Victory & Defeat

Can I get an Amen!
However, with the election victory came the passage of Prop. 8, denying gays the right to marry. My sister's best friend, Greg, wrote this as he sat in wait to gain access to an act so many 'straight' people take advantage of. What he wrote was honest and tearful yet so touching that I wanted as many people to read it as possible.

"Last night, the chickens won. In my home state of California, voters elected to give certain rights to farm animals, while at the same time they chose to eliminate my right to marry the person I love. Having been disappointed by my fellow Americans in the past over similar issues and knowing that the passage of Proposition 8 would dampen whatever elation I felt over the victory of Barack Obama, I chose to decline all invitations to election "parties" and instead headed to a local coffeehouse to do some work. Of course, the election was unavoidable there too as crowds gathered around the big screen television, cheering and booing as individual state results began to pour in. But again, I was able to be alone, by myself in my little corner, pretending to do "work" while secretly fretting over the California results that were still hours away.
And so it is a change in the wind with a new hope for a better direction for our country.

At 8pm, it became official. Barack Obama was our nation's first African-American President-Elect. The coffeehouse erupted in applause. Cars honked on the street, whistles pierced the air and I found myself inexplicably on my feet with chills running down my spine. I suddenly was hugging a stranger. And then another. Each of us patting the other on the back and congratulating ourselves for participating in this momentous event. I glanced to my left, and sitting alone, at a table just like mine, was an African-American woman in her late 40's, with tears streaming down her face. I wondered how many times she had chose to face an election alone in order to suffer her own disappointment in private, just as I was attempting to do tonight. How many times had she been let down by her co-workers, neighbors, and family members in her fight to be recognized as equal in the eyes of all? And in that moment, I realized a lesson in patience.

Our struggle as gay and lesbian Americans is a baby in comparison to other civil rights' efforts and we are certainly suffering from another setback today. But if last night's election proved anything it is that in the United States of America progress is inevitable, sometimes is just takes time. Almost a decade ago, anti-gay Californians passed similar discriminatory legislation with the Knight campaign that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. But their victory that night was much more decisive. Today we see that Proposition 8 will only pass by the narrowest of margins. And as Barack Obama took the stage last night, for the first time ever, I was mentioned in a presidential acceptance speech. As he talked of inclusion, he spoke of uniting not just Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinos, Native Americans, the rich and the poor, but of gays and lesbians too. Two times in one night, history was being made and I was part of the conversation. Change is on the way and history will recognize our struggles. The chickens may have been victorious last night, but this caged bird knows he'll get to sing very, very soon."
-Greg

I have hope that all people, created equally, will one day actually have access to those equal rights I keep hearing about.