It's been a very long time since I published a diary. I've come over here because I am getting fed up with people on Facebook and LJ screaming about Obama supporters and Democrats "gloating" and "rubbing it in." Not that there's anything wrong with that, and it's understandable. But I am not going to allow my celebration and relief to be distorted and mischaracterized.
I am not heaving a huge sigh of relief because my guy "won." I am certainly not jumping up and down on fellow Americans. (Well, maybe on Alan West.)
I am grateful because for once, GLBT rights were on the ballot--and won. I am relieved that women's bodies and voices and votes mattered, and that I don't have to settle for being a second-class citizen. I am amazed that America woke up to the fact that the Other--gay, brown, black, female, etc.,--suddenly was not the Other at all. We are The Other. The Other is us.
We have dodged a bullet. We fought back hard. We fought for our lives, because that's what it was literally about. People sweated and cried and stood in line for hours. People refused to be walked over and blew whistles, took photos, called lawyers and filed lawsuits. We did that because we HAD to. And we won overwhelmingly, because we were right.
And now celebrating this fact is ugly, and we must learn a lesson about being "bipartisan," and somehow we ought to be ashamed of "rubbing it in." It's American to disagree! It's all equivalent! Shame on you!
Certainty is not supposed to be a Democratic or a liberal thing. But it is for me this time. We won because we are right, and because equal rights for all is always right, and taking those rights away is always wrong. We're right to cry with relief, and it's ok for us to celebrate.
I'm not apologizing for that.