; or didn't change, because its something I've always known is true. But just hearing it validated in a way it hasn't been before ... did something to me..
For those who aren't aware, the 
