I’m not a political person, in the sense that I barely pay attention. This election was really the first time I’d paid much attention, aside from all of the Bush drama. Even then I didn’t really follow everything (in either case). I guess that’s kind of a good thing, because I tend to miss out on all of the drama and mudslinging and (maybe) get right down to the facts.

I do, however, want to take the time to reflect on the fact that we have just elected our first African-American president. I also want to take the time to point out to all of the paranoid, the bigots, the static people and the Obama-haters in general that he won and he deserves a fair chance. I keep hearing people say the rudest things about him, that he’s a socialist who wants to ruin our country. Get the facts, people. I’ve heard people scoff at us now having an African-American president. Get off your racist high horses and get into the twenty-first (or is it now the twenty-second?) century. I’ve heard people say that we’ll just have to see how he does, as if he couldn’t possibly do any good. If he didn’t have any potential, he wouldn’t have been elected. People would not have voted for him if there wasn’t something there. Just listen to the man speak for five minutes and it’s plain to see that he’s got brains. He’s got eloquence — almost an MLK kinda thing going on — and — wait for it — he’s got a plan.

He’s also from a place where many of us are from. He was an underdog, raised by a single mother and grandmother. He wasn’t some Ivy League kid with everything handed to him. He really worked his ass off to get where he is, and that is something that everyone should appreciate. He is the first President in a long time to have roots in the middle-class most of us are in.

I’m really happy that our country has finally made a good choice and that we have broken two barriers with this election: social and racial. Whether you agree or not, it is what it is.

I’m also really tired of the discrimination against gays in this country. California and Prop 8 are a joke. I can’t understand how, in a state where gay married was written into their constitution after many years of hard struggle — someone with a Proposition could just march in and set it up to be taken away. How could people vote against a civil right? It shouldn’t matter what your religion is; the plain truth here is that if someone tried to prevent YOU from marrying the person you love, you would be upset. You would feel discriminated against. If I said, you can’t get married because you’re over the age of fifty, you would be outraged. And yet just because it says in a book that marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman, people don’t want it to happen. It makes people uncomfortable.

I think that people feel uncomfortable about this whole thing because it brings other things written in the bible into question. It disgusts me that we have come so far since this nation was born — we have abolished slavery of African-Americans, we have given women the right to vote — and yet we can’t seem to give these people a marriage. A simple ceremony celebrating the love of two people. That’s what marriage really is. Two people who love each other and want to be bound together for the rest of their lives. Everyone else is entitled to it, unless of course you happen to be in love with someone of the same sex. This is hypocrisy, and madness. We are a better country than this.

This is more than just marriage. This is civil rights. Everyone in this country should be able to enjoy the same freedoms, and that includes gay people. Shame on everyone who voted yes to Prop 8. Shame on you.