Un moment très important dans ma vie...

Je suis si content aujourd'hui, parce que je parlais à une manifestacion contre Proposition 8, qui a annulé le mariage homosexuel en Californie. C'était super, et il y a une article dans le journal de Greensboro, The News and Record.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/11/15/article/gay_rights_advocates_rally_downtown

Au-dessous, j'ai affiché mon discours (c'est en anglais).

"I am twenty-two years old. I have, and have been able to, vote in two presidential elections and one Democratic Primary. I was eighteen years old in 2004, and filled with hope and conviction. I was going to be a part of a movement that would remove a president from office during wartime for the first time in our nation’s history. I was going to change everything, and the movement to bring Gay Marriage into the fronts and trenches of our war for equality would be successful and inspiring. My voice would be heard.

That year, things didn’t quite go as I had planned.

I was twenty-one years old this past May, and I was certain that I would cast a vote for bringing a woman into the election of President of the United States to represent the Democratic Party.

That month, I realized I would lose often when making my voice heard.

Just under two weeks ago, I was twenty-two years old, and I cast my vote in a historical election. I planned to, and did, bring the first African-American into the White House. I helped turn North Carolina blue for the first time in thirty-two years. I made a difference, because we didn’t win by much.

That week, and the weeks following until today, I have been elated, and proud of myself and of my country. I have been carrying with me such immense joy that I feel ready to burst at a moment’s notice. I have found it difficult to find words or images in art, music, or literature that can accurately express exactly how much jubilation has perpetually been residing inside of me.

This is, of course, due partially to the fact that I did not vote for Gay Marriage to be banned from or accepted into my state’s Constitution. Had this grave decision been in my hands, I am afraid that loosing for the third time in a row would have been just disheartening enough to eclipse the pride swelling inside of me. However, my outlook was not bleak. I assumed that a large state that was overwhelmingly Democrat wouldn’t dream of passing anything denying rights to a minority group, or anyone else.

I am twenty-two years old, and for just over ten years now, I have been dreaming of getting married. I deigned brides-maids dresses when I was fifteen. I chose baby names when I was twenty-one. I’m a romantic, and clearly a homosexual and it shows in almost everything that I do.

I am twenty-two years old in 2008, and if I had wanted to be married when I was nineteen, and I had I been a citizen of Spain, I could be married right now. President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was able to pass laws legalizing same-sex marriage in 2005 in a country with a much longer history of its hand being in the lap of the Pope.

I’m twenty-two years old in 2008, and ever since I learned about Civil Rights and the Civil Rights movement, I have wished that I had lived in an era of Change. I have wished that I was able to march and fight for the rights of my fellow man who was done an immense injustice for far too long. I have wished that I could raise my voice, formidably loud and undeniably present, to help pave the road to the future, sharing in the struggle with those who never deserved to suffer.

I am now given the opportunity to fight for something. People have been done an injustice, and not only do I know them, and care about them, and love them, but, I am one of them.

My rights have been taken away, although clearly guaranteed in documents drawn up maybe years before my family even set foot on the soil of the great nation that I call my home.

When our forefathers were faced with injustice, they rose together in unity to fight a ruler that was unfair and unacceptable. It is now the time that we look to our past, and learn from the lessons of our ancestors. We cannot stand idly by while other people, most of whom I have never met and may never know, tell the government, and myself, that I cannot express to everyone that I am eternally committed to one person that I love and will honor until I die. We must act now, as our predecessors did, because our actions cannot take time, since it is the time to take action.

I am twenty-two years old, and it has been thirty-nine years, four months, two weeks, and four days, since the riots at Stonewall Inn made it clear that gay men, lesbians, and their supporters were fed up with the government that was not righting rights. The government that was taking advantage of and undermining its citizens, creating a group of second-class people that was classified as “unstable” and “abnormal.” In those years, months, weeks and days we have fought for and changed much. However, it is clear from the recent passing of Propositions, Initiatives, and Amendments in different states that we have much more for which to hope, pray, and fight.

Our cries, our hopes, and our prayers will be heard from the Atlantic, to the Pacific, up to the Great Lakes and down to the Gulf of Mexico. Even in yesterday’s dark, damp winter, or today’s hot, blustery one, our voices cannot, and will not, be silenced. We will cry for freedom, equality, and our basic, guaranteed rights, and those cries will be heard, and will ring, in the ears of every man, woman, and child until the day we can say that equality is not only our own, but belongs to every person in this great nation of ours that has no choice but to side with its people.

I am twenty-two years old, and I am relatively young to some, and old to others. My generation has seen a lot for being alive for just so long. We have been long counted out, up until this year, for not having strong voices of Change, for not having the power to bring about the things of which we dream and think, and for being uninterested and uneducated.

The truth is, however, that we are strong. We are just as strong as everyone else here, and I am certain that every person before me is just as capable and willing as the next. Every one of us is strong, and every one of us has a voice. We hold the power, as citizens of a nation that we can believe in and that can believe in us. We are the power. We are not one small group of people wishing the gain the acceptance of others, but we are the people.

I believe in our future, and I believe in our ability, but none of that can come to fruition without us acting as one voice created by many people who have the right, and need, to speak.

This is a call, to anyone than can hear me, for starting another Era of Change. The air is right and the time is now. The first time we stood up and made ourselves heard, we were amid the protests against the Vietnam War and against segregation. Now, we have the momentum of Change happening all around us. Let us turn the electricity running through us all, for having brought our first African-American into office, for feeling disenfranchised by our own economy, and for fighting war being unnecessarily fought, into heat and energy to take our voices, and hopes, and aspirations directly to Capitol Hill. Our government can fight for us, and it will have no choice but to as long as we are strong and clear. Tell our representatives that the future of marriage in this state, or any other, cannot have the same fate. Tell Kay Hagan, Bev Perdue, and Barack Obama that we deserve better, and a more just and bright future. Tell strangers that you fear for the future of your loved ones and friends. Tell friends that they must help you. Tell family and loved ones that their support is better than anyone else’s, for you and for all of us.

Let it be known that this is the first step onto a road that will be rocky and uneven. We cannot be sure of how long it will take, and we cannot predict the perils that await us, but we can be certain that as long as we are strong and never give up, the road will have no other option than that of ending in our success. We are strong, and we believe in ourselves, and just as those before us that felt the same way, we will have our day of victory, where we can cheer in elation, saying to each other “We are no longer a part of a mute second-class, but we are boisterous, jubilant citizens just as everyone else.” "