The US of Gay

Ladies and Labradors,

Since my last blog we have witnessed the historic events of the first black President being elected into The White House, something that I was fully behind. After The US of Gay voting in Bush for a second term, I did have my doubts, but when the final counts came through and I heard the news that Obama had made it, I felt, for the first time from a political point of view, as if justice had finally been served. I think it was a moment for human nature to be proud. Now in America, little black boys and black girls can grow up with the knowledge, more so than ever before that they can do something with their lives. That they can have a voice, and that they can be leaders. Of course, this is not an end to the racism over there, or anywhere for that matter, but let’s hope it is a start. Obama being elected affects us all, and I truly believe he will bring great change to America, and to the world. There were many reasons why he had my support, but the main thing for me was his pledge to pull the Troops out of Iraq. So after work, me and some friends went for a couple of mini bars and raised a glass to Obama.

However, it is funny how such elation could turn to disappointment when hearing that California had passed Proposition 8. So while America was busy patting each other on the back, self congratulating and generally heralding the dawn of a Brave New World by declaring itself the greatest democracy on earth, the literal same country deduces that those of the lavender persuasion do not merit the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts. Now don’t get me wrong, I have never been for gay marriage- I mean, what happens if it goes wrong- who gets the Madonna collection? How on earth could that be split in court- it is, my dearest of readers, an image too utterly barbaric to picture, let alone live through- but still, it’s a little bit offensive, non? Why should Britney Spears be allowed to get tanked up, marry a bloke she once made out with in the back of an RV one day and get an annullment the next, if I can’t? Surely there should be some equality here?

I am of course being a tad extreme labelling the whole of America as Homophobic twits, and know that it has more to do with, what else but religious extremists, in this case the Mormons donating millions to the ‘cause.’ But I feel I have the right to express my disappointment that people still, in this gay and age, view me, and my lifestyle as unacceptable and that as a fellow human being I am not entitled to be able to share vows with another man purely because I am a pole smoker. A big fat flamer. A friend of Dorothy. A fudge packer. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely the money poured into this campaign might have been better spent, and I’m just throwing this out here, being pumped into homeless problems or to victims of hurricane Katrina for instance, or troops wounded in the Iraq conflicts, or people affected by 9/11?

Now I am all for Barack Obama, and the first Black president, but one has to wonder if me, and my sisters, will ever see one of our rabble in the White House. Or as I like to think of it, The Lavender House. It seems that as Mo’s, we still have a long way to go before we are really accepted in society, and things like this do make you wonder if we are merely being tolerated?

Rant over- next time, I will go back to light heartedness, and will regale all with my tale of falling off the Columbian wagon with my Big Sis when she visited me in London recently.