In truly uncharacteristic fashion, I’ve not commented yet on the election at any length. Unlike many recent elections in which I got used to complete and utter depression after the votes were counted, this year left me torn.

When the news outlets called it for Obama, I felt it in my heart. He’s certainly mortal and will make decisions I don’t agree with during his time in office, but I have so much confidence in his ability to do more good than harm. That might sound like a backwards compliment, but it truly is a compliment. Every choice has a downside. But I believe that on the whole the choices Obama makes will be good.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s coming into office with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. We’re going to see a lot of changes. If you’re interested in some of the planning, Obama has a website at change.gov and I can’t tell you how elated I am to see the role of advancing technology in his administration.

But, of course, Obama’s resounding victory was not the only thing that happened on November 4th. The anti-gay ballot initiatives that passed in Florida, California, Arkansas, and Arizona were heartbreaking. (CA and AZ went against gay marriage, FL went against domestic partner benefits, AR outlawed unmarried people from fostering/adopting children).

I’ve been thinking about the way the Internet helps/hurts us as we process information. And I’m going to come out in favor of the Internet on this. In the wake of the passage of Prop 8 in California, a lot of media and vocal gays seized on the exit polling in California that said 70% of African-Americans voted for Prop 8. For about a week, the anger and hurt in some segments of the GLBT population blinded them to the racism that came pouring out because of that statistic.

But here’s the good thing – there are seriously awesome blogs run by people of color, like Pam’s House Blend, that led the online voice in calling BS on that line of thinking. Regardless of whether that statistic is accurate or not, the population of African-Americans in California is not large enough to have caused the proposition to pass or not pass. It’s a red herring.

And I think there is regrouping going on. I’m hopeful that the racism of the reaction of some white gays raises that issue for mainstream organizations like the HRC to what many other GLBT folks have said for a long time though – all these “isms” are gay issues.

What I’ve seen this week is people like Bill O’Reilly trying to entrench the racist narrative, and I think we’re too smart for that. Once O’Reilly’s ilk start exploiting something, I’m hopeful that even the most oblivious among us know to question its truth.

Anyway, while I know there are serious issues other than gay marriage that need to be addressed, I think this election was a wake up call to us as a whole. People still don’t respect us. If I’m being generous, I’ll say that they don’t understand and we’re not making compelling arguments.

Either of those statements make me depressed.

I’ll be at the Prop 8 protest this weekend, and I encourage anyone who cares about their gay family members or gay friends to do the same. Numbers mean something.

12:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Government Center downtown MPLS.