Tuesday 11/4/2008, the most important day in American History that has happened in my lifetime.

I missed the Boston Tea Party, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the end of legalized slavery, and the beginnings and endings of World War I and II. I was not even a glimmer in my parent’s eyes when President Kennedy was assonated in 1963, Martian Luther King was killed in 1968, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969. I missed the bulk of the Civil Rights movement that began in the late 1950’s as a whisper of hope in the black community and became a wildfire of demonstrations and riots throughout the 1960’s and 70's and, in some places around this country still smolders today.

All of those important dates in our nations history were long before I was born or old enough to realize they were important at all. However, I was here and well aware of the importance of what took place on Tuesday November 4, 2008. It is the beginning and the end all at once. We ushered in a new era, one where every child of color has a positive role model that looks like the face in the mirror, one who came from a rocky start, and found himself on top after years of hard work and determination. Seeing the country pull together and vote in our first non-white-male president made me proud to be an American for a moment. We voted out racism, set our minor differences aside, and elected a candidate based on his credentials and campaign promises. Nobody can take that away from us, it was certainly one of our finest moments as a country. However, something else happened on that day in our history, something that went largely unnoticed by most citizens of this great nation, we voted against racism as a nation while at the same time voting for discrimination against another minority in four of our states.

In Arkansas, we voted to put the desires of adults who call themselves “good Christians” above the needs of children. We passed a new law outlawing adoptions and foster parenting of children for any person who is not living with their legal spouse. This move is widely seen as an anti-gay adoption law gone horribly wrong. Their intent was to keep children out of the homes of LGBT Americans but the outcry against the movement forced them to change the wording of the new law before it ever got onto the ballot. What they wound up with was a law that clearly states no child can be fostered or adopted by anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, race, religion, etc, who is not living with their legal spouse; and the voters in that state passed it anyway.

In California, Arizona, and Florida we voted to amend the State constitutions to prohibit any legal union for same-sex couples. This is not surprising as there are now some 30 states with these types of amendments in their constitutions, but it is heartbreaking each time another is added to that tally.

As a gay American I learned something from this election that I should have already known, we truly are 2nd class in the eyes of the majority. We stood up against racism, saw past the color of his skin, and elected Barack Obama. We finally put that last nail in the coffin of acceptable racism and slammed the door shut on our discriminatory past. For this, we all deserve a much-earned pat on the back. Unfortunately, the racism that once was seen as acceptable has been replaced by outright bigotry against LGBT Americans, and once again, we have proven that for every stride forward, something else takes two strides backward. This year it was the civil rights movement from the 1950’s and 60 that won the day, and it was the civil rights movement of LGBT Americans who lost.

I think it is safe to say that I am more deeply injured by the defeats this election year than I ever thought I could be. We have been here before, passing amendments to constitutions banning equality for LGBT relationships, and it has hurt in the past as well. However, this year is different. No longer do I feel like just another minority, standing shoulder to shoulder with the equally oppressed and discriminated against black community, now I feel suddenly left behind. Electing Barack Obama to be our 44th president has effectively ended the long held belief that persons of color are not equal in this country but all those years spent oppressing African-Americans has not simply come to an end, that energy must go somewhere. Based on the growing momentum behind the religious right and their efforts to limit the equality of LGBT Americans, it appears it has been refocused on us full force. And the majority in this counrty are either behind the momentum, or standing on the sidelines afraid to stand up against it.