Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Obama wins and the struggle continues
A chapter has closed. After two years of chicken dinners, shaking countless hands, traveling to and speaking in small towns and large urban areas, Barack Hussein Obama is president elect of the United States. For some that is a nightmare, others the culmination of what Langston Hughes called ” a dream deferred.”
Actually it’s neither dream nor nightmare. To dismiss the history making election is foolhardy, but if you have been paying attention to the Obama campaign race is not the game the future 44th president plays. He knows the history of course, probably better than most, but being first only goes so far. If Jackie Robinson wasn’t a great ball player, his place in history would be negligible at best. If W.E.B. DuBois wasn’t a scholar of the finest order, no one would remember him as the first black man to get a doctorate from Harvard.
So when the novelty fades, Obama needs to govern and that is where we will judge him.
Ahh but whenever there is a celebration after an election, it also means some are disappointed. It was a difficult night for same-sex marriage advocates. Florida and Arizona voters supported same sex marriage bans. Out in California, Proposition 8 numbers are still coming in and it’s going to be tight.
Sure this is a loss and I can imagine the comments we are going to get today. With that said, all freedom struggles face obstacles. Being angry today is okay, but the larger question is once the anger subsides what are our next steps for marriage equality. That’s what I want to hear and you should only listen to folk who are talking the future.
If they don’t get it by now – they never will. They need to be reminded how it feels to be second class. Let’s help them to remember. Sometimes force is the only thing people understand. I will do everything in my power to hurt them, just as they have done to me and my kind.
NAME ONE BLACK LEADER WHO HAS ADDRESSED THIS.
We have seen the enemy – it is our fellow DEMOCRATS – and of them BLACKS HATE YOU THE MOST.
If you own their apts – evict them. If they work for you – fire them. Vote for longer prison sentences and anti-immigration policies.——
Eddie, I deplore the blatant anti-gay bigotry displayed by the African American community in voting against our equality as much as anyone. But answering bigotry with racism is not the answer. Bigotry and Racism are wrong, and while we shouldn’t ignore thier homophobia, we have to find a way to show the African American community that their bigoted views about gay people are misguided. We won’t do that by encouraging racism and revenge.
If you own their apts – evict them. If they work for you – fire them. Vote for longer prison sentences and anti-immigration policies.
Obama will not end the DMA. With all those black pastors at his back?
It’s very plain. Blacks and Hispanics turned their backs on the gay communtiy. We are being punished for even presuming we have a civil rights cause of any kind at all, the the people who think they own that legacy.
A depressing revalation has come to rear its ugly head. A small majority of Americans are not accepting of those with a differing sexual orientation. Arizona and Florida have voted to write discrimination into their constitutions. Arkansas has outlawed adoption to couples out of wedlock. And California, one of the most liberal states in the union, has passed a constituitonal amendment banning marriage equality. But there is a ray of hope. Lets hope that Obama will keep his promise and repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
I was excited that Obama won the presidential election, it was a history making event. African-americans have suffered from immense discrimination in the past, but the election of Barack Obama has proven that discrimination exists no more in America; or does it? Perhaps not in the form of race, but in sexual oriention. In his speech last night in Chicago, Barack Obama made reference that America is a place where all things are possible, but he was wrong. It is not possible in America for Gay and Lesbian partners to marry so that they may enjoy the same rights as straight couples. Our civil rights have been ignored or over-looked too long. Americans need to realize that we are human and deserve the same rights given other Americans under our constitution.
If Ralph Nader is not the narcissist that I think he is, then his work begins today. You build your party on the off years, not by running a high-profile campaign for six months every four years. I look forward to seeing the Green Party and Nader doing the kind of Internet community building, activism, and coordination done by the Obama campaign, beginning two years ago.
We’ll see just how serious Ralph Nader is about building a viable third party. Or is he just serious about promoting Ralph Nader as being “The Smartest Kid in the Class”….
As a gay Mormon, I had rather high hopes that, in one way or another, the majority of the LDS community would see that this isn’t a fight to protect marriage, but a fight to deny civil equality.
The 20 million raised by the LDS church, combined with the extortion scandal which bears the LDS Rep’s signature – among others – tells me otherwise.
I’m disappointed in my church, I’m disappointed in my fellow people…it’s a sad day when I have to look with hope to the US government and senate to promote my well-being over my own church.
Another thing that people don’t realize is this…Arkansas just banned single men and women, whether gay or straight, from adopting a child. This seems to be a pretty clear violation of the 14th Amendment. The moment an unmarried woman who can’t have children on her own is denied an adoption by the State of Arkansas, she will have standing to sue in federal court. Domestic partners is FLA, gay or straight, may lose their health benefits, and will then have the standing to sue in fedearl courts. These cases must be brought.
Gay men and woman are now the new minority in this country. We face a very decisive battle between Bible Thumpers of the right and our civil rights. The lines have been drawn and the gay community as a whole must come together and fight harder and push these religions back 10 fold. The time for pleasantries is at an end, they bring a stick, you bring a knife, its that simple.
We are no longer wimps in a battle for civil equality
Gay men and woman are now the new minority in this country. We face a very decisive battle between the Bible Thumpers of the right and our civil rights and the lines have been drawn. The Gay community as a whole must come together and fight harder and push these religions back 10 fold. The time for pleasantries is at an end, they bring a stick you bring a knife its that simple.
V Gates,
How about this for a thinking exercise.
Why are you here?
Seriously, millions of gays and lesbians received another smack in the face this morning, realizing that their relationships are scorned by the public and are coming to grips with that. Some, like me and my husband, left the country to find more favorable grounds yet still ache to know the nation of my birth, the one that I served both in the military and as a dutiful and productive civilian, still cannot find it in its collective heart to recognize the equality and inherent human worth of its homosexual citizens.
The nation of freedom and individual rights has now come to accept unquestioned the ability of a majority to categorize and label an within its state constitutions that an entire minority segment of its citizenry are “not acceptable” for equal protection under the law.
Do you have any idea how that aches to the center of someone’s soul? Do you?
Can you even imagine it? Imagine you woke up this morning and realized that you and your relationships had been categorized in the founding documents of your state or nation as “unacceptable.”
So, again, I ask: Why are you here? Why are you so driven to strike out with one more blow on a morning of such sadness of those you perceive as just “sick enemies.”
Go look in the mirror and discover the sickness you wish to point out in others.
I have nothing further to say to you. I’m going to live my life and leave the real sickness you fear behind. After 40 years, I have finally come to realize it is indeed contagious – and it can be fatal. I refuse to live like you.
James wrote: “He knows the history of course, probably better than most, but being first only goes so far.”
Too bad his knowledge of history doesn’t include segregation and the failure of “separate but equal”.
V. Gates Said: “Y’all need to get mental treatment and leave the rest of us alone.”
History will remember “people” such as yourself as bigoted, narrowminded purveyors of hate in the same vein as the Nazis, the KKK and the architects of Aparthied, devoid of compassion, tolerance and humanity. On the bright side your views, most likely spewed from what passes as religion in your circles, makes me feel better about myself knowing I am more tolerant than your evil god and the madness you serve.
To Wayne: I used to think the country was populated by cattle and sheep (and still do to an extent) but I have become convinced that lemmings make up the bulk of our population.
datalore Said: “How about ending 2 party rule in the USA? How about finding and funding alternatives.”
Two-party rule is here to stay. The powers that be will not allow a third party. We have several alternatives and candidates but the media refuses to acknowledge them and they are rarely allowed to participate in televised debates and air their views and policies. Throw in the fact that the majority of voters are ill-informed about the issues and will eagerly devour whatever lies they are told by politicians and we are pretty much doomed. In my opinion, the majority of voters are too stupid to be allowed to do so.
After the anger subsides, the sober thinking can begin. With the election of Obama and an increased Democratic majority in the Senate, we are protected for at least 4 more years from the appointment of any more radical-right judges to the U.S. Supreme Court. Absolutely, for the future of gay interests in decades to come, nothing in this election was more important than that. In Obama’s victory, we narrowly avoided a major calamity. That’s the good news.
Plus, there’s every reason to expect that Obama will attempt and might even succeed in changing some federal policies on gay issues, as long as Republicans and “blue dog” Democrats don’t undermine him.
Having said that, most of us also knew in advance that Obama’s candidacy would bring to the polls a high number of black and Hispanic voters who don’t like gays and whose churches tell them that their bigotry is godly. What we anticipated did happen, but it was frankly worth the trade off to keep McCain/Palin out.
For those who would make the mistake of venting their anger on racial minorities as if the entire group is anti-gay, remember that we also have many friends among them and that many among them are fellow gays and part of our community. That’s a starting point for building a better future for all gays.
In politics, it’s important not to attack your friends as if they are your enemies, and to know the difference.