Journal Challenge

If you could find out that something that is true was actually false....what would it be and why?

Recently, I learned the very definition of what the term bittersweet is. A man was elected to office that was so different from anything that went before him. He was kinda and human, he was eloquant but yet common; he had a heart and knew the pain of the people he'd be working with. As he ran for the presidency, many people were shocked by him---how on Earth did we elect someone like Bush when someone like this could have been leading us?

At the same time, California courts decided it was time to see everyone as equal by granting gays and lesbians the right to marry. They were still margialized even afterwards, but it was a step in the right direction.

The churches saw a way to defeat this man running for the presidency by mobilizing the troops. They played up the lies in their congregations and sanctuaries and repurposed their ignorant audiences. If they could go out and vote against this marriage bit...they might get their ace-in-the hole from Arizona even elected.

The plan worked..in part. By playing up their fictional evils, they got their puppets to shove gays and lesbians back from full equality.

But Obama was elected.

And, so, I learned what the term 'bittersweet' meant.

I'm not a Californian, but I sure feel like I am. To see all my myraid of friends turning on each other, not out of anger but out of sheer frustration--I hurt. My heart twisted into knots a boy scout couldn't even figure out. It was horrid. The pain lingers. We cancelled our trip to the OC.

So? if I don't live there, how can it effect me?

The fact is the symbolism here. I had low esteem over my sexuality for eons. And I grew to love myself and believe in who I was. And there is the proof that ignorance truly is bliss. I wanted to believe that there are people who are good out there. I wanted to believe that if an African American could be elected president, finally, just finally, everyone would have a place at the table.

To ask, "What is true that you wish you could find out was false?" I turn to this situation as a fraction of my answer.

I wish that the hatred I see daily was just some sad, small, misunderstanding. Something the press mis-printed; something we just didn't get. That, in the end, I can stand tall with everyone else in the world and smile at the same things.

I try to smile like constantly. But it just rings false. I know I'm lying to myself.

And people who vote this way and wonder why there is still shootings and there are still hatred against them.

I wish the hatred was false. 'Cause that's all this is.