I took Em and N with me last night to vote, and let N push the ink votey thingy down in the hole for Obama, while Em got the privilege of voting against Prop 8. Both were given "I Voted" stickers, and both left the polling place absolutely ebullient, though N confessed to me that even though he'd voted for Obama in his class election and in the voting booth on my behalf, he sort of wished McCain would win.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because his name is easier to say than Aback Abama," he admitted. And that, my friends, is Example 875 of Why I Want To Eat That Child Up With a Spoon. (And why he still needs that speech therapy, too.)
Later, after watching Obama's acceptance speech, Em emailed her Uncle S. "Hey. Obama just won!!!! N and I went to help Mommy vote and N got to punch in the president and I got to say NO TO PROP 8!!!!!!!!!!!" And, later in the email, "This is the first election that I was actually able to understand it and able to appreciate it! We made history!!! And I was alive to see and make it! I am just so excited I can't put it into words!!!"
And THAT, my friends, is Example 1,242 of Why I Want to Grow Up to Be Just Like My Daughter. We made history, indeed.
Sadly, like me, she visibly deflated this morning when she heard about Prop 8. "I don't understand," she said. "How could that be?"
"I don't know, honey," I said. Because I don't.
"You look sad," she said.
"I am," I admitted.
"Are you still happy about Obama, though?" she asked anxiously.
"Of course I am," I replied reassuringly. She'd already heard back from her Uncle about how his plans to move to Boston are now firmer than ever after last night's proposition vote, and I think she really needed permission to still feel excited about what had happened, instead of only sad.
And it was true. I'm very happy about Obama. I'm just not as hopeful as I was just a few hours ago.
It's hard to feel hopeful in the face of hate.
5 comments:
Everyone in the rest of the country thinks CA is so liberal, not understanding the spectrum of politics and social positions there.
I'm just sick to my stomach.
Tell Em I fully believe that having Obama in office will help us with Prop 8 (or really, a similar prop) next Election Day.
Tell her I never thought there'd be a black president in my lifetime, and I'm only 32, so there's totally hope for gays having the same rights as straights.
Yep. What green said. The day will come, when all men and women TRULY will walk this great land as equals. Maybe just not as soon as we had hoped.
If hope never won out against hate, Barack Obama would not now be president.
I feel your (and Em's) pain, but we must persevere.
I wish I understood better the folks who voted for Prop 8. I just honestly, honestly don't understand. Why is my own marriage threatened, at all, by letting other people marry? Why are we "preserving" marriage by eliminating it for large numbers of people?
I go to church. I've read the Bible. I don't find the path to hatred there.
Surely you've seen the Keith Olberman response to Prop 8? I thought it was very good.
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