You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
— Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., 1984

I have a feeling that the word “historic” is going to become as overused in the coming weeks and years as “tragic” was in referring to “the events of…” you know the rest. Both words appropriately describe the outcome of the 2008 U.S. elections, but I will try to find others.

I started watching election returns while unpacking winter clothes, and gasped as Pennsylvania was called for Obama, knowing that meant he probably won. I didn’t vote for him: I didn’t like his non-universal health care plan; his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq seemed vague; his plan for addressing climate change and renewable energy even more vague; and he didn’t support equal marriage rights for all. I proudly voted for Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party, whose positions are in alignment with my values.

Another gasp when Virginia was called. This the state which until just 41 years ago outlawed inter-racial marriage. Mildred Delores, a black woman, married Richard Loving, a white man in Washington D.C. in 1958 to avoid the marriage ban. But upon their return to Virginia, police raided their home in the middle of the night, and arrested them - for being married. They were later convicted. Yes, the police actually invaded their home hoping to catch them having sex, also a crime. This isn’t ancient history, this isn’t slave times, this is in my lifetime. This could have happened to Barack Obama’s parents if they lived in Virginia.

In 1967 the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction. In its decision, the Court wrote that marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man.” And that “to deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”



Is it such a stretch to substitute “another race” with “same sex”?

Without that ruling who knows when, if ever, Virginia would have decriminalized interracial marriage. And now in 2008 Obama has won the state! Remarkable! (Note that despite the Supreme Court ruling laws like Virginia’s remained on the books in several states until 2000, when Alabama became the last state to repeal its law against mixed-race marriage. Good ol’ Alabama. Forever bringing up the rear.)

So by this time things began to feel so momentous I needed to join friends at the local bar, which was packed with cheering and clapping people watching the results come in on the television. When a dramatic fire broke out down the block, only half the people left the bar to watch the fire; the rest, including me, remained glued to the television waiting for Obama’s speech. Yet another powerful moment was seeing Jesse Jackson, who was there when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in the motel in Memphis, also waiting for Obama, with tears streaming down his cheeks.

I went home elated that intelligence would return to the White House, after a long eight year drought. And while it is great to have that long chain of white male heads of state broken, on another level it really didn’t matter to me. I mean, look at Clarence Thomas, or Condoleezza Rice, or even Colin Powell, who lied to the world about Iraq. People whose politics and policies I abhor don’t get my support simply for representing a minority group. So my excitement for Obama went beyond the novelty of his race, and centered on his obvious intelligence and leadership qualities. I think I went to bed around 2:30 a.m., before west coast returns were all in.

(By the way, it is being said that Condoleezza Rice was rejected from consideration as John McCain’s running mate because she may be a lesbian. So they chose a woman who did not know that Africa was a continent over a PhD with 30 years of international and government experience who might be gay.)

Op-Ed
By Alan O'Brien-Myers

As someone who was adopted by two lesbian moms, I was certainly disappointed to find out that John McCain, a candidate for President of the United States, doesn't "believe in gay adoption."

What's not to believe in? Many gays and lesbians adopt children and create wonderful, loving families. My moms adopted me out of foster care when I was eleven years old. I'm seventeen now. I love my family. My moms provide for me in all the ways that other parents provide for their children. We have our problems just like everybody else, but in the end we take care of each other. We believe in each other.


View larger version. Cartoon by Mikhaela B. Reid.

What we don't believe in is John McCain and any other politician who is out of touch with the reality of American families. Not all families are married moms and dads with their biological children. Many children are raised by single parents, unmarried parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and more. What makes these families real is the love and care they have for each other, their commitment to seeing each other through good times and bad.

“Most of the time, I put gays and lesbians down. I know it’s not right, but I do it anyway. I say things like ‘gay men molest children.’ But that’s not true. Most of the time, I don’t even know what I’m saying. I say it all out of ignorance. I should find out what’s true first before saying anything about gays and lesbians.”

That’s one of the more memorable quotes from Debra Chasnoff and Helen S. Cohen’s 1997 ground-breaking documentary, It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in Schools. The film showed teachers launching open, non-judgmental, age-appropriate discussions with students of varied ages, locations, and backgrounds about what it means to be gay. Students spoke candidly about their perception and acknowledged stereotypes of LGB people, and educators testified about the importance of addressing LGB issues at an early age. Chasnoff and Cohen made the documentary with the hope of showing parents and educators that “children are eager and able to wrestle with stereotypes and absorb facts about what it means to be gay or lesbian,” and without a doubt, the film shows this to be true.

Op-Ed: Matt Foreman, Executive Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

At this critical moment in our efforts to pass an Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that includes transgender people under its protections, it is important to recall just why so many of us believe that no one can be left behind.

The last five days have been a grueling and defining moment in our movement’s history. When we learned that protections for transgender people would be stripped from ENDA, an unprecedented groundswell of anger, energy and determination rose up to reverse that decision.

The other day, a letter signed by more than 300 national and state advocacy organizations that work on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people was delivered to Congress, asking for more time to garner support for ENDA as it was originally introduced. Some 2,500 congregations were asked to activate their memberships to call Congress. Students are also calling and e-mailing Congress and launching Facebook accounts to build support, working from 120 LGBT campus resource centers. Action alerts, blog postings and opinion pieces supporting a trans-inclusive ENDA have been flying over the Internet.

On April 18, 2007, my VW bug was tagged with the words "fag" and "u r gay" on the hood and driver's side of my car for sporting a rainbow sticker. Rather than get it fixed, I decided to embrace what happened and keep the words on my car to evoke a dialogue with the general public about homophobia and hate crimes. Often times people think this type of thing doesn't happen because they don't see it. Not only did I want America to see it, I wanted help coming up with a solution so I launched a 58 day cross country trip with my car that is now known worldwide as the fagbug.

A while ago, I was chatting (i.e. going through the room lists looking at people's pictures) on gay.com, when I came across someone who had posted a really stunning photograph of a very shapely chest, flat stomach, and a gigantic, perfect prong sticking out of the fly of a pair of jeans. I like to think of myself as uncommonly sensitive to such displays of natural beauty, so I admired it for several seconds, before impulsively writing to the guy. I said something witty, probably, "Nice prong". He had a face picture on there too, but it wasn't as appealing as the other picture; he was a little boyishly middle-american for my tastes. There was no doubting how impressive the other shot was, however. He wrote back, much to my surprise, as muscular erections rarely reply to my comments, saying "Bush or Kerry?" I replied, continuing in the witty vein I'd started with my opening gambit, "Your prong." Then I read his profile, which went on about how masculine he was, how he refused to fuck any "pussy Kerry supporters," and lots of other drivel. When I looked at his face again, I decided he didn't just look pretty, he looked stupid too. "Sorry," he said, since my choice wasn't allowed, and that was the last I heard from the Beautiful Republican Prong. I wondered how other people reacted to this schtick; I have a boyfriend, so these conversations are meaningless for me, but would someone with less fortitude and more need to be validated really to lie and say they like W, just to get near that Beautiful Republican Prong? Was he hoping I would start begging? I must admit that I felt more than a little titillated at the idea of this atavistic creature with serious equipment making civilized lefties beg for it.

I saw the new John Waters movie A Dirty Shame on Saturday and was a little disappointed by it. It was all great until about its mid-point after which it lost considerable steam. I learned new words though for pussy such as cooter but hey I don't want to give it all away you go and check it out for yourself. The bears were hilarious! Loved the bears.