What a great time to approach my 1000th post!

[RedLetterRev]

There's a lot to cover, my new family, and I hope you'll stick with me to the bottom. We've got a load of work to do over the next few years, but I couldn't think of a finer group of people be doing it with.

There's nothing like that first morning after a long, long storm, when that first ray of sunshine peeks over the horizon. Despite the destruction that has been wrought around you, you know you've made it and some way, somehow, things will eventually be alright. The minions of Bush, Norquist and Rand have tried to make a Sherman-like scorched earth path of utter destruction though our government and our political machinery, yet hope, strength, and belief in the American system of laws has once again prevailed.

Now I've been allowed to rant and vent on DU, but let me tell you a bit about my passion and why I rant and vent. My roots go deep into this soil. I'm the many-greats grandchild of settlers, most of whom arrived over 300 years ago. Most weren't particularly religious, but also didn't want to be pressed into mandatory religions of state. Most were poor dirt-farmers. Some married Natives and added diversity to my heritage.

Some didn't come by choice; indeed, some were very unwilling. DNA testing gave more hints toward my long-suspected Melungeon heritage, pointing toward north African and Mediterranean genes to go along with my Anglo-Irish, Dutch, and Viking heritage. The Melungeons were treated in a lot of ways worse than Natives or African-Americans and much of their history has been erased or remains nearly buried. Only now is a little bit coming to light; another shameful chapter in American history.

In short, I contain rainbows -- I'm about as Murrican as it can get. My family tree has branches from coast to coast.

Some of my ancestors were present at the signing of the Mecklenburg Resolve -- the first Declaration of Independence, signed in Charlotte, NC a year before the more famous one everyone knows about from schoolbooks. One of my g's-granddads was threatened with hanging by the British for his role in the NC Regulators -- one of our nation's first group of freedom fighters (or insurgents, if you will). One of his sons, and two other grandfathers fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain, a pivotal battle in the war for independence. Another g's-granddad fought at the Battle of Alamance, another at Guilford Courthouse; at both of which the Americans got spanked, but continued to weaken Cornwallis enough to ensure that he couldn't win when he got any further north.

The quest for freedom and democracy is in my blood. A protective love for the Constitution those granddads helped to shape has been handed down generationally to me. Of course I'm passionate about this nation, the dreams of freedom and equality and the quest to be personally "better" and "better" as a nation. Not this fake, nose-in-the-air, Betty Bowers "better Christian than yewww", Pharisee kind of "better", but a "better" that follows that second commandment that is equal to the first (see Mt22:34-40) "that you love one another".

Sometimes this passion runs a little loose in my posts, and I freely admit it. Now you know why. If rabble rousing is genetic, I've got a double-dose.

Truly, I had despaired over the last few years of ever rescuing our nation from the fascist * crime families that had so thoroughly taken over and rotted the government through, from top to bottom. A glimmer of hope came in 2004 when Howard Dean managed to become chair of the DNC. I blogged over there since they opened their blog in late 2002 and peeked in occasionally at DU. I watched as Dr Dean reconstructed the party innards and quietly held firm against and replaced the failed 13-state strategy. The satisfying, sweet fruit first appeared in 2006 when the Democrats made some significant gains in Congress. True, we had a statistical majority, but not yet a business majority and the Republicans set records for filibusters.

Then, this year, despite the nastiness from the repugnant side of politics, the outward displays of racism, the plays on the worst elements and darkest sides of humanity, the better sides of humanity have begun to prevail despite the resistance from that which wants to call itself "right". By any definition I was given in my upbringing (YMMV), their actions belie any "right" or "righteousness" when they seek only to oppress, to take away dignity, to deride and decry other human beings simply for being. So much has been overcome, yet so much has yet to go.

I claim no special insight. I know only what I know and a lot of that comes from hard experience. There's nothing like going through some of the indignities that life can offer to make one appreciate the preciousness of simple dignity. I have been poor; I have been hungry; briefly, I have been homeless. Thanks to providence and faith (of which I have a deep and abiding amount, not to be confused with "religion" of which I claim none) much of that is behind me.

But the lessons that those impressed upon me remain: even in the midst of the worst that life can offer, a human being still wants and needs his or her own dignity.

On top of all that, I can most assuredly tell you it's not easy being a gay man. Despite what anyone thinks, it's even less easy when most folks "can't tell". Gayness isn't like skin color; most often it doesn't show. You can work beside a gay or lesbian person for years and never realize it. Me, I'm a slow-talking, kinda redneck-looking, true-Blue Appalachian hillbilly; raised Democrat with easygoing, "live and let live" old-fashioned mountain values. I'm one of an almost-vanished culture. My partner of 13 years (next February 12th) is also a mountain man, from West (by Gawd) Virginia. We're probably not anybody's picture of a gay couple, but we're a helluva lot more typical than most folks realize -- or the right wants anyone to know.

In truth, we're deadly-dull average in terms of walking-around Americans. I often wonder if any other couple on earth is as lucky in love as we two are, if any other couple is as blessed or at peace in their home, if they always, always part company with "I love you so!". That's what a marriage is, at least to me.

But I've also seen the light go out of a person's eyes, some of whom I had known for years and thought to be friends, when the realization my orientation came over them -- or they asked flat-out and I didn't (never do) duck the question. I figure if someone has the nerve to ask, I've got the nerve to answer. If the friendship was ever real, it will survive. Sometimes, it just doesn't and it's hard not to be hurt.

It does hurt, though, to see that light die, because I believe that if you truly ever love someone (even platonically) then you can't "unlove" them. Apparently and sadly, some folks either learn the knack of "unloving", or never truly learn the knack of loving in the first place.

Upon the affront of the anti-GLBT measures in Florida, Arkansas, and California, I've asked some Connecticut residents if out-of-staters are welcome to marry. That may have been taken wrong, but here's my reasoning: I think that LGBT folks should go ahead and marry wherever and however they're availed. Partly, it should be done because it's meet, right, and correct for us to marry. Partly, those who can should stand in stead of those who yet can't -- it's called leading by example.

Those who can marry are leading by example because their marriages amply demonstrate that hetero marriages will most certainly not suddenly dissolve, or explode, or are somehow "redefined". If enough of us who can marry will lead, the example will show the stubborn that society is always made stronger by marriage, no matter who's in it. The tide, then, must turn.

That's what I hope, anyway.

Any marriage, any marriage at all is what the participants in it make of it. Period. Nothing outside of it can "redefine" it. If some hetero marriage suddenly falls apart because two guys across town obtain their own piece of legal paper, I must submit that there were troubles in the former long before its demise. Again, a marriage is what the participants in it make of it.

A new Progressive era is emerging. This, too, is what we will make of it. I hope we will walk in calm and confidence and that our calm and confidence will assuage the fears and nonsense of the right wing. The storm is over; now the long, long, hard task of cleaning up is beginning. There will be difficult days and a lot of stink to uncover and deal with.

Just like dealing with any housecleaning that's gotten out of hand. Pick a corner, then clean out. Pick another corner and clean out from there. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Together, we can do this. Bicker and bitch amongst ourselves if we must. Occasionally, we will have to stand back and gag at the messes we find, as we're going to. But it's going to take all of us, all hands on-deck.

I've got my wind back. I've got passion. How about you?

[orleans]

1. thank you for sharing. and congrats on 1,000! n/t

[norepubsin08]

2. Hey congrats I just posted my 1000th at 10:50 this morning