TODAY 11-5-08

The past 12 hours, I have felt possibly every emotion I am capable of feeling.

Last night, when the networks concluded that Barack Obama was elected president, I felt so proud to be American. Not for the first time, but certainly for the first time in a long time.

After years of living with a mistaken, cartoonish idea of what "America" is all about - beer cans and rodeos, John Wayne wannabes and military might - we have reclaimed the word "American." Finally, we are to be led by someone who understands that being an American is not about whether you are from the right parts of the country, practice the right religion, or have the right friends - but about some common character that rebounds after struggle, that perseveres in the darkness, and trusts in the power of progress and the great experiment of democracy. Someone who didn't underestimate the intelligence of the average voter, but extolled it. The same country that came together over the rubble of September 11th came together once again.

Look at us now.

So many of us didn't dare to even think it could be possible, myself included. This is something we should all be proud of, whether we voted for him or not.

But as so many Californians wrote a soaring new chapter in American history, in the same breath, they chose to write a new sentence into our state constitution - one that will eliminate the rights of gay and lesbian people to marry. Proposition 8 has won in California, and as I join others in celebrating Obama's victory, I am shaking with grief over a sense of personal defeat.

After the Supreme Court declared that "they" were people too, I couldn't believe it. So many of them didn't dare to think it could be possible, but for that time, it was. And as dozens of gay couples, many of which had been together for decades and brought their children, came through the doors of City Hall holding their marriage certificates high in the air, I thought, look at us now, look at where we are today.

The hopes and rights of my family and dear friends have been wrung through the ballots. I am proud and devastated. I know that this is not over - we have come too far to give up now. But for four and a half months, I honestly thought that all people would also be able to marry the person they love. I really did. Another unlikely story, I suppose. With luck, there is nothing false about their hope, too.