Thank you President Obama

Today President Obama announced that he supports marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Wow. The President of the United States, taking a stand on such an important, and still divisive, cultural issue.

This is especially important for the millions of people who struggle with their sexuality because they live in a society that gives them mixed messages. We are social animals, and even if we'd like to believe it doesn't matter, for millions of people it does, understandably, matter what other people think.

I don't know why, and I don't especially care, but some of us are born with an attraction to people of the same sex. I had to accept that fact myself and learn to understand that there is nothing wrong with it. It took me until I was almost 28 (I am 45 now) to be able to accept it. I still meet gay people who are my age that can't accept that they're gay, even though they've been gay their entire lives.

When people can't accept who they are, and when they feel society will reject them for being who they are, bad things happen including entering into relationships that are not appropriate. Nothing is more destabilizing to the institution of heterosexual marriage than forcing people into relationships that aren't appropriate for them. And it's unfair for couples who are not heterosexual to feel like society will never condone their relationship and that it will deny them the responsibilities and legal protections of marriage.

It's OK to be who you are. That's the message that I take from those famous words penned by Thomas Jefferson (below) and it's what I take from President Obama today.

Thank you Mr. President!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Jim Breitinger
Salt Lake City

The walk to work.

This morning I walked to work. Along the way, and a ten minute walk from my house, is the center of Mormondom: Temple Square. It's a beautiful collection of buildings and gardens, and it's at the heart of Salt Lake City, which itself is predominantly non-mormon.

The church office building and the temple:

Briefly a tourist in New York.

Yesterday I got to see some of my favorite people from my meteorite dealing/Airstreaming days. They're doing a show in Brimfield, Massachusetts.

This morning I left Windrock Farm (seeing the new foal before leaving), took the train into New York City (which took 3 hours instead of 2 due to "signaling problems at Grand Central). I made a pilgrimage to One World Trade Center, which officially passed the height of the Empire State Building a few days earlier. I walked around for a few hours, saw my friend Kim, then took a series of trains to JFK.

I didn't get on any flights so had to get a hotel room (I could have gone back into the city and stayed with friends, but it seemed like too far to go).

Here I am, watching Mad Men, and hoping to get on the first flight to Salt Lake in the morning.

A few photos from today:

Windrock Farm welcomes a new filly!

Out of RJ, here she is, less than 10 hours old and born in the nick of time for me to see her prior to heading home. 

She was born under the full moon. Her name: Lunar Lilly. 

Windrock Farm is my sister's farm in New York. 

Cari's home for May.

We moved Cari yesterday from the hospital after two weeks. She's now at a nursing home recovering and should be able to go to her house at the end of May or in early June.

Here she is with most of the Derby party crew earlier tonight, just after the Derby:

Bored at the hospital

We did a little posing today at the hospital.

There's not much else you can do here. Cari is now getting out of bed a little each day.

Sunday morning.

Her second Sunday at the hospital and her first morning in her room after eight days in the trauma unit:

Westchester Medical Center, Valhalla, New York.

On Friday, April 20, 2012, at approximately 7:00 PM Eastern, my sister Cari arrived at Westchester Medical Center via helicopter and was admitted to the trauma unit. This is the trauma 1 hospital servicing her part of New York. Earlier that afternoon she was crushed by a horse she was riding. The mare reared up and fell backwards with the full weight of her body smashing Cari, breaking her pelvis in four places, cracking a vertebrae, and a rib.

The trauma unit is in this new wing of the hospital. Her room was immediately above the red entrance sign. The photo is taken just beyond the helicopter pad. 

Eight days after being admitted, she was moved to an older wing. Her room is on the fourth floor just to the right of the flag in this photo. 

The hospital sits on a beautiful campus. My mom and I took a walk on April 29 when we took this photo.