Does anyone know the reporting status of Lane and Mult. counties in the senate race?

Thanks Karol.

As a gay, married (in Canada) father of two young boys, this is a bittersweet moment.

There is undeniable, exciting, celebration-worthy progress. Yet we're replacing horrific Jim Crow laws limiting Blacks with prejudiced "Jim Jesus" laws restricting civil rights for gays and lesbians...

And it's both awful and ironic that African-Americans are at the forefront of this "Joe the Christian" movement.

The next challenge, eh? I'm ready!

Sigh. Thank you Karol. President-elect Obama said last night very somberly: we have a lot of work to do. He stressed it. And he also said our name. He knows. We obviously have a lot of work to do: if Arkansans would rather have their children be parentless than have gay parents, we have a whole lot of work to do. Let's get busy.

It is small comfort, but generational change is on your side

Thanks Rachel -

I agree! Though it will ultimately take a Supreme Court decision to overturn all these "Jim Jesus" laws and amendments selectively denying civil protections to gay and lesbian families, based purely on religious discrimination...

...much like the 1967 Supreme Court decision which struck down Biblically inspired laws/amendments forbidding Obama's interracial parents from marrying each other in many states. So I'm glad Obama will be nominating future Court appointees!

But as Karol notes, it will take education and outreach.

At school this morning, I made it clear to black friends that too many black churches (and Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, etc.) preach the kind of unfounded prejudice ("my invisibly deity hates lesbians") that dehumanizes their very real, human neighbors, and denies them full access to the American promise of equality for all.

Young people do get it. So we'll get there in time.

Congrats for the blue tide, but you do know that Obama and Biden are opposed to gay marriage? As are the majority of Americans with strong majorities of Hispanics and Blacks.

There are a lot of ways Obama and the Blue tide can move the country in the progressive direction but you may not want to push the more fringe issues to hard or a Clinton/ 1994 may bite you again.

That said, I'll speculate, that it will be Global Warming that could very well deliver another 1994 folly for you.
As All Americans watch the climate NOT warm as lectured while suffering under policies that ramp up energy and other costs of living the hoax may blow up in your face.

Ski early and ski often!

OMG, you people are like a cult and Obama is like the leader! If you want our country to be like Sweden, maybe you should just move to Sweden. Remember this, a little man emerged in Germany with promises of a Utopian society, his name was Hitler!

I feel much as you do, Karol, simultaneously thrilled and distraught, my friends in Arkansas are stunned with sadness over the way their state voted, Californians up all night hitting 'refresh' on Prop 8 results. I wish it could just be joy today but it's not. we praise our unity, but it's only 52 or 53% unity, there is still a substantial portion of the country who believes the name "Hussein" is evidence that Obama is a "muslin" and that Joe the Plumber is a national hero.

I think that all we can do is use this engagement and wonderfully invigorated national discourse to talk about the things we need to do next: have real equality and acceptance, eliminate corporate subsidies, invest in farms and communities, create energy policy that's only about the future and not about unsustainable "jobs" (aka corporate welfare) in oil fields and auto makers.

I should be jumping for joy today. But while we took many steps forward last night in the form of Obama and a nice handful of new Democratic seats, we also are still hampered down by bigots across this county.

In California of all places! The "live and let live" capital of the world! I weep for my former home.

Uh, The race/slavery card can no longer be played now. Find another excuse.

The first shoe dropped 2 years ago when the Dems took slight control of the senate and such. The other shoe was last night.

I belive there is a phrase that the dems now should remember: "Govern Wisely". The Dems have what they need - lets not blow it.

Could this be Camelot II? Time will tell.

"So all the trolls in the world aren't going to ruin my mood today"

Not my intent, have a wodnerful day.

"A lot of work to be done and well before 2010, when the haters in Oregon come back around."

Huh? That's not nice.

The way I will celebrate this day is to continue to remind everyone that our work is not done.

How right you are. But do people claiming to be progressives know what it will take?

The legal challenges are already being mounted. The San Francisco City Attorney has announced he is filing suit as is Gloria Allred who is representing one of the original plaintiffs from the Supreme Court decision earlier this year. Apparently the main argument being that this amendment in itself was unconstitutional. A constitutional amendment can not take away a fundamental right. Marriage equality is a fundemental right via the earlier Supreme Court ruling. To take away a right requires a Constitutional Revision not an amendment. To have a revision requires a Constitutional Convention. This thing is no where close to being over. This isn't a race it's a marathon and we are just getting warmed up!

Thank you for acknowledging this Karol. The California defeat is a painful one, especially when you look at exit poll data that shows the African American community overwhelmingly supported ballot measure 8. Ouch! Perhaps the progressive community can start working harder on this. I'm not sure what the issues are: impacts of HIV/AIDS? resentment over gays using the civil rights mantle? religion? education? . . . I don't know, but it's a wake up call.

That said, my hope is that these divisive ballot measures may be among the last hurrah's for an anti-gay movement that was put into high gear in 1992.

And there is ample reason to rejoice today.

Last night when Obama mentioned gays in his victory speech I turned to my partner and said, "We exist again!" Once again, we have a president who dares to speak our name. That is a huge blessing.

The damage done to gays during the last eight years will take a while repair. But it will be repaired and we will move forward even further.

The long arc leads to justice.

I just don't know what you all expected. You back a candidate who, in no uncertain terms, is opposed to full marriage equality; a candidate whose campaign worked hard to get out the vote of the most virulently homophobic segment of the population (African-Americans voted for Prop 8 by an astounding 69%, while whites voted against it and Latinos were almost evenly split), and you're "surprised" and "disappointed" that Prop 8 passed?

You are right Karol and thank you for this post. I think President Elect Obama (ooh, I just love writing that out!) put it well when he said that this win is not in itself the change we seek, rather it gives us the chance to make the changes we need in America.

This election has been so historic because of the cracks it has made in prejudice - against women, against the elderly, the young, etc... but these things take time and while we continue to work for true equality, we also must recognize that some of these changes may not happen in our lifetime. We may instead be paving the way for future generations to achieve it, as MLK 40 years ago paved the road for Obama's victory last night. That is frustrating, especially to a culture that sees instant gratification as its right and privilege, but it is the way of the world.

I lived in Russia for several years, among them 1990 to 1992, and I remember a conversation with a Russian woman in Minsk, talking about Gorbachev, who she disliked. I asked her, what about Perestroika and Glastnost and the Berlin Wall, and she answered, "You can't force an idea that isn't ripe, and you can't stop an idea whose time has come." Ironically, within 5 months of her statement the USSR disbanded.

So... let's take the momentum of the Obama win, and let's run with his request for service and sacrifice and let's keep working for what we believe in.

Thanks, Karol, for a fine post. I am saddened, however, by your failure and that of the other commenters to mention that Arizona, too, chose to add a same-sex marriage ban to its constitution, after having been the first, and, sadly, to date, the only, state to defeat such an amendment just two years ago.

Hope is hard to come by for me today. The passage of the same-sex marriage bans in all three states where they were on the ballot, without a single victory, makes me question how much really changed last night with the election of Barack Obama.

Update via DailyKos. The No on 8 Campaign is saying that the separation between passing or failing is only 400,000 votes and they estimate there are upwards of 3 to 4 million absentee and provisional ballots. Officially they are still calling this one too close to call and are going to wait until every last voice has been heard before conceding defeat.

There is still a chance people! Please do the superstitious good luck ritual of your choice!

Thank you so much, Karol for this. As a white gay man who wholeheartedly gave time, money, donated a laptop, voted for, and otherwise helped Obama where I could, it was with no small measure of disappointment to read this morning that exit polls showed that 70% of African Americans voted in favor of Prop 8.

The GLBT community and the African American community should be natural allies in their respective quests for full equality. It hurts a great deal to see indications that the friendship may not run as strongly in both directions. But it lifts my heart to hear voices like yours speak out on behalf of GLBT citizens.

I still hope that Prop 8 will fail when all the votes are counted. But should it pass, there is bridge-building work to be done between African American churches and the GLBT community. Because being pitted against each other is how the right has historically defeated us both.

Could this be Camelot II? Time will tell.

Not with this DLC staffer as Obama's chief of staff.

http://www.democracynow.org/

Better than diatribe.

So gay marriage keeps failing or being taken away, which is tragic. What's the next step? Is it a ballot measure, is it civil unions (hope not, unless they are also available for heterosexual couples)? Time is clearly on the side of fairness and decency.

What's the next step?

We identify and clearly challenge the architects of these successful efforts to exclude our families from basic constitutional protections once guaranteed for all.

*** Biggest backers of Oregon's Measure 36, and Prop 8 in California: the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, and white and black protestant evangelical churches.

If you belong to a church, speak out about injustice. Withhold money - don't financially support further efforts, or reward past efforts, to cut out your gay and lesbian friends, family, neighbors from basic civil rights.

If you don't belong to a church, challenge those who do. Make them aware of the direct impact their donations have on reducing the legal worth and value of their fellow citizens.

Challenge church goers on their beliefs. For example, tell a Catholic: "So, your three part, supernatural deity, who impregnated a human woman 2000 years ago (without the consent or knowledge of her boyfriend at the time), doesn't think gay families deserve equality under U.S. law? Wtf?"

To assume that black community "should" align with GLBT just because of injustice is to show ignorance of culture and history. Gay does not equate to black in the eyes of many from that culture, as it CAN be viewed as a "preference" or "choice" or "orientation" and NOT as what Freud called our "throwness" - coming into the world as "something" you can do nothing about.

Being black is defined as throwness.

For those of us who fall along some none-polarized place along the spectrum of real psychosexual adjustment, GLB or T is throwness.

But if someone is heavily-founded in typical church or conservative ideology, this is not the perception. Hence, no, the black community "should" not necessarily be in alliance with GLBT. They are not some iconic proxy. They have their own subcultural complexities, and I'm not talking about black as subculture, but, specifically, human diversity (that might happen to be black, latino, native, et al) as subculture/subset.

We can discuss "shoulds" all day long and it will not be productive. To understand the why of it seems to me more intelligent. If someone tells you that YOU "should" this or that, do you not feel challenged at minimum, possibly attacked? And so it is.

Native communities, some of them, have a strong history bound up with the churches that is NOT your typical sentimental victimization. Few, but there are a few. The Cherokee "pin indians" have such a hx. The Traditionalists in OK were allowed to practice our Old Ways and meet safely under the guise of Cherokee Baptist Churches. I know many Traditionalist elders or lifeway practitioners who also attend Indian Baptist Church!

We also keep making these efforts as the Catholic, Mormon and Protestant churches attempt to rescind the legal rights of almost 20,000 married gay and lesbian couples. Boy that Jesus is one mean son of a bitch...

I notice that when I provide a reality-based anecdote that is historically-founded, studied and known... you jerks evince a thundreing silence, then go on with your bonehead babbling.

There is absolutely no way to redirect your agonizingly monomaniacal blatherings into something that has give, take, learn and grow in it.

It's just wall of sound stupidity.

Oregon Bill can dish this shite out but he can't take it. He gets pugilistically truculent if GENTLY pressed on his "points"; and were we to take the tack he establishes as "the right way the only way the best way" to attack (not "dialog with" or "connect with" or "converse with" so as to evangelize) "churchgoers" {sounds, rhythmically like "evildoers", don't it, kidz?)..... well, he might stroke out from it if he were really treated as he counsels us to treat those he disagrees with on a generic basis!

Man!

Oregon Bill can dish this shite out but he can't take it. He gets pugilistically truculent if GENTLY pressed on his "points"

rw - not sure what you mean here...

But I am a little pugilistic these days, I'll admit that freely.

The Catholic and Mormon churches - and many African-American protestant churches in California, raised money from parishioners to amend state constitutions to explicitly deny my family the same basic civil rights as theirs.

And they did so for dumb, indefensible reasons ("my magic glasses put horns on homos"; "Jesus hates fags")

So - duh - I'm mightily pissed at the blithering faithful who reflexively give money to these organizations that work hard and successfully to deny me basic American rights. I think it's time we shrink the social space for religious (evidence-free) prejudice against gays and lesbians.

If you, as a Catholic, Mormon, or Protestant, don't like that assessment, then do something about it. Stop funding stupidity, prejudice and hatred. Leave the church.

Unless you consider my family less equal than yours.
Then you're right where you belong, apparently.

I am none of those, Oregon Bill.

My son and I are native traditionalists.

Godless Pagans who pray to rocks, trees and dirt, apparently.

And thanks for at least admitting you can be godawful truculent.

I"m trying to pull myself out of this blog - it's horrifically rationalized, mostly negative, and a huge waste of energy.

Also purely addictive.

This is where I am returning to. Pulling myself from this-here to back home again to that-there: watch and see this. Let it touch your heart.

http://www.youtube.com/user/pipehomemail

My son and I are native traditionalists. Godless Pagans who pray to rocks, trees and dirt, apparently

Hi rw -

I have no quarrel with anyone's religious beliefs - unless they are explicitly referenced in order to deny my family equality under the law. I don't think any native traditionalists ran ads demonizing my husband and me, or worked tirelessly to amend California or Oregon's state constitutions and cut my kids' parents off from once guaranteed civil rights.

But when the Catholic Church, for example, claims supernatural authority to dehumanize my family, and legally demote us, then I have a few questions about that supernatural authority. Like, show me this purely faith-based fictitious jerkwad. And of course, they can't. Because their supernatural authority doesn't exist. They don't have a serious argument. It's a cover for prejudice.

I am sorry this is ruining your day. But here I sit, married in Canada, raising our two boys, active in my sons' elementary school, working, tax-paying, contributing - and a bunch of unmarried, sexually repressed, altar boy abusing nutballs take parishioner donations and successfully amend Oregon's constitution to selectively reduce our legal worth. And you're surprised that I'm ready to fight back?

Or that I think Catholic (and Mormon, and Baptist) parishioners should feel lousy for contributing those donations? And perhaps leave such awful organizations for good?

My son and I are native traditionalists. Godless Pagans who pray to rocks, trees and dirt, apparently

Hi rw -

I have no quarrel with anyone's religious beliefs - unless they are explicitly referenced in order to deny my family equality under the law. I don't think any native traditionalists ran ads demonizing my husband and me, or worked tirelessly to amend California or Oregon's state constitutions and cut my kids' parents off from once guaranteed civil rights.

But when the Catholic Church, for example, claims supernatural authority to dehumanize my family, and legally demote us, then I have a few questions about that supernatural authority. Like, show me this purely faith-based fictitious jerkwad. And of course, they can't. Because their supernatural authority doesn't exist. They don't have a serious argument. It's a cover for prejudice.

I am sorry this is ruining your day. But here I sit, married in Canada, raising our two boys, active in my sons' elementary school, working, tax-paying, contributing - and a bunch of unmarried, sexually repressed, altar boy abusing nutballs take parishioner donations and successfully amend Oregon's constitution to selectively reduce our legal worth. And you're surprised that I'm ready to fight back?

Or that I think Catholic (and Mormon, and Baptist) parishioners should feel lousy for contributing those donations? And perhaps leave such awful organizations for good?

My son and I are native traditionalists. Godless Pagans who pray to rocks, trees and dirt, apparently

Hi rw -

I have no quarrel with anyone's religious beliefs - unless they are explicitly referenced in order to deny my family equality under the law. I don't think any native traditionalists ran ads demonizing my husband and me, or worked tirelessly to amend California or Oregon's state constitutions and cut my kids' parents off from once guaranteed civil rights.

But when the Catholic Church, for example, claims supernatural authority to dehumanize my family, and legally demote us, then I have a few questions about that supernatural authority. Like, show me this purely faith-based fictitious jerkwad. And of course, they can't. Because their supernatural authority doesn't exist. They don't have a serious argument. It's a cover for prejudice.

I am sorry this is ruining your day. But here I sit, married in Canada, raising our two boys, active in my sons' elementary school, working, tax-paying, contributing - and a bunch of unmarried, sexually repressed, altar boy abusing nutballs take parishioner donations and successfully amend Oregon's constitution to selectively reduce our legal worth. And you're surprised that I'm ready to fight back?

Or that I think Catholic (and Mormon, and Baptist) parishioners should feel lousy for contributing those donations? And perhaps leave such awful organizations for good?

My son and I are native traditionalists. Godless Pagans who pray to rocks, trees and dirt, apparently

Hi rw -

I have no quarrel with anyone's religious beliefs - unless they are explicitly referenced in order to deny my family equality under the law. I don't think any native traditionalists ran ads demonizing my husband and me, or worked tirelessly to amend California or Oregon's state constitutions and cut my kids' parents off from once guaranteed civil rights.

But when the Catholic Church, for example, claims supernatural authority to dehumanize my family, and legally demote us, then I have a few questions about that supernatural authority. Like, show me this purely faith-based fictitious jerkwad. And of course, they can't. Because their supernatural authority doesn't exist. They don't have a serious argument. It's a cover for prejudice.

I am sorry this is ruining your day. But here I sit, married in Canada, raising our two boys, active in my sons' elementary school, working, tax-paying, contributing - and a bunch of unmarried, sexually repressed, altar boy abusing nutballs take parishioner donations and successfully amend Oregon's constitution to selectively reduce our legal worth. And you're surprised that I'm ready to fight back?

Or that I think Catholic (and Mormon, and Baptist) parishioners should feel lousy for contributing those donations? And perhaps leave such awful organizations for good?

Major apologies for the multiple posts! (not my intention at all)

OB - you did not ruin my day. You are not the center of my universe, frankly. IN fact, yuo missed an opportunity to stop bitching and ranting and take note that, quietly, I was aligning with you.

O well.

:) S'why I'm headed back out to the waters of ceremony and away from this little scene. It's all about roiling egos here. Not too much about anything else.

That's about all it brings out in people - feedback loops, mispercecptions and staticy resonances. The few I might like to know are not going to meet me for tea and move it beyond this little fishpond. That's what I would like, frankly: to meet Carla and Kristin at the Tao of Tea and get real.

To see a grin spread across TA and Chris's faces IF Kari bothers to share the Coyote Woman photographs I sent to them. Though I would rather see them tickled for myself.

And have real time relations and touch minds without the raspy bullshit that is de rigeur whlist blogging.

Less fracas and more connection.

Less fracas and more connection.

And civil rights for all. Enjoy your tea!

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