Tuesday was a great day for many Americans. The announcement of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, becoming our next president was both historic and inspiring on many counts, a bold statement that our nation has come a long way since the discriminative days of our past. However, with the passage of Proposition 8 in California, as well as other discriminatory measures being passed in Florida, Arizona and Arkansas, I wonder if we’ve really moved forward at all.

Tuesday was not a great day for all Americans, specifically, gay and lesbian Americans, as Proposition 8 successfully wrote discrimination into the California state constitution with its ban on same-sex marriage. How sad that in 2008, the same year we have voted our first African-American president into office, American citizens’ civil rights are still being attacked. When will we realize that discriminatory acts, such as Proposition 8, only serve to further divide us as a nation? It seems that we have not learned anything from those who came before us, those that fought and died to ensure that we all could enjoy the fundamental rights that accompany American citizenship.