What the heck are we doing?

Hi Everyone,
This week has been an up and down week for me. It seems even with history being made in the election of a new President, which I though would bring more hope to a lot of the nation (except for the one's who voted for McCain), it seems to have also started more divisiveness within the LGBT community (at least within the blogging world), which is sad. I've never really been the one to like to talk much about politics because it always brings out the worst in some people (which is another sad fact). I recently came across a few blogs on The Bilerico Project which seem to want to blame the blacks for loosing to the Prop 8 proponents. Well, I myself will not go there. I've seen number that suggest that the blame is not on the black community itself, as many are suggestioning. I'm sure that the proponents of Prop 8 are sitting around laughing at us as our communitity begins this infighting, which I sure they hope will tear us apart. I do not what that to happen as the right to marry should be for anyone of age. Cindy Rizzo a guest blogger made what I thought were lagitimate suggestion to get our rights back in California, Arizona and any other state that gets attacked by such crap. Here is my response to her blog and the comments she recieved:
Hi Cindy,
I'm a transsexual who recently found this blog. I'm also currently married to a Asian women who has given me her support for my transition. This support did not come easy, but with time and a lot of discussion between us we have come a long way. You may say why is any of this relevant. She come's from a very strong catholic background and without taking the time I did (almost 10 years, mind you not every day) to educate her on my plight I don't think I would have gotten her support. If I would have taken the route as some here are suggesting "In Your face, you will do what I say or else" I'm sure I would not gotten anywhere with her. It seems some here want to force there view of the nay sayers. How is that any better than what the political supporters of Prop 8 did and are doing. If we want to build more support for equal rights for all, then we need to better educate the public. It will be a hard fight, because the religious orgs do have a strong foot hold in many of the communities that we need support from. Am I upset, YES I am. But to me, just sitting her blaming the Blacks, Latinos or any other group with out even trying to have a intelligent dialog, I assure you will not get us anywhere. Education will be the key to our success and I believe Cindy has some valid points. We do have to strengthen our support with our allies and try to build up dialog between the ones that are apposed. If we can't do at least that, I'm almost positive that we will not ever see any positive change for the future and it could even get worse by other states overturning the right to marry. I have a stake in this too as a transwomen, when I change the sex on my legal documents, they could have easly take away my right to stay married to my wife or any other women. People, lets join together and at least start taking a look at what didn't work this time and correct those issues and do some proper education. Thank you all for you time.

I'll take it even further. Sometimes people have to meet in the middle, now I didn't see any of the ads supporting Prop 8 (I live in NY), but I'm sure not everything was true in there ads. What I mean by meeting in the middle is that we push for the right to marry, but not try and force a Religious orinization to do the surimonies unless they do support the right for the LGBT communities to marry who they like. There are other palces to get married other than a Church, such as the court house, ect. The right to marry should be a fundimental right to all and not a select few, so I would not bend on that one, but I'm sure you see what I'm talking about.

Will we ever see the rights returned (specially after they seemed to be stollen from the people of California), I hope so. There are some blogs I've seen that suggest that they can be overturned because they are not constitional. I really hope that they are overturn, because I really feel they we have been burned by the religoius right and many other orgs that supported prop 8.

As I said in my reply to the original blog, I really feel that more education in the Black, Latino, Asian, hell in EVERY community is really needed. Things are better than they where 20 years ago, but they can get alot better. If we continue to only attack the nay sayers and not aproach them with inteligence and dignity, what do you expect to get back? The SAME attacks and that will not get us anywhere. I hope we do have a better future with Obama for EVERYONE.
Hugs Michelle Lee