It is 11:39 PM and we are waiting to hear Obama's speech.  We went outside and celebrated with one set of neighbors.  Everyone else either wasn't home or just didn't feel the joy.

Still, we also await the outcome on California's Proposition 8 which would invalidate gay marriage in that state. 

It hasn't necessarily been a good night for homosexuals.  We lost in Florida, Arizona and Arkansas.  Florida and Arizona approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.  Arkansas has approved an amendment prohibiting gay couples from fostering or adopting children.  As a soon to be former foster parent recruiter, I can only shake my head at the idiocy that would eliminate an entire group of potential homes for vulnerable children when we struggle every day to find homes willing to take in these children.  What a despicable turn of events for children.

Clearly, the Democratic surge is good news for us.  And Connecticut voters turned back an attempt to prohibit gay marriage. 

The time is not ripe for marriage.  We may have to accept that reality, but we need to work more diligently to ensure that our other issues are on the table.  That means Jason Altmire votes for an inclusive ENDA before he shows up at another gay campaign event and asks for our support.  That means Dan Onorato offers domestic partnership benefits to County Employees before crawling through another round of gay bars.  That means Doug, Tonya, Bill and Bruce pressure the Mayor to establish the LGBT advisory committee and make more appointments. That means Chelsa, Dan, Jim, Wayne, Don and our other state friends need to beat that Marriage Amendment to death once and for all so we can get on with the business of protecting our civil rights and ensuring that I get to visit Ledcat in the hospital without getting permission from her relatives.  That means the Steel City Stonewall Democrat memberships rise and their leaders insist the candidates go on the record by completing a survey to win an endorsement or a recommendation.  All of them -- ALL of them -- owe us a more concerted effort to improve the lives of every single gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender man and woman in this region.  Adult or child, we too deserve the promise that American can change.

Hold on ... President-Elect Obama just mentioned gay Americans.  Now that's what I'm talking about. 

"Put their hands on the arc of history and bend it towards a better day."

Let us hope, my friends, that we awake to a better day in California, so that the rest of us can feel some glimmer of hope.  Let us hope that people let the hate and fear and intolerance in their hearts begin to melt so that we stop putting up barriers to families that look a little different than the typical family, but feel the same love and connection and hurt and bond that all families feel. 

I am tired.  I drove to meet a prospective tenant this evening and I was exhausted and out of gas.  This gentleman bounced out of his tricked out car, decked from head to toe in Obama-gear and came up to me gushing about my Obama pride bumper magnet.  So I ripped it off my car and handed it to him.  He slapped that puppy right on his car and drove off with an ecstatic look on his face.  I think he was gay, but it doesn't really matter.  We bonded in a moment of anticipation, a moment of hope.

Now that's what I'm talking about.