Step to the back of the bus you QUEERS!

I am at once thrilled with the election of Barack Obama, and profoundly sad and ANGRY to be a part of one of the last groups it is okay to not only discriminate against, but it’s okay to codify that discrimination into the Constitution of the State of California. And what makes it doubly difficult to deal with is the fact that exit polling would indicate that only two groups in the state were overwhelmingly for the proposition, those over 65 years old, and African Americans and Latinos for who’s civil rights the gay community has worked to secure. Gee thanks. 

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

I wept last night as I watched the man I believe will actually change the face of this nation, accept the presidency and begin to chart the course of hope. And I wept again this morning in my bed when I heard that over night there had been no movement and it was fairly clear that Proposition 8 would become not just a law, but part of the Constitution of the State of California by a vote of 51% of the people; people who were LIED to about what not passing the amendment would do and people who were LIED to about Barack Obama’s position on the proposition, but his campaign did NOTHING to correct those lies in the closing days of the campaign. In the State of California animals raised for food, now are better protected by a 73% popular vote, but gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual HUMANS are still just sexual deviants whose love for one another is not as important as those who were born straight. Gee thanks California!

Civil Unions are a SEPARATE but EQUAL approach to the problem. Why is this acceptable for the GLBT Community but not acceptable for racial minorities? Why are one group’s principals of faith held above another group’s principals of faith in a country that supposedly has a blind eye to religion?

The queer community can not grow in percentage of the vote. Throughout history between 10 and 15 percent of the population is queer. Other minorities in this country have grown in percentage of the vote to further their cause; we are the only group that does not have that avenue available because regardless of what the fundamentalists tell you, we don’t recruit. So we must depend on the heterosexual community “getting it”; getting it that we DESERVE to be protected by the Constitution of the State of California and of the United States of America. Deserve to have our love relationships enjoy the same rights and responsibilities of the heterosexual community. And deserve to be EQUAL before the law in all respects. It was only a scant 30 years ago that it was illegal to marry outside your own race. How long do I have to wait to be able to marry the man of my dreams?

Let's just stop and think how different my own life would have been if at the time of my youth, queer relationships were celebrated with the same regard as heterosexual relationships. I don't think that I would have made the same choices in my life. I think I would have simply found a man who wanted a family, married him and adopted kids. How nice it would have been to feel like the way I love is okay. But now we have made that impossible for yet another generation of our youth. SHAME on us. 

This is truly a sad day in the State of California; a state that would overwhelmingly support a man like Barack Obama, who will change the face of the nation; and on the same ballot, would vote to relegate 10% of their friends and family members to PERMANENT second class citizenship. Make no mistake, the GLBT Community will not rest and will not stop. We have been beaten up through the years and we have figured out how to survive the beatings and move on, I just hoped that once we might truly live in an enlightened state. Brace yourselves, for many more years of hate and bashing my friends because it’s still okay to hate the queer community.