Oh What A Night

Our new president and his wife! It makes me happy to see a couple, who truly love each other and their family, being the face of the American people. I can only believe that people who love and respect each other as these two do will love and respect our country and our people. America is in good hands for the next...dare I say...8 years.
Woo hoo! I live in a Blue State! All of my family live in Blue States! I never thought I would see the day when Indiana would be one of the last states called in an election, let alone see its' color as blue. But more importantly, I live in the United States, ready to live under a leader who knows how to unite, not divide us. As Barack Obama said last night,
"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."
I am hopeful that this nation, under the leadership of President Obama, will become the great united nation it once was. Truly, we cannot doubt that the American people spoke with their votes yesterday, and said they rejected the hateful speech of the Republican party and their candidates.
But while I am elated we elected Barack Obama last night, I am also sad and troubled. Three states, California, Arizona, and Florida, have voted discrimination into their state Constitutions. They have said, by the slimmest of majorities, that same sex couples should be discriminated against; that they should be held apart as separate and not entitled to rights enjoyed by every other adult citizen of their states. Indeed: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness only for certain people. This is so very wrong, and makes me so very sad and disappointed. It's why I'm smiling on the outside today, and yet my heart is heavy.
I am the eternal optimist though, and I take hope from the election yesterday. I look at the amazing turnout of young voters, and I am hopeful that we have moved from the "Me" generation to the "We" generation; from the generation that, for good reason (Kent State, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, Watergate), believed government could accomplish nothing, to the generation that believes in a leader named Barack Obama. This is the generation that will convince its' elders gay people deserve the same rights as anyone else, that it does not matter who you love; what matters is that you love. They will look to President Obama, take his words of wisdom to heart, and begin to build a better nation than the one we have now. The generation that heard, during the first election they could vote, and responded to the candidate, "Yes WE can."