There was a moment when I thought it would be okay. There was a time when I thought good would prevail and evil would fail. There was a brief shining time when I believed compassion, grace, and justice were making progress. I’m now working hard to determine where those moments went.
Do you remember how we felt when the country elected our first African American president? Oh, we knew it didn’t really mark the end of racism, but there was hope we were making progress. Of course, the virulent, hate-filled backlash that rose from Southern and rural whites soon ground that hopeful moment into the dirt. It led to a nation electing an overtly racist, sexist, and classist leader.
When the Supreme Court finally ruled that marriage between two law-abiding taxpayers of the same gender was legal, Bill and I thought a day had dawned we never thought would come in our lifetime. A few months after the ruling, on our 35th anniversary, we were legally married. The next month we learned he would die of cancer, which took him before he had to watch as state legislators began striking away at the equality we thought we had achieved.
This has been a legislative year of villainizing and scapegoating transgender people and even drag queen entertainers who have never hurt anyone. They are just the beginning. Homophobia, like racism, is once again becoming socially acceptable among the threatened white, heterosexual majority.
Immigrants are now labeled murderers, though 90 percent of mass murders in this country are committed by straight white men. Women are being denied the right to choose what to do with their bodies, though no one has suggested the impregnating man should bear any responsibility. Supreme Court justices can be bribed with impunity.
What happened to those brief shining moments of hope? Will they come again? Truthfully, I don’t know because the answer to that question is up to us … | 
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