Inspiration and determination

Yesterday's nation-wide protests against Proposition 8 and in favor of full civil rights for gay people were an inspiration. Nothing like this has ever occurred in the long struggle we gay people have made for our civil rights. There have been passionate outbursts before (e.g., Stonewall in 1969, which is commemorated every year in Gay Pride), but this mass movement is different. It was proposed spontaneously on-line, spread by word of mouth and email, and organized entirely by ordinary people. This is real democracy--the demos, the people, speaking as one to the entire nation. That is the difference. Not an elite or a band of self-chosen "leaders." The people, gays and straights, are running the show now. We will win in California soon; that foul stain on the state's constitution will not endure. Then other states, one by one. No one will give us full equality; in the true American rough-and-tumble way, we will claim it for ourselves, we will fight for it ourselves, and we will obtain it for ourselves. And unlike our enemies, we will fight with every honorable means at our disposal to win the hearts and minds of honorable Americans.