2009 – Where Did It Go?
2009 has been quite a year. After we endured the last 19 1/2 days of George W. Bush’s two terms as President of the United States, we began the year with renewed hope as Barack Obama was sworn into office. As time went on we quickly forgot the rough ride aboard the U.S.S. Bush as we set sail into 2009 with high hopes and promises of change ready to be fulfilled. That, too, has been a rough ride. Where has this year gone?
Where Did It Go?
2009 has been quite a year. After we endured the last 19 1/2 days of George W. Bush’s two terms as President of the United States, we began the year with renewed hope as Barack Obama was sworn into office. As time went on we quickly forgot the rough ride aboard the U.S.S. Bush as we set sail into 2009 with high hopes and promises of change ready to be fulfilled. That, too, has been a rough ride. Where has this year gone?
Didn’t I just say the election was over and a new president was sworn in? That didn’t matter to a lot of people this year. The inauguration had barely wrapped up before the likes of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Elizabeth Cheney (operated by ventriloquist Dick Cheney, the former vice president) and the fake grassroots teabagger movement began banging the Marxist/Communist/Socialist drums with an assist from birthers like Orly Taitz, a California attorney who believes Obama is not qualified to be the president because he is not a U.S. citizen. It wasn’t long after that we began to see bumper stickers declaring, “Impeach Obama!”
Lie of the Year
Last week Politifact.com released its pick for “Lie of the Year.” Considering the cast of players and the immense amount of exposure politicians and pundits have on television, radio and social media outlets on the internet you would think the choice would have been difficult. Fortunately, many of them kept repeating the same thing, making it easy to point the finger at the person who started it. Among the finalists were: Fox News’ Glen Beck for claiming President Obama’s science advisor proposed population control via forced abortion and sterilization by spiking our drinking water; Orly Taitz for her repeated production of birth certificates that proved President Obama was born in Kenya; and President Obama’s claim that “preventive care saves money” (can we guess who voted for that one?). While Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “You lie!” may have been the lie heard round the world, it was former vice presidential candidate and former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin who took the prize with her blathering on Facebook: “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide…whether they are worthy of health care.” Congratulations, Mrs. Palin! I’m sure Mrs. Palin wouldn’t take all of the credit and would thank those who spread the word, like Betsy McCaughey (the former lieutenant governor of New York and a conservative health care commentator), House Republican Leader John Boehner, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Goodbye
Among the losses we experienced in 2009, none can be more powerful than the lives of those we loved and who loved us. This year we lost gay, black writer E. Lynn Harris (“Invisible Life”), porn star Jack Wrangler, boy band Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, ACLU lobbyist Larry Frankel, Seaman August Provost (murdered at his guard post in Camp Pendleton) and Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, a Puerto Rican teen who was brutally murdered and dismembered because of alleged gay panic. This year we also lost straight allies, like Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), one of very few senators who voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and was a sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and Golden Girl Bea Arthur, who bequeathed $300K to New York’s Ali Forney Center (a center for LGBT homeless youth). The names of those we’ve lost are many and some are closer to our hearts than others, but they will all live on in our memories.
Celebrate!
A great deal of focus in 2009 has been placed on the losses in the fight for equality in states such as Maine, where voters opted to repeal a law passed to permit same-sex couples to marry. At times it appeared that even greater focus was being placed on non-events, things that didn’t happen, like the repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy that prohibits openly gay and bisexual men and women from serving in our armed forces. Let us choose now, as we head into the New Year, to focus on the victories of 2009. Let us celebrate the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Let’s celebrate the right of same-sex couples to marry in Iowa, Washington, D.C.’s City Council’s vote to allow same-sex marriage and Washington State’s “everything but marriage” domestic partnership law. Let’s celebrate the right of same-sex couples to marry in New Hampshire beginning in 2010 and the extraordinary visibility LGBT people have had in politics and day-to-day life in 2009. Let us look forward to the great things yet to be accomplished that may come to pass in 2010.
