Dear GLBT Duers...

[TygrBright]

...and your families and friends.

I do wish this had turned out more hopefully for YOU. It completely bewilders me that people can vote for a ticket that represents hope and acceptance and faith in the future...

...and then on the SAME ballot, vote to deny my sister, my uncle, my friends, and YOU, basic civil rights.

I am baffled.

I suppose you're not, since you've lived with this kind of small-minded fear and hatred all your lives.

I thought we were bigger than that, I really did.

I still think most of us are.

I tell myself that a lot of the people who voted to deny you civil rights didn't understand what they were doing-- that they thought the mean, petty, bigoted measures they were voting for were just some effort to keep various Churches from being 'forced to do stuff against their conscience.' That you'd still be able to share your life with someone you love and visit them in the hospital and be able to have all the legal rights and privileges that I take for granted except being able to have some churchy-type acknowledgment of my partnership. I hope that was the stupid, lazy assumption many were making. Because I really have a hard time believing that so many people could vote for Barack Obama, and then on the same ballot, vote against everything he stands for.

We are an astoundingly dense species sometimes.

Please believe that I will continue my commitment to your full equality and civil rights. I will not be silent about it. I will not accept their denial tamely. I may recognize political and pragmatic necessities about how and where and when the various battles of this fight must be waged in order to achieve victory, but I will never, EVER give up the fight.

Until EVERYONE has equality and civil rights, we are all lacking something terribly important.

I'm so sad that this otherwise happy, brilliant, inspiring day must carry such a sting in its tail.

Holding you all in the Light.

sadly,
Bright

[begin_within]

1. Thank you so much.

[NMDemDist2]

2. I'm still holding hope, only 1/3 of the results are in

I'm praying for our brothers and sisters in California

[Lost-in-FL]

3. I am with you too.

I tried doing my part in FL but the votes did not add up. :grouphug:

[xchrom]

4. it was actually not contradictory.

it might on the surface seem so -- but think back and you'll see it isn't.

[Duncan Grant]

5. The Democratic party did as little as possible for gay Californians regarding Proposition 8.

I am outraged.

Thomas Jefferson wrote about the recourse of people who are unjustly governed. It is shameful that rights granted to gay people were removed on the same night Barack Obama was elected President. His (and the Democratic Party's) equivocation on gay marriage was insulting and doomed to failure.

This is a night of pain and trauma for gay Americans. The oppression and persecution we endure at your hands is an outrage.

Enjoy your victory.


:nuke:

[RetiredTrotskyite]

8. You Are Right...

Yet another election where GLBT people worked to elect/ voted for a president who promised hope and acceptance, only to have it thrown back in our face. All the Democratic contenders for the nomination did was to equivocate and suck up to the homophobes and bigots. This went on most of the campaign. At almost the last minute, Obama threw us a crust by opposing Prop 8. Too little, too damned late. I couldn't vote this election (got to register too late), but if I had I would have voted for Obama only because the alternative was so awful. I will wait to see what he does for GLBT Americans to see if he gets my vote in 2012.

[Maat]

6. I, too, send my love to you.

I (a PFLAGer) was out there nearly every night precinct-walking and rallying to defeat the monstrous proposition; however, despite my best efforts, the bigots appear to have won.

I'm so sad.

[motocicleta]

7. In the light

K n R

[FloridaJudy]

9. We tried here in Florida

We really did. But we were up against a well financed campaign of lies.

To my GLBT brothers and sisters, I apologize for my fellow Florida voters. We still have a lot of work to do in this state.

[bluedawg12]

10. Well hate and bigotry always seem to win

when it comes to gays.

Nice to see how enlightened people are about their fellow human beings.

[eilen]

11. I join my voice to yours

There is no room for second class citizenship. We are all responsible to fight for equal rights.

[blueraven95]

12. Dear GLBT DUers,

Bright has said everything that I wanted to say, and better than I could have, but I would like to add my dismay and sympathy and rage. I am across the country from California ~ and I've never wished I lived there more, just so I could have added my vote to the fight to defeat Prop. 8.

Jews have a saying that when one of us is not free, then we are all enslaved. I am feeling the truth in these words today.

[bluedawg12]

14. Thank you blueraven95 - so very well said.

"...when one of us is not free, then we are all enslaved. "

There's a lot of work to be done and the GLBT community needs friends and allies.

[blueraven95]

16. I just truly thought

that there was no way these bans would pass.

Thinking about it makes me cry.

[bluedawg12]

18. blueraven95- Me too. my partner of 22 years is Jewish

we talked about the Prop 8 passing and we both feel nauseated.

The comments from people, that I posted about here in another thread, from another forum, just plain old folks who think of themselves as "tolerant" was amazingly dangerous, bigoted and actually claimed that gay marriage would destroy the US and a vote for Prop 8 was a vote to save America.

How many ideologies have used nationalism and national frenzy as a guise under which to enslave and persecute?

It's staggering the level of ingorance in the nation.

[blueraven95]

20. I don't understand the bigotry at all personally

but then, I've been lucky enough to grow up in a really, really accepting community (of performers).


We are going to have to work so hard. I personally believe that GLBT civil rights are tied up very tightly with gender equality and that the GLBT and women's rights forces should join up to work together. I would go into more detail, but I'm at work, and probably shouldn't be posting at all.

[bluedawg12]

21. You have a good point. Now back to work! :) Peace/shalom n/t

[Billy Burnett]

13. "I do wish this had turned out more hopefully for YOU."

Actually, I wish this had turned out more hopefully for all of us. This doesn't just impact GLBT persons. It impacts and degrades us all. :(

[grantcart]

15. there are really no words to express what we feel but you came much closer than I could

Thank you for your very articulate post.

[Crowman1979]

17. You tried your best California!

Can't say the same for Alabama, I was one of the 10% that voted NO on that gay marriage ban.

[Crowman1979]

19. Another reason I hoped for NO on Prop 8...

...was that I wondered if those damn fundies would put there money where their mouth is and get around to that 40 days of prayer and fasting. Because if they keep fasting they'll float right up to the sky and make Lara Flynn Boyle jealous. LOL