speechless
My city. I still think of Chicago as my city. I lived there for six years, and Barack Obama was my state senator, and later my US senator. My first summer back in Chicago after a year away in AmeriCorps, one of my best friends from AmeriCorps came to stay with me for the summer. Margaret joined AmeriCorps right out of high school. A devout Mormon, she considered it her version of the Mission that many Mormon men go on after high school and which makes them elders in the Church. Margaret never missed a Sunday service the entire time we were in AmeriCorps, even if it meant driving sometimes two hours just to get to the closest ward.
She struggled through one year at BYU and eventually married the only other member of the BYU democrats. They moved to the east coast and Margaret finished school there. She is a liberal Democrat, and a Mormon; a believer in equal rights for everyone, including GLBT, and during the summer she stayed with me in Chicago, she volunteered for Obama's senate campaign.
I'm telling you this because Margaret may seem at first to be a conundrum or a paradox--a devoutly religious liberal democrat. But this is what Obama inspires. Diversity. The freedom to believe in more than one thing, and the clear understanding that the world is not black and white, either or.
I've been really inspired just reading all your entries about election night and the sheer joy people expressed over Obama's election. Disappointment is inevitable with the passage of Prop 8 in California and the gay marriage bans in Florida and elsewhere. And yet, in Michigan, medical marijuana passed! Finally, science wins out over a very silly fear of marijuana, which is, after all, less dangerous to the mind and body than cigarettes. My mom might be moving to Michigan with that pronouncement. I mean, she likes her pot, but she also has rheumatoid arthritis and some major back issues that cause her a lot of pain. My dad had glaucoma and yes, he smoked pot to help with that, but it wasn't legal when he did it.
And Massachusetts decriminalized small amounts possession to a $100 fine, which is a huge victory. There's no reason that someone possessing less than an ounce of pot should be clogging up our courts and jails and wasting a lot of taxpayer money for a non-violent drug offense. I think the country would be much safer altogether if marijuana were decriminalized and regulated by the federal government. Plus, we'd make a lot of money in luxury taxes and create an entirely new, legitimate industry that would erase the illegal industry of marijuana dealing that goes on regardless.
Anyway, lots of good things, a few bad things, but I am encouraged and very moved by what happened last night. I never thought I would have a president I believed actually cared about my rights. I never let myself believe it would really happen. But it has, and I can't wait to see what he does now.