Too many times throughout history, people in economic distress, feeling hopeless and scared, have chosen hate over love, broken the bonds that should have held them together, and turned backward instead of moving forward. Too often under stress, human nature propels us to choose the false promise of a quick fix, rather than slogging through the difficult work of true progress.

This week, Americans made a different choice. Ironically, despite all our disappointment in Obama for not delivering the hope and change he promised, after our collective reckoning with how hard and slow change truly is, we chose hope anyway. We chose the vision of a society we create together, where freedom is truly shared, rather than lies and false promises based on sketchy math and reactionary social positions. Rather than returning to historical practices limiting reproductive freedoms, to the view that men are the most capable of making choices about women’s bodies, we said no to moving backwards, and yes to equality.

We said no to Minnesota’s attempt to limit the definition of marriage to one man, one woman. For the first time in our country’s history, citizens went to the poles and affirmed the rights of gay couples to marry. In Maryland, Maine, and probably Washington (in every state, in fact, that posed the question) citizens voted for civil rights. The same country that after September 11 passed laws based in hate, to ascribe second class status to queer citizens, and that allowed irrational, self-destructive foreign policies to prevail, said no to war-mongering and yes to common sense. We said yes to love, yes to fairness, and one vote at a time, brought gay people closer to full participation in our democracy, with the rights and privileges those of us perceived as heterosexual enjoy.

We said no to rape apology, no to men who believed they knew better than we did how our bodies function, no to forced vaginal ultrasounds and no to the belief that elections can be won and the country can be governed by the minority of white males. We came together to send 20 women into the senate, the highest number in our history, including Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay senator. The national delegation from New Hampshire is not the first to be all-female. Hell we even voted to fully legalize pot in two states (not just medical marijuana). Amazingly, it took a gen-exer to jolt the baby boomers back into action. This Atlantic article details the historic elections this week, viewing these as working to finish what the hippies started.

America is on the precipice of a sea change. The America my children will come of age in will be a different America than the one I have known, and I would argue, it will be a much better one. When my kids learn the word “president” they will associate it with the visual of a mixed race man from Kenya. Imagine never having known a white president! They will see folks in our highest offices of government who represent more of us than ever, an out lesbian in the senate, a Mormon presidential candidate, a Buddhist senator and a Hindu representative, both from Hawaii, and more women in office than ever. Bisexual-identified Kyrsten Sinema will enter the House of Representatives this year. Thirty-six Asian-American and Pacific Islanders sought congressional seats in this election. Though painfully slowly, our higher offices are beginning to look more like the rest of the country.

With black voters, latino voters, and young voters all increasing their numbers this election, even over their record numbers from 2008, these groups are feeling more empowered, more like their voices matter, and making it clear that they are not to be ignored. They say once a new voter votes with a party three times, they are with them for life. The Bush years left a generation of kids feeling disillusioned and longing for a vision that matched the America they lived in.

The folks voting for the first or second time this year are folks who’ve grown up in a more racially diverse, more gender variant, queerer society than any of us. They look at us, and they don’t get it. Why would you deny marriage rights to homosexuals? Of course a black man can be president. Identity, to this generation, is both more valued and respected, and more fluid than ever. Categories are more nuanced and specific, genderqueer, demisexual, pansexual, polyracial, and yet more expansive than ever. As new generations come up, we are aging out of the rigid gender binary, aging out of discrimination, aging out of limited, dichotomous concepts of race and gender, aging out of the privileging of certain sexualities over others, even aging out of a two-person concept of romantic partnership.

I believe before I leave this earth I will see the fight for the civil rights of polyamorous, multi-partnered families, and an increased focus on non-romantic and nontraditional bonds holding families together. This article talks about providing legal, marriage-type protections for any couple who chooses to combine resources and/or raise children together. Why only two people? (More on this soon).

Sure, we didn’t win any of the gains we won this election by much, but we won them all! Even despite the slow progress and the steepness of the road back from the Bush years, these young folks are on board and they’re on board for good. They may have grown up a little over the past four years, as I think we all did. After stepping out into the streets that exhilarating night in 2008 when we all marveled at what was suddenly possible in America, we wanted our new America immediately. We’ve learned that it won’t be easy or fast, but I believe that new America is coming – its rise is inevitable. Our numbers are increasing. There are less and less of us who are willing to deny full citizenship to the children of immigrants, less and less of us who see differently-gendered or oriented people as threatening, less and less of us who seek, whether consciously or not, to deny certain racial groups from gaining the power and resources white people enjoy, less and less of us willing to accept less than full representation in government by women.

By the time my two year-olds step into the voting booth for the 2028 presidential election, a party that builds a coalition of white males by promoting the freedoms that they prioritize while attempting at every turn to deny all other freedoms will be rendered un-electable. We don’t know where this will go. Perhaps the Republican Party will step into the present and re-imagine itself in the vision of what America is, not what it has been. I personally would love to see a progressive party form to the left of the Democratic Party. What I am certain of is that the new America will be a progressive country, much more in the vision of what America is supposed to be – a land of opportunity for all, the most diverse country in the world, where people can truly be whoever they are and be valued and truly free, and where folks can imagine how religious freedom, sexual freedom, freedom to love, and freedom of belief can co-exist without cancelling each other out. Where hard work is valued, but resources are also shared, people work together to care for all citizens, and the power wielded by the rich is not allowed to drown out the voices of the many.

This week, America made the hard choice. We chose the long, difficult path instead of the path of denial, distraction, and destruction that led us so far off course in the 90s. Things are hard, this fight was long, and we all carried the anxiety and fear of not knowing if we would prevail. But we did, and I promise, it gets better! We are moving slowly, but we are moving the right direction.

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