I'm relieved that the election is over. Whether you think Obama being elected is the best thing ever, the worst thing ever, or somewhere in between, it's nice to be done with all the campaigning, all the rhetoric and all the hypotheticals and just get on with things.
When I say 'get on with things' I don't mean forget about politics and bury your head back in the sand. I cringe when I hear people say that they can 'stop paying attention for the next four years'. That's just so disturbing to me, to think that so many people feel that all that's required of them is tuning in for a few months (or weeks) every four years and then going to the polls.
What I mean, though, is that we can now focus on what the new President and the Congress do, instead of what they say they're going to do if and when we elect them to office.
The anti-gay measures that passed in California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida were a sad reality check for many who were rejoicing in the results of the Presidential election, or at least they should have been. Those of us in the LGBT community still have a long hard fight ahead of us, but my spirits have been raised by the strong protests being held against the passing of Prop 8 in California. No one is giving up. Equality should be a given for everyone, but having to fight for it makes it all the more precious. If you can, join the fight tomorrow.
Well, in the world of LGBT Soap characters, All My Children is once again breaking ground. Since the character of Bianca returned to the show last month, she's been joined by her partner Reese and received Daytime TV's first same-sex marriage proposal. Since the two are raising Bianca's child and have just had a child of their own together, they're also daytime's first same-sex parents!
All of this is pretty exciting in a medium where there are exactly four gay characters and Luke & Noah have been together for over a year without consummating their relationship, let alone talking about marriage or children.
Speaking of As the World Turns' signature gay couple, things have gotten pretty rocky for them again. Luke's campaign against Kevin turned nasty when Kevin's friends posted homophobic videos about Luke online and generally ran a smear campaign against him based on his sexuality. This brought up unresolved feelings in Luke about how Kevin treated him after he came out to him in high school and when it became clear that Luke wasn't going to win the election, he gave a supporter the go-ahead to stuff the ballot boxes.
It's sort of refreshing, in one sense, to see Luke doing something that makes him less than perfect. He has a tendency to be too good to be true a lot of the time, which is often a danger with Soap writing.
Things went from bad to worse when Kevin questioned the results and Noah wouldn't lie to the Dean for Luke, getting him expelled from Oakdale University as a result. This, to me, seemed to be more than a little hypocritical on Noah's part, given that Luke lied for Noah (to the U.S. GOVERNMENT, mind you!) for months during the whole Ameera mess. At least the show had another character call Noah on this very fact, not that it seemed to make any difference to him.
The expulsion from school, the strain on his relationship with Noah over it, and the loss to Kevin in the election have sent Luke over the edge and he's started drinking again for the first time since before he came out. Given that Luke only has one kidney and tends to drink to excess when he's depressed, this is not a good thing for the character, though it's having the effect of increased air time for the guys and gives Van Hansis something new to play.
I wouldn't mind that Noah & Luke had hit turbulence again (that is, after all, a staple for soap couples) if they'd actually managed to make love between their last break up and this one. When you've been together over a year and have broken up more times that you've actually had sex with each other, that's not a good sign!
Oh, by the way, one of my favorite musical artists, Pink, has a new CD out called Funhouse. It really doesn't have any overtly political songs on it, like her last CD, the amazing I'm Not Dead did, but I think it's a really strong album. It's more along the lines of the work she did on M!ssundaztood, the CD that made me fall in love with her music to begin with. It's not quite on that level, of course (I don't think she'll ever match the raw emotion of that album again), but it's close. She writes songs that are so rooted in her own personal life that you almost feel like you're intruding on her heartache (or anger, joy, etc.) at times.
So, check out the new CD if you can, it's definitely worth it! I've been listening almost non-stop since I bought it.
That's about all for now.
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