When I accepted an Obama pride sticker from a campaign volunteer at Denver’s Pridefest in June 2007 — in my first interaction with the campaign — I said, “I’m probably voting for Hillary, but Obama’s cool.”

Over a year later after proudly toting Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, supporting Barack in the primaries (with a pang of regret for Hillary Clinton), spending hundreds of hours following news as a political junkie, volunteering at the Obama campaign office and canvassing for Obama with a different organization this fall, I’m watching the country stand ready to elect Barack Obama president.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that 40 years after the end of legal segregation and just 5 after the launch of the war in Iraq — a day when compassion and intelligence were reviled as dangerous ideas — could we as a nation be where we are today, with a man named Barack Obama in reach of the presidency.

In him is a compelling biography that shatters perceptions of America’s critics, and a leader who favors pragmatism over force, nuance over ideology, and information over intuition. He has the ability to speak with the kinds of words that history remembers. He carries a promise that those words will ring of tolerance, respect and inclusion after eight years of the opposite. I have become intimately involved in electing Barack Obama president, in an effort garnering more grassroots support than any campaign in history. It has embodied everything I love about this country.

It has come after a long and tumultuous process that put me at political odds with most of those in the gay community, but one that ultimately speaks to positive signs of change. Most gay men rallied behind Hillary Clinton this spring. If voting intentions are any indication, having a woman president was an even bigger deal to gay men than to women in the primaries, for reasons that are perhaps natural; sexism and homophobia are linked in having to do with gender and roles, most of us have thought of women as easier allies in our lives and the election of one as president is a sweeping repudiation of the oppressive structure that opposes women and LGBT folks alike.

It also wasn’t much surprise that Hillary found it easier courting the gay vote during the primaries. Her position as part of America’s establishment gave her greater freedom to take causes the public viewed as novel. Besides, men nearly always feel a greater pressure than women to repudiate homosexuality and to avoid stereotypically-gay behavior to prove they are themselves heterosexual and sufficiently masculine; that’s something we all remember from high school and earlier, from the very first time we heard someone call one of our guy friends a fag and he chose to conspicuously overreact.

So when Hillary Clinton said in March that she wanted to be the first president to march in a gay pride parade, it went relatively unnoticed by conservatives. I doubt Barack Obama could have gotten away with the same statement without igniting a firestorm of criticism from the blue-collar Reagan Democrats who were then rallying behind Hillary. It’s not that Barack was somehow “oppressed” for being a man, but by a nuance in the way sexism works, conservatives could write off the prospect of Hillary marching in a pride parade by saying that’s just something a woman would do.

Barack Obama has the fullest background in civil rights and modern constitutional law than any presidential candidate this century, something that could only benefit his positions on gay rights. Barack and Hillary had virtually identical positions on gay rights — supporting basic nondiscrimination policies and civil unions, but stating opposition to the word “marriage” for gays to avoid scaring off conservative Democrats. They each had credible, heartfelt support for people with HIV or AIDS and for judges who would recognize and expand civil rights.

Yet I’d often hear rumors that Obama was anti-gay, citing the fact that he’s a Christian or his ties to the “obviously homophobic” Jeremiah Wright, who was, ironically, a member of the most avidly pro-gay Christian denomination and known for his stance publicly condemning homophobia in Black Christian churches. And Barack Obama himself has a proven track record of supporting gay adoptions, calling for an end to discrimination in the military, adding sexual orientation to employment nondiscrimination and hate crimes laws and opposing any constitutional amendment, state or federal, limiting the definition of marriage or civil rights for LGBT people.

Working to prepare for the fall election brought me out of my protective bubble of pro-gay academic liberalism, out of my predominantly white, save-the-owls hippie college down, into a community more racially and culturally diverse than any I have encountered.

I talked to Muslim women in hijabs and thick accents about Obama’s plans to improve access to college education. I helped Spanish-speakers register to vote for the first time as American citizens, along with plenty of native-born citizens who had never before been inspired to vote until now. I talked to people with HIV hoping that finally we would have universal health coverage, and a 25-year-old Iraq veteran whose friends had been shipped to to war three times who explained why he was desperate for the war to end.

I talked to African-Americans who said they never thought a Black president was possible and were anxious for a better investment in crumbling urban schools. I talked to women who were ardent Hillary fans who ultimately got behind the Democratic nominee to keep the Supreme Court from tipping to the Right, and just this week I spoke to an 83-year-old white Republican man who said he’d be voting Democratic for the first time in his life this year because he couldn’t stand where the last 8 years had taken us.

This political season has been about more than a man — it is a movement to end policies that favor the few and broaden the scope of what constitutes a dignified, patriotic American.

This election brought us a field of serious Democratic candidates who actually looked something like America, and forever altered the trajectory of the United States; the selection was tough because more than one candidate had a compelling case to make. I hope that this November isn’t a repudiation of that process, but instead a breakthrough that truly makes history.

Barack Obama carries on his coattails the interests and aspirations of a hundred million Americans whose voices have been muted in the past; it is Hope, Balance and Diversity versus a desperate establishment hoping our anxiety about change will grant them four more years.

The day is January 20, 2009 — when George W. Bush at last steps down and the next president takes the Oath of Office. This nation recognizes that Bush and his ideological allies have a failed vision for this nation, but the Right hopes its new hero, John McCain, will reinstate that vision by taking Bush’s place. But this November 4, we can reject their call to recognize nothing but their narrowest definition of America.

Let’s make history that will never be forgotten, by electing Barack Obama president!

© 2008, Matt P.. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com