November 5th: A Bittersweet Day

It's a new day... a new country...a new era.

This is what I went to bed thinking last night. And this is what folks are mostly saying this morning.

For me, however, the new day brings a sadder reality. Three more anti-gay measures passed last night in Arizona, Florida, and California. The last two were states that went for Obama. California, in particular, is rough because gay marriage had been legal there for 5 months. Almost 100,000 people had gotten married who now find themselves in a legal limbo. This is the first time that rights have been expressly stripped away after having been granted.

So the "new day" that folks are so excited about seems to have left me in the dark.

The Mormon church was particularly influential in this race, with huge sums of money coming into California for nearby Utah in support of the measure. I can't help but wonder what would happen if an equally large sum of money was spent attempting to outlaw "Mormom Marriages" in the state. You know, to protect children from those wacky compounds where 12 year olds are married off to men older than their grandfathers to be a 3rd or 4th or 5th wife. Where young men are run off by older roosters so they have the girls to themselves. Even outside of these places, children are raised to hate and fear others. This type of campaign would spread the same kinds of lies and stoke the same flames of fear that the Prop 8 campaign did. But alas, I wouldn't really want to do this. I'd prefer to be better than those who hate me.

I also feel in some ways, this is the first bus we're being thrown under by the new administration. Barack or Michelle could have campaigned in California against Prop 8. It wasn't a battleground, and he had the money and political capital. But it might have cost him votes elsewhere (Indiana went blue for the first time in 40 years, for example). Also because it wasn't a battleground state, he simply wasn't there as much. And I'd rather be under an Obama bus than being dragged behind a McCain one. (Especially as much as Palin would love to 'tolerate' us right out of existence.) Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic that Obama won. And he has mentioned gay people more than any previous candidate. And he has done it in places where it might have been risky to do so. It just wasn't enough. And that makes the day for me, a little more sad.

Friends wrote to me this morning saying that we can change this. That the next election cycle will allow more time and energy to be focused on the issue. The funny thing is, I'm not all that convinced that marriage is where we should be spending our energy anyway. I'd much rather see all fifty states and the federal government provide job protections for GLBT folks. I'd much rather see schools be safer and more tolerant places. But this is what ended up becoming the issue that we chose to focus on. And now we are set back not only there, but in all the other areas as well. The new world of inclusion that many felt they woke up to today feels a little colder for me.

Part of me is stunned that we allow issues of basic civil rights to be decided by a simple majority of voters. There are many groups that, if people cared to organize around the issue, could easily be stripped of their rights too. It is, perhaps, a slippery slope argument, but it doesn't seem too far fetched to ask who will be next?

I try not to think about those things through. I try to think about what it feels like to have someone I respect headed toward the White House. I try to think about what changes might come in the courts in the next four years. I try to think about how our country can begin to regain some dignity abroad.

And I hope that a man who knows discrimination first hand; a man who knows what it feels like to have violent lies spread about him; a man whose own family seems as diverse as this country itself will try. Will try to make this a better and safer country for everyone. Including me. Will try to make this a place where the warm sun from this new day shines on everyone. Including me. And will try to ensure that the founding documents of our country and our states no longer enshrine bigotry against any people. Including me.

And so today is only bittersweet for me.