Poll Results

Have you been more active in fighting for LGBT rights since the election?

Slightly More 56%
Same 33%
Significantly More 11%

01.20.09 - The End of an Error

Finally...I can breathe. That is really how it feels. Bush is gone.

It was hard to grasp that Bush was really going to be gone and there was going to be someone with real intelligence back in the White House. Possibly one of the most ironic sights was Vice President Dick Cheney having to show up in a wheelchair because of a back injury while moving boxes. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool

Oh Rick Warren. All that controversy and over what. I felt nothing when he spoke. If that is America's preacher then Lord help us all. He had no connection and was completely false. If his invocation moved anyone or even held anyone's attention I'd be shocked.

It moved quickly Biden in, Cheney out. Then Obama in and Bush out. That was it. Then the speech. Here is the swearing in and President Obama's Inaugural speech.

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Another powerful moment for me was the poem writen by poet Elizabeth Alexander.

One of the absolute best moments was when Dr. Joseph Lowery delivered the benediction. His prayer that spoke so eloquently of

"turning to each other not on each other."

His plea for people to

"make choices on the side of love not hate, on the side of inclusion not exclusion, tolerance not intolerance"

was so powerful. It was the perfect closing to such a wonderful moment.



Well here we go, it's day one. Hope is back and Fear is out. Yes We Can.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. With the inauguration of Barack Obama tomorrow I have found myself reflecting more on the words of Dr. King today than I have in the past. There is part of the "I Have a Dream Speech" that sticks with me and stands out more and more these days. It's the fierce urgency of now section of the speech. I'm going to include it below with edits of how I hear it pertain to me.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice equality. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice discrimination to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's gay's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three Two thousand and eight is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro gays needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is gays are granted his their citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

I know that the comparrison of the Gay Rights struggle and the Civil Rights struggle of the African American people is a tough comparrison for some. I am not going to even suggest that the gay struggle for rights is anywhere near what the African Americans in this country had to go through.

What I am saying is that the words of a great man speak to me. They remind me that for us, the gays, there is a fierce urgency of now that can't be ignored.