Bitter Sweet Day After

It's a great day for the entire world. The nightmare that has been the Bush administration is now coming to a long awaited end. Some might even say the nightmare of the Regan era is finally over.

The entire world is celebrating the election of Barack Obama.

It is however sad that Texas is once again demonstrating to the world that we are still backward, redneck, racist people. We can however rejoice in the fact that Harris County, for the most part, has swept the Republicans out of office. Let's hope that in the next four years we can spread the enlightenment of the people of Harris County to the rest of the state and the south as a whole.

For those of us that are gay we can celebrate the coming, hopefully, more gay friendly government but at the same time we find ourselves as one the last remaining minority groups that have not yet attained equality. Nationwide all anti-gay ballot initiatives passed. Once again we find religion forcing its way into government.

As may of you already know Carl and I worked with our brother and sisters in California in an attempt to defeat Proposition 8. Well our gay community lost yet again. We lost due to the huge amounts of money that was contributed by Mormons and Christians uniting to force their religious beliefs on all Americans. This huge amount of money was used to run television ads that were nothing more then blatant lies and scare tactics and it worked. Now the world's 7th largest economy has discrimination written into its constitution. This will surely embolden religious groups worldwide and lead to more death, imprisonment and discrimination against gay people. If you failed to do your part to support our gay brothers and sisters in California you are part of the problem. When this new found power to treat you as a second class citizens impacts your life and you haven't done anything, ever, to stop them you have only yourself to blame.

There is still a small glimmer of hope for our brother and sisters in California. Today an lawsuit was filed with the California Supreme Court to argue that Prop. 8 would change the California Constitution in such fundamental ways - taking important rights away from a minority group - that it amounted to a constitutional revision, which requires approval by the Legislature before being submitted to the voters. The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

I urge you as fellow gay brothers and sisters to donate today to all three groups. These groups are working to achieve equality for all gays and lesbians nationwide and even worldwide.

http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/37706prs20081105.html

http://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/articles/election-2008-hopes- challenges.html

http://www.nclrights.org/