What an amazing night.
Just have to post this to get it out of my system, and Facebook is probably sick of my constant posts and comments tonight...
It's easy to say that I knew Obama was going to win, now that he has (assuming that Mittens doesn't throw some fit or refuse to concede Ohio or some nonsense), but I've been a lot more calm than many of the people around me about this. I'm still happy that he won, convincingly (at least in the electoral college), but that's not the biggest news tonight for me:
It's easy to say that I knew Obama was going to win, now that he has (assuming that Mittens doesn't throw some fit or refuse to concede Ohio or some nonsense), but I've been a lot more calm than many of the people around me about this. I'm still happy that he won, convincingly (at least in the electoral college), but that's not the biggest news tonight for me:
- Marriage equality has, as of this hour, definitely passed in two states (Maine and Maryland) and looks poised to pass in Washington. It also looks like a measure to ban marriage equality in Minnesota is going down in defeat, although it's still too close to call. This hits me really hard on two levels. On one, it's the first time that we've achieved marriage equality by popular vote, which up till now has always been a losing proposition for us. On another, it gives the Supreme Court more cause to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
I remember way back in the 90s when activists first started pushing for this, and I thought they were crazy, that the country wasn't ready for this, that we should work on something more achievable (like non-discrimination in the workplace, for example). It's taken me a long time to understand how deeply rooted my own prejudice was, how I accepted a second class citizenship so easily, how I kind of helped the other side oppress me by accepting the power imbalance as a given. There's this whole piece of me opening up to the concept that yeah, I am just as important as everyone else, I deserve the same rights and responsibilities that everyone else takes for granted, and there's a lot of energy that I might get to free up now that's been pushing back against this constant assault on my rights. I've known this in my head for years, but I feel it in my heart now. It goes deeper.
This is huge, especially when we apply that awareness from the individual level outward to the whole LGBT community. We can't unlearn this. We've shifted from please don't hurt me, pretty please to I will not allow you to treat me this way anymore, and maybe even past that to look at that poor little nutjob, stuck in his/her little irrelevant reality. Poor thing. There's a lot more to say about that, but moving on...
- For the first time, marijuana has been legalized at the state level by popular vote (in Colorado), as well as medical marijuana passing in other states (Massachusetts, and maybe Arkansas). Again, this is huge. I'm hopeful that we can start applying pressure to end (or at least curtail) the disastrous, misguided, ineffective, racially biased, outrageously expensive War on Drugs. Prohibition was the wrong policy in 1920 and it's the wrong policy now. It does not solve the problem it purports to solve, it severely weakens our civil rights, and it creates a whole lot of new problems. I doubt that we'll grow up enough in my lifetime to come up with a more rational approach to drug addiction in relation to harder drugs, but at least we really might see the legalization of pot in this decade, and end that piece of it. I hope so. There is no rational basis for alcohol to be legal, and pot to be illegal. And many of the same pressures that led to the repeal of the 18th Amendment are in play now. Should be interesting to see what Congress does with this.
ETA: Pot was also legalized in Washington state. Wow...
- Three women I was really rooting for made it into the Senate: Claire McCaskill got re-elected, and I love it that she beat guy with crazy ideas about "legitimate" rape; Elizabeth Warren, both because she's the driving force behind the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection and she was running against a total whore for the banking industry; Tammy Baldwin, for several reasons: first openly lesbian Senator, running against a total prick who served in the Bush administration, who is just an awesome person besides. There are still far too few women in the Senate, but it's a move in the right direction.