So I was in the car going to buy dog food

[ruggerson]

and I had one of those transcendental moments I think we all have at times.

The radio was on and they played Daniel Day Lewis' acceptance speech for the SAG Best Actor award he won tonight for "There will be blood."

He gave a moving tribute to Heath Ledger and dedicated the award to him, and his voice broke as he talked about the scene in the trailer at the end of Brokeback Mountain when Ledger is alone and broken.

And I was right there with him, because I was flooded with memories of how I felt when I first saw "My Beautiful Laundrette" twenty some odd years ago and how Day Lewis' performance made my heart catch in my throat, because I was finally viewing a relationship up on the silver screen that bore some resonance to my life. The movie stayed with me for weeks, months after I saw it. It was validation; there was no longer just Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr and endless other heterosexual couples swooning their way into movie history, now we took our rightful place in the pantheon. Hollywood (or the English version thereof) had finally recognized that regular guys and regular girls, regular people not caricatures, could fall in love with each other. It had finally realized that gay men were not just the Tony Randall character that makes everyone laugh, but were strong, three dimensional, flesh and blood people who had relationships, great joys and great anguish, in their own right.

Day Lewis' performance in that movie is chilling. He understood it. He got it deep down in his bones.

And as I listened to Day Lewis and his tribute to Heath, I realized why this election is so important to me.

I entered my teenage years during the presidency of Richard Nixon. I realized it was society that was wrong, not gay people that were wrong, during the presidency of Gerald Ford. I somehow survived the war that Ronald Reagan declared on me and my friends. I was at one of the very first meetings of Act Up. I saw my friends savaged by their own government through two horrible Republican administrations lasting twelve years. I had great hope during Clinton's tenure, but he disappointed at times, and was, in the end, not the one we could rely on to go to war for us. The last eight years of Bush speak for themselves, unfortunately.

I am weary of not having a President who understands me and my family. I think, as gay men and women, it is the very least we can expect of our leaders. We have payed faithfully into the system while living second class, Jim Crow existences. We have played by the rules and been handed virtually nothing in return, not even the very basic validation of our relationships and the families we create.

We have learned to live in the shadow of our own country, leading our lives with both the inevitable joys and sorrows without governmental imprimatur or acknowledgement. We do not, in any way, need government nor politicians to validate who we are. But, still, hanging there, like a gloomy cloud, is that constant reminder: the gnawing sense of injustice and inequality. The sense of being not-quite-citizens.

I am weary of presidential candidates who ask for our vote and then betray us by legitimizing the people and groups who would be our mortal enemies.

I want a leader who I can believe in. I want a country I can believe in.

The scene in Brokeback Mountain where Ennis (Ledger) returns to meet Jack's parents and goes up to Jack's childhood room and finds his old denim jacket at the back of the closet stays with me as a constant metaphor for our lives.

It is the ongoing loss we all share.

Someday, we will have a President who understands that scene, really gets it in their gut, and realizes that it is intolerable for a country that prides itself on liberty, justice and equality to treat a large group of its own citizens with such contempt and disrespect.

Someday, we will have a President that angrily and passionately fights for the memory of the millions of Jacks, so that future lives will not be broken and lost to ignorance and hatred.

Someday, we will have a President that acknowledges, and is a champion for, GLBT youth.

We will have that President someday.

I know it deep down in my bones.

[TygrBright]

1. Yes. And not just you, but...

...all of us who love our gay family members and friends, and choke back rage and bloody our palms with our fingernails when homophobic assholes tell us "hey, it's just a joke, lighten up..." and repeat disgusting slurs and thoughtless "humor," and we think about the time we found our loved ones drowning in tears about how they'd never 'fit in' and never find happiness and we felt so helpless.

Whoever it is will be our president, too. And someday, some candidate will realize just how many of US there are, and how gigantic the total of US, plus YOU adds up to, and then, yes, THEN, we'll see real change.

I dream of an America where what adults do with each other in privacy has no relevance to anyone but themselves, is not a political issue, and incites no hatred and horror and impulses to 'control' others' private sexual expression. Where we're not hung up on who does what with whom, how their bodies are shaped and whether they do it the 'right' way, and hell, even whether they do it at all.

An America where young people grow up free of obsessive worry and pain and guilt about what is 'normal' and whether they're 'okay,' and never have to twist their sexuality into cancerous pretzels inside them that eventually poison not just themselves, but everyone close to them.

I want my grandchildren to live in that America.

hopefully,
Bright

[ruggerson]

6. Good point

one minority's acceptance and respect has ramifications for an entire nation. The current status quo affects an individual, his/her family members, their extended family, their circle of friends, etc.

[NMMNG]

2. If only.

I hope you're right.

[Maven]

3. Wow.

Great post.

K/R

[terrya]

4. And I am delighted to be the one to put this on the Greatest Page.

Wow, indeed.

I've dialed my expectations for the next Democratic President of the United States on our issue to "zero". Clinton, Obama, Edwards...they go on a Presidential forum on GLBT issues, say some nice, pretty things about us and equality...and right away, with the opposition of all three to same-sex marriage equality, it just isn't there. And I really don't expect any of the three to fight very hard for other issues that matter...enacting ENDA, enacting federal hate crimes legislation, repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act.

Someday, we'll get that President who understands us and the desire, the need for full equality for GLBT people. I know it, also.

[hulklogan]

5. The sad thing is that all of our candidates could be that President

but they're too afraid of the homophobic wing of the party to stand up for what is right.

[eridani]

7. Sad, but true

Except for Kucinich, and he's dropped out.