The Buck and Mike Blog

The wife of a rabbi is often referred to as the rebbitzin. There’s nothing mystic about the title, it just means “rabbi’s wife.” (Now that women can also be rabbis, the term is not used as often.) But as the First Lady is far more than merely the wife of the President of the United States, a rebbitzin is also her own person, yet one who often puts her own ambitions or abilities on hold in order to further her husband’s mission.

I got an e-mail a couple of months ago. In part, it read, “I just thought you might want to know that my grandmother, Rachel Skop, passed away in her sleep yesterday. She was 8 days shy of her 97th birthday.”

I remember when I was a child and my parents told me that the new rabbi’s wife, Rachel, was a wonderful artist. Unlike many rebbitzins, she did not hover over the congregation. The wife of Rabbi Morris Skop, she had children to raise, and had her own life as an artist. But sometimes during those years she would do something uncharacteristic and that always made it feel momentous.
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A new website was born this past week, and I think it deserves close attention. Sponsored by Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons, the new site seeks to help parents, siblings, church leaders, spouses, and gay people understand better the pain experienced by everyone when a gay family member comes out of the closet as homosexual.

Keep Them and Love Them is an appropriate name for the site. I have seen families shattered when a young person — trusting that he or she would always be safe at home — dares tell parents they are gay and learns that home is no longer a place of refuge. Too often they find just the opposite: “Pack your bags and be out of here in an hour and don’t ever come back.” Nearly half of young homeless people are gay, a very sad statistic. This site can help families with at-risk family members.
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I ran to the Dollar Store for a couple things last week and couldn’t help seeing this display of finger puppets for the children’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Don’t get me wrong, I love puppets and finger puppets are just plain fun. But the only one they had was the naked version of the Emperor. I’m wondering what kind of stories dads would tell their kids at night with just this one finger puppet.

So I’m sending it to my son-in-law to see what he comes up with.

Concert Proceeds Benefit the Volunteers of America, Utah’s Homeless Youth Resource Center.

Next Monday, September 21, there is an incredible benefit concert in Salt Lake City. The lineup of performers is amazing and the cause is an important one.

Home at Last is presented by the Foundation for Reconciliation, a group whose ultimate goal is to foster better understanding between the LDS Church heterosexual majority and Church members who fall within the category of sexual minorities: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.

The choice of organization to benefit from the proceeds is not accidental. Gay and lesbian Utah teens are thrown out of their homes and/or commit suicide at alarming rates for such a family-oriented state. Suicide is the leading cause of death for Utah males ages 15 to 19, who die at a rate nearly double the national average. Suicide is the leading cause of death for teen boys in Utah. That shameful fact, in and of itself, should be a wake-up call. But apparently the call of statistics falls on deaf ears when it comes to Utah parents whose children come out to them. Volunteers of America is too often left to pick up the pieces of damaged youth who took their families’ unconditional love for granted and suddenly find themselves out on the streets. So the joint effort between the homeless youth resource center and the Foundation for Reconciliation is appropriate and wise.

The all-star performers include:

Get details and purchase tickets online at http://pdbookstore.com/tickets.html. Besides being a worthy cause, I promise this will be a concert you will never forget.

Carol Lynn Pearson, Barlow Bradford, Leraine Horstmanshoff, Michael Chipman, Bill Green, Emily Pearson, Shane Jackman, Peter & Mary Danzig, Leopard in the Temple

A Portland phenomenon, the Zoobombers started their wacky rides in the autumn of 2002. They ride MAX to the top of the Oregon Zoo, then take an elevator even higher. Then they mount tiny children’s bikes and careen down the hill at breakneck speed (and there have been lots of broken bones). Assuming they make it to the bottom alive, they climb back on MAX and do it again. They often blow through stop signs, sometimes drink too much, usually make lots of noise, and at the end of the event leave the bikes in a pile for others to borrow for the next ride.

Unfortunately, the pile of bikes was an unsightly mess until early this summer. The Zoobombers joined forces with the Regional Arts and Culture Council to hire local artists Brian Borrello and Vanessa Renwick to create a piece of functional public art, now home to the mini-bikes. The Holy Pyle and Bicycle Library, topped by a gold mini-bike, was dedicated earlier this summer after a procession from the old site to the new one, including dance moves by the Sprockettes and a few words by the mayor.

Egalitarian, free, dangerous, artistic, youth-oriented, and weird, it’s all pure Portland.

On Friday, Portland stonemason Reed Cole (age 30) didn’t feel much like working. His boss spotted a beat-up piano left on the curb and, knowing Cole moonlighted as a musician, made him a deal. They hauled the piano to the work site and Cole got paid to play the piano while his boss cut stone all day.

Only in Portland.

Ben & Jerry’s Renames Legendary Flavor to Celebrate Freedom to Marry

BURLINGTON, Vt. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Ben & Jerry’s, known for its euphoric ice cream flavors and dedication to social justice, celebrates the beginning of the freedom to marry for gay and lesbian couples in Vermont with the symbolic renaming of its well-known ice cream flavor “Chubby Hubby” to “Hubby Hubby.” In partnership with Freedom to Marry, Ben & Jerry’s aims to raise awareness of the importance of marriage equality and, to show its support, will serve “Hubby Hubby” sundaes in Vermont Scoop Shops throughout the month of September.

Ben & Jerry’s has a long history of commitment to social justice, including gay rights. Its partnership with Freedom to Marry, a national leader in the movement for marriage equality, aims to raise awareness of the importance of marriage equality and to encourage other states to follow the blazing trails of Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, and Maine. Freedom to Marry promotes the national conversation about why marriage equality matters and brings together partner organizations into a larger whole - a shared civil rights campaign.
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Ben & Jerry’s, Freedom to Marry