Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

1. I kind of feel cheated out of experiencing the full scope of what Tuesday meant for our country. I just want to say again how excited and happy I am to see some of the barriers be broken down for racial minorities and to have a president who gives me hope for what's to come.

2. For our families specifically, the president elect has said he'd work to repeal DOMA, and allow our gay men and women in uniform to serve openly. But on top of that, for a great part, this election was about the future of the judicial branch, especially the Supreme Court, and the future of our rights will be in their hands. Obama makes more likely the appointment of justices who will actually take the equal protection assurances in the US Constitution seriously. I know... I can hear the anti-gay activists now... Doesn't it suck when activist judges uphold some of our most basic and sacred rights delineated in our most supreme law? How dare they?

3. Equal rights won in Connecticut. Okay, most of us here on the west coast will probably never live there, but we can be married in Ct and voters defeated a call to constitutional convention which was aimed at banning our marriages, 60% to 40%. That's substantial.

4. California could really be seen as good news too. The hard part was losing rights we had, having our marriages put in legal limbo, and that we were so far ahead in the polls until those demonstratively deceptive ads began. Yes, that'll sting for a long time. Nevertheless, the vote was only 52% to 48%, when in 2000 the Ca voters passed a marriage ban 61% to 39%. We are moving along with the help of many straight friends and allies, and so is public opinion. This was nearly our opponents' last chance--if the trends hold we will be past 50/50 public aprooval of our marriages by the next presidential election. They won, but that was not nearly our last chance.

5. We're hurt but look at what we have built in each other now. The gay community in Utah has come together so strongly and there's such a sense of camaraderie; it's heartening to me. As a 15-year-old kid coming out I never got to see a role model of what it meant to be a gay man. It's not that they weren't out there, but they weren't visible in Utah. Most of the gay people I eventually came to know kept quite; many hated themselves anyway and believed their church when they were taught their attraction and propensity for love was more of a weakness and an addiction than a strength and a blessing. An impromptu march of thousands in down town SLC would have been unimaginable.

When I think of myself, in my despair as a teenager, thinking I was the only one in my state, and then I think of a boy in a similar state reading the paper yesterday... Well, the hard work of many in the gay community from several generations has brought about a sea change here, despite ardent opposition; it's a sea change which I'm sure is saving lives. There is, simply, a lot to be thankful for, even here in Utah. Maybe especially here in Utah.

6. Finally and of course, there is a new Bond movie coming out :-)... I'm inexplicably compelled by the new Bond, James Bond...

Anyway, Always look on the bright side of life, right?

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

(Do the kids nowaday still watch Monty Python? :-))