On the eve of the most important election of our lifetimes, I am spinning out my anxiety at FlyWheel on South Beach, an uber high-tech extreme exercise emporium. I mull over the last several months where I've freely given countless hours to the grassroots campaign to re-elect our President Obama. The time given, unconditional except for the desire to see our country continue moving forward with a leader that in my eyes, has been one of the most effective and unwavering presidents we have had since John F. Kennedy. I'm free of regret as my time has been paid back exponentially with newfound wisdom, a greater connection to humanity and fulfillment knowing that I stopped watching the world spin by without my input and actually contributed to it's orbit towards one direction.
As the spinning instructor\dominatrix commands us to go faster, my eyes burn with sweat dripping from my brow and I close my eyes to prevent the sting. I begin to visualize what will happen if all this work will be for naught. What if my president doesn't win? What will happen to this country if the religious extremists finally get the full control they have fought centuries for. The thought burns a fire and in an instant I am pedaling furiously-faster, forgetting my body's limits.
I try pulling back from the doomsday scenario in my head of American Taliban hijacking our government, our constitution and my equal rights as a gay american. I see the big picture and recall other dire moments in history where the harsh lessons were an unexpected byproduct. I think of the worst example and try to see the good from Hitler's horrible crimes against humanity. Even in the horror he created and blatant disregard for human life, he seeded the Earth with the idea that what he did must never-ever happen again. In that moment, I come out of my spinning trance, wipe the sweat from my eyes to focus on the instructor's calls and beautiful motivating smile. She, like our President is calling and spurring us on to fight harder for our health, for our lives, for our equality to chase after those "transparent dangling carrots".
If American liberals are guilty of anything is that they suffer from a case of extreme Buddhism. Their natural tendency to look at life through a live and let live lens allows the right wing-nuts who scream and fight oh-so-much louder to oftentimes win against our wishes and even allow them to infringe upon our rights. This time, this election, in the words of Debbie Wasserman; it's personal. This election is personal to the senior who doesn't want to have to navigate a voucher system in their golden years peppered with senility instead of a safe and secure Social Security system. It's personal for a woman that inadvertently gets pregnant and wants to choose when she will bear a child so that she doesn't derail her life's career because someone not of her religious beliefs stole her right to decide when she will bring a child into this world. It's personal for all LGBT citizens who want nothing more than to be finally left alone to live a life with their life partners with full and equal rights as any other tax paying citizen and for them to marry the love of their lives and not be told that their marriage isn't as legitimate as a heterosexual man marrying his mail order bride from Russia. This election is personal to the young latino immigrant that worked two jobs for years to pay for their way through college and only dreams of being naturalized through the Dream Act.
We are a nation as divided as during the Civil War over 150 years ago. One side of the country towards progress and equality free from enslaving segments of our society and the other still wanting to keep those limits intact. Like Paul Revere lighting up the night with his call to arms, the obstructionists, one by one with their bizarre and twisted justifications to take away our rights have bitch-slapped so many of us apathetic and tolerant liberals to finally jump up and say what the fuck are you trying to do with my government?!
I thank Sarah Palin with all her ignorance of the facts and mockeries of the truth, I thank Lyin' Ryan and Myth Romney for spinning their Rumplestiltskin web of lies, spinning a golden mythological yarn, promising to magically fix all our problems without even telling us how. I thank Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter for giving a byproduct birth of the Stephen Colbert show and giving Bill Maher, John Stewart and Rachel Maddow their voice; emboldening their resolve with every barbaric diatribe that you spit in our faces. I thank their selective ignorance for spurring me to educate myself to be able to shut them and their minions down at a moment's notice. I have trained myself for years to stand up to their justifications and I too have found my voice. Thank you extreme Republicans, for you have stung us all awake from our slumber of generations.
Thank you Putin, Mubarak, Pope Ratzinger, the Castro Brothers, Kim Jong Il, Chavez, Ahmadinejad and all dictators of thought for pushing the opposition to fight harder every day to expose the truth, to fight for their freedom, no matter how many you killed or tortured; you never were able to completely cover the sun with your finger or your many and varied weapons. Thank you people of Egypt for inspiring the flames of hope for the rest of the Middle East and reminding us that no matter how many they shoot, they can never kill us all....that revolutions can still explode and not be contained.
We are certainly a divided America but we, the people are more activated and ready to fight than ever. Eventually the scale will tip, history is on our side. Injustices will not always reign and tipping points will be reached. The question is will it happen tomorrow or 4 more years from now?
I thank America for still being a place where telling the truth is not a cause for murder, imprisonment torture or death threats. Where anyone can research the truth enough to uncover the lies and corruption, expressing all without paying with their lives. The defenders of the truth; Bloggers, activists and journalists are still assassinated, tortured and imprisoned in parts of our world.
While there are so many threats to our freedoms; in this country we still have a voice to fight the opposers of progress. Every 4 years we can vote for who we feel best fights for this truth. When you do vote, don't vote for a party or what anyone tells you is right or wrong. When you are in that booth where no one can see you, vote for who your instinct tells you isn't lying to you just to allay your fears. Vote for who supports the truth and liberty that we thankfully still enjoy. Vote for who supports equal rights for all of us instead of dividing and degrading sections of our society.
In a time that feels as if the Tectonic plates are shifting, as if a megaquake is about to bust apart the world as we know it. It is crucial now more than ever, to hold on to our hope- that same hope that the religious right turned into a bad word as if it was something to be closeted and ashamed of having. If tomorrow we see the extremists take over our constitution, our bodies and probably throw us into a new war of their design, do not let go of the hope that we have carried and were repaid with a President that stood up for us. Do not give up that hope, for it just means that more of us need to get on the FlyWheel and start spinning, start spinning towards a new world we have all dreamt would come but will just take a little bit longer to materialize.
An entry from evangelists Oral Robert's gay son Randy Roberts Potts on Facebook-
randy roberts potts
32 minutes ago
Tomorrow I will vote for the first President of these United States to openly declare that I am an equal citizen deserving of equal rights under the law. He's a man who values the bond my husband and I made in New York, who values the stability marriage can provide for the three children we are raising under our roof, who believes that our right to visit each other in the hospital is a right and not a benefit, who values our service in the military, in the schools, as firemen, as police officers, enough to say that we deserve to pass on what we leave behind to the person we love the most. I am proud to vote for Barack Hussein Obama, the man with the "funny" name, the man with the darkest shade of skin ever to sit in the White House, a man who chose to be a community organizer on the "bad" side of town instead of cashing in on his degree from Harvard.
The argument that a gay man, a bi woman, a transgendered person could vote Republican this year for economic considerations is bogus -- my family, my husband and our three children, are my primary economic unit. For the first time in history, one party values this unit, welcomes it, encourages it, while the other pretends it doesn't even exist. Denial economics just doesn't make sense.
4 years ago, the choice for LGBT people might not have been quite as clear, and I value the work of groups like the Log Cabin Republicans because they are one of the main reasons the Republican party will change, and it will change, eventually. Even so, the LCRs lost a huge opportunity this year when they endorsed a man who has a miserable track record of over and over and over again, over many years, refusing to treat us as people deserving of dignity and respect.
I am not a member of either party and I have friends, close friends, on both ends of the spectrum, but this year there I can't see any value in an LGBT person voting for a candidate and a party that openly, in its platform, in its robocalls, in its alliance with NOM, in its private statements, in its public statements, does not value us as full human beings capable of building families and contributing to society and serving in the military. Not when there is another party that openly declares its support for us.
If a candidate does not want your service, do not offer it.
If you are a member of the Republican party, as I know many LGBT men and women are, remember John Milton's words, "they also serve who only stand and wait." It's a point of honor to push your party on this issue, to remind Republicans daily that you exist. It is also the most honorable service you could provide for your party to stand aside this year, to vote for a more deserving candidate, and wait.
And for all you Democrats out there, well kids, you've got it easy!
Tomorrow's going to be a big day for marriage equality. I'm on the edge of my seat, literally. We might lose in a couple states; we might not. We might reelect the first sitting President ever to come out for marriage equality, and then again, we might not. Tonight, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. ring as true as ever:
"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."
Now get out there and vote tomorrow and let's get on with that dream!
"Sometimes life has to break us to make us. It's just a bend and not the end. We're all a little bit like glow sticks, no matter how much we're bent and broken our light still shines." DeAndre Carswell
An entry from evangelists Oral Robert's gay son Randy Roberts Potts on Facebook-
randy roberts potts
32 minutes ago
Tomorrow I will vote for the first President of these United States to openly declare that I am an equal citizen deserving of equal rights under the law. He's a man who values the bond my husband and I made in New York, who values the stability marriage can provide for the three children we are raising under our roof, who believes that our right to visit each other in the hospital is a right and not a benefit, who values our service in the military, in the schools, as firemen, as police officers, enough to say that we deserve to pass on what we leave behind to the person we love the most. I am proud to vote for Barack Hussein Obama, the man with the "funny" name, the man with the darkest shade of skin ever to sit in the White House, a man who chose to be a community organizer on the "bad" side of town instead of cashing in on his degree from Harvard.
The argument that a gay man, a bi woman, a transgendered person could vote Republican this year for economic considerations is bogus -- my family, my husband and our three children, are my primary economic unit. For the first time in history, one party values this unit, welcomes it, encourages it, while the other pretends it doesn't even exist. Denial economics just doesn't make sense.
4 years ago, the choice for LGBT people might not have been quite as clear, and I value the work of groups like the Log Cabin Republicans because they are one of the main reasons the Republican party will change, and it will change, eventually. Even so, the LCRs lost a huge opportunity this year when they endorsed a man who has a miserable track record of over and over and over again, over many years, refusing to treat us as people deserving of dignity and respect.
I am not a member of either party and I have friends, close friends, on both ends of the spectrum, but this year there I can't see any value in an LGBT person voting for a candidate and a party that openly, in its platform, in its robocalls, in its alliance with NOM, in its private statements, in its public statements, does not value us as full human beings capable of building families and contributing to society and serving in the military. Not when there is another party that openly declares its support for us.
If a candidate does not want your service, do not offer it.
If you are a member of the Republican party, as I know many LGBT men and women are, remember John Milton's words, "they also serve who only stand and wait." It's a point of honor to push your party on this issue, to remind Republicans daily that you exist. It is also the most honorable service you could provide for your party to stand aside this year, to vote for a more deserving candidate, and wait.
And for all you Democrats out there, well kids, you've got it easy!
Tomorrow's going to be a big day for marriage equality. I'm on the edge of my seat, literally. We might lose in a couple states; we might not. We might reelect the first sitting President ever to come out for marriage equality, and then again, we might not. Tonight, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. ring as true as ever:
"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."
Now get out there and vote tomorrow and let's get on with that dream!
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