Gratitude

It is the day after what was, arguably, the most important election in American history. And though I argued against causing myself further stress by watching the proceedings, I relented at 8:30 p.m. (EDT), plotzed down in a rocking chair in front of the television set, and remained there long after President-Elect Barack Obama gave his victory speech before a crowd numbering in the hundreds of thousands in Chicago's Grant Park. I watched history being made, an historical event that ranks right up there with the first moon landing; it's importance cannot be underplayed. For the first time in American history, an African-American man will become our president. It is an unprecedented event in this country that many thought unlikely ever to happen, at least in the forseeable future. The racism upon which our country was built, and which has remained steadfast, however subtely, in many quarters is, at long last, being run asunder by a new, vital voting majority that has chosen to eschew the fear-mongering and hate, arrogance and belligerance that has characterized the interminable Bush years. We have a changing populace that has been very open to Barack Obama's message, and to his massive efforts to reach out to them: a growing Hispanic population, the re-emergence of a once-disenfranchised Black community, a whole slew of young people who are voting for the first time, a sizable and supportive gay community, and those middle-class, white voters, both blue- and white-collar alike, who, because of the current economic disaster, have found themselves in reduced circumstances they'd never foreseen. And there were those who were, finally, just sick and tired of the neverending, self-serving, All-White Good Ol' Boy's Club that has dominated the American political scene from the beginning. Those days are gone, at long last, gone, hallelujah, praise the Lord, AMEN! Let us learn from the shameful, painful past so that we never, EVER, revisit it!

I received an e-mail from a good friend this morning, and in it, was a link to an article in which the author declared that his overwhelming post-election feeling was one of immense gratitude. And that summed up so perfectly exactly what I felt the moment that Barack Obama was declared the winner. Like that author, I also felt relief that the election--this long, draining journey--was having a happy ending. But mainly, it was gratitude, enormous and complete, that filled me up and caused my eyes to brim over with tears. Gratitude to the majority of Americans who, for whatever reason, chose to forge their alliances and stake their futures with a young Black man, largely untested, who, nevertheless, is our best hope for a better America, and a break from a past that has destroyed our credibility and reputation in the world. Gratitude to a higher power that I fervently prayed to last night, even though I gave up believing a long time ago. Gratitude for being alive in this country, in this time of change, when there is a renewed belief that anything is possible if you believe in it strongly enough.

Florida's anti-gay Amendment 2 managed to pass, as did California's Proposition 8. These are victories for the right-wing extremist hate- and fear-mongers, but these victories are temporary because, if last night's presidential election results show us anything, it is that, in the end, what is right and what is just will triumph. And we gay Americans will come back from this. We got shoved to the back of the bus, but our time will come, just as sure as Barack Obama's time has come. He gives me such hope for the future that I can't feel bitterness or disappointment over a temporary setback. For that, I owe my gratitude to Barack Obama, the man himself.