The LGBT Rights Heartbreak
and the Great Work Ahead

Tanene Allison

By Tanene Allison

November 10, 2008

Too often have I woken up the morning after an election having less rights than I did the night before. If you are a member of the LGBT community, this is a familiar sensation to you. As a lesbian, in 2004 I work up on the morning after the election and felt it was quite certain that my country must hate me. So many states had overwhelmingly voted to rob me of rights. How could that not be hate? I spent years pondering that question and seeking answers. As someone who has dedicated my life to public service, it is hard to orientate my work in a country that I fear may despise my existence, simply based upon whom I love.

This year, the morning after the election, I woke up jubilant, even if only on little sleep. I was in a swing state with friends and had only gotten a few hours of sleep, leaving CNN on in the background to keep reminding me of the amazing reality we had created. Shortly after awakening, however, I got updated news about Proposition 8 in California and how it had passed, robbing gay and lesbian couples of their right to marry. And at once I was jubilant and devastated simultaneously in a way I never had been before, and much too tired to make sense of it all in that moment.

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