It was a pretty good night to be a Democrat.

We held on to the White House and the Senate, and Republicans held the House.

In gay America, we had an even bigger victory. As of this writing, we have the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and we’ve won the right to marry in Maine and Maryland at the ballot box for the very first time. It was a stunning victory for gay Americans.

RT @fakedansavage: When I came out to my parents 30 years ago saying “I’m gay” meant saying “I will never marry and I will never have children.” #ItGotBetter

It was also a stunning blow to the anti-gay bigots who control the Republican party. And it was a stunning blow to the Republican party itself. A pro-gay, pro-gay-marriage, President won the White House, and his position in favor of gay marriage – gay marriage! – was irrelevant to his re-election (other than it almost certainly helped secure him 77% of the gay electorate).

GOP consultant Alex Castellanos said on CNN last night:

“The Republican party can’t be the party that thinks one of the biggest problems is that there’s too much love in the world.”

As someone who’s worried about how I’m going to continue affording my own health care as I get older, I won tonight. The victory of the President and Senate Democrats means Obamacare isn’t going to be repealed, health insurance companies won’t be able to turn you and me away (or charge us more) for our pre-existing conditions. And on a very personal level, in a a matter of a few years, I may no longer have to slink over to Europe to buy my asthma drugs because they’re too expensive in America and my insurance will over cover enough for five months a year (and then no other prescriptions at all).

I’m way too tired to process all of this now. I’m watching a woman on CNN who used to work for McCain, Ana Navarro, talk about how Latinos were disillusioned with Barack Obama, but they were terrified with the Republicans. Same thing with gays. And probably every other interest group on the left. It will be interesting to see if the Republicans get the message, or what message, if any, they even take from tonight’s loss (worst message would be that it was all the fault of Hurricane Sandy).

I’m writing this at 1:27am, still waiting for President Obama’s victory speech. Desperately in need of my bed. But I guess I’ll conclude by saying that it’s been a long hard four years. I haven’t always been happy with the President. But we got more under this President than we ever would have gotten under John McCain, and the same holds true with Mitt Romney. And while not always enough, it’s also not nothing. So I’ll sleep easily, for tonight at least.