No Means No..........

If you happened to not have a radio or a TV or not be connected online today, May 9, 2012, there was a tiny bit of news.  President Obama publicly endorsed marriage equality for all citizens.  Facebook posts immediately blew up with the news.  Twitter was twitching like it was having an epileptic seizure.  News sites posted the video segment released by ABC News.

The impact may not be seen now.  However, I believe this is one of those days that will be seen over time as historic.  I am proud to be here to see this and understand its importance.  Yet, the politics behind it all can be maddening.  Are our elected officials not charged with the sacred duty to protect and ensure every single person in this country has the same rights as any other?  Could the President have not stood up sooner and spoke out sooner?  While the answer to both questions is *Yes*, at least now the highest elected official in this country is on the right side of history.  And more importantly on the right side of what is, well, right.

All this came on the heels of the majority of the citizens of the state of North Carolina voting to amend their state constitution to restrict the rights of some of its citizens.  And this is after their legislature passed a law restricting the rights of a segmented group of its citizens to not be allowed to marry the person they love, while others in the state are allowed to.  So once again in this country a group of citizens have now been told NO.  It is not like those LGBTQ people have never been told NO before.  

Maybe it’s time to accept the NO and stop.  Or ……… Maybe, just maybe, NO is just the beginning of NOt Yet!

We probably have all heard the famous story of perseverance of President Lincoln.   He ran for numerous political offices and in election after election he was told NO.  Yet, he continued to run and became, arguably, the most well respected and influential President on our great Union.

How about Professional Football Player Kurt Warner?  He was signed by the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent in 1994, only to be cut later that year.  Kurt played in low paying Arena and European Football leagues.  He also had a job in a grocery store stocking shelves for $5.50/hour.  In 1997 he had a tryout schedule with the Chicago Bears.  But just prior to that tryout, and while on his honeymoon, he was bitten by a venous spider on the elbow of his throwing arm.  He was deemed to be not healthy enough to try out.  Later that year he was selected by the St. Louis Rams to be their 3^rd string QB.  In 1999, he stepped in for the injured starting QB in a preseason game and began rewriting the Rams and Pro Football records.  He led the rams to a Superbowl victory that season and set new passing records for a QB in the Superbowl.

I mean really?  He should have just given into the NO’s long before Superbowl XXXIV in January of 2000, right?

I can give you literally a hundred examples like these 2.   Maybe this Video about not giving up and accepting will speak to you.  It did me.

 So NO, for true and full equality, does not really mean NO.  It simply means NOT YET!  Keep positive and keep sharing your story.  That will change hearts and minds and turn NO and Not Yet into YES!