I Love the Age in which I Live

It's not often that I say that. I typically take on the preamble of my Grandfather, that the olden days are long gone and all has gone to shit.

But, no, last night Barak Obama took the nomination for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The "negro" (hushed when my grandmother said the term, and often), who was raised by a single mother intermixed with dedicated yet equally troubled grandparents, forced to move in a constant state, struggled with outside influences (namely drugs and alcohol for Barak, other items for myself) and even shared the same change in every day name (Barry to Barak; Bo to Chasten)...I am bewildered, consternated, enlivened with enthusiasm. I am crying at the thought that *I* could have overcome in the same way that my comerade has overcome. Barak removes the "victim" attitude I so often carry. He removes it from the child raised by a single parent, he removes it from the child raised by the Grandparent, he removes it from the child raised under the pain of defiance (him being black, mine being physical abuse), he removes it from the minority (him being black, me being gay), he removes it from every excuse we could ever have.

*I AM BARAK OBAMA* He may not have the experience, he may not have the connections, he may not have the years, the pain, the challenges to be the President, but he has overcome all those and more to be an AMERICAN, just as *I* am an American, amidst all my struggles as an abused ward of the State of Montana, as an abandoned child of a 19 year old mother, as the child of a Grandmother whose husband worked hours on end providing for her as a long-haul trucker. *I AM BARAK OBAMA*. I am Chasten Bo Fulbright; called Bo all my life by my family until I took it upon myself and found the support of a *boyfriend* to be called by my rightful first name of Chasten.

More than being Barak Obama, *I AM AN AMERICAN*! A gay Christian with a degree in Biblical Literature from an Assemblies of God Univerisity, a white male abandoned on numerous occasions to Grandparents who couldn't actually be there for me, a physically abused baby who is to this day rejected by a father who claims no responsibility, a mentally abused adolescent who is to this day reject by step-fathers who claim no responsibility and reside behind the bars of various institutions including the instituion of death.

I am an ideologist who believes in the American dream with all his heart. Barak is an ideologist and he is also my hero. Just as JFK, FDR and Truman were heroes to my Grandfather and to the constituents of their time, so is Barak to mine.

All respect to Hillary, the heroism she provides to a separate set of individuals who look to her. Let's unite under ideologies that America can be what we've always thought it could be. A nation that looks after her children, that guarantees her children success, that provides for her children the tools to succeed. Let's unite under that. And if that ideology fails us, then we are doomed to fail; if that ideology unites us then we will unite under a flag so powerful, no terrorist or jidahist nation can ever defeat no matter how it attacks us!

I am a Christian, who loves God with all his heart, soul and strength. There is nothing anyone can do to separate me from the love that is evidenced by Christ...not Angels or Demons or Principalities, neither life nor death nor anything in between. I believe that Christ has sanctioned this Nation to represent what God truly repesents: the Love, Grace and Eternal Glory that Jesus died on the Cross to represent for us. In all our incapability to achieve, He achieved for us. (I can expoud on this and its integration with other faiths in detail elsewhere). That Achievement is represented through Obama's & Hillary's passion for our Country. If that passion can be quelled by any other force, then so be it and we are destined for eternal failure. The *End* has then come and we may as well give up.

This rejoice would have been in response to either candidate's endorsement: God bless America for choosing correctly; finally, after an age or two of failure. God Bless America for choosing a nation run by a people who will listen to us, who will guarantee our inalienable rights such as the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. God Bless America.