Going to press on the evening after Election Day, there’s a lot to be unhappy about at the Gay & Lesbian Times.

With the goal of commiserating with you rather than depressing you, let’s nevertheless briefly review our community’s and our country’s losses – losses that are even more dramatic and poignant coming as they do on the heels of renewed voter activation, citizen engagement and optimism that the recent election brought.

First of all, America this past Tuesday voted to reelect a president who takes the most conservative view possible on GLBT issues: President Bush not only opposes same-sex marriage, which is now legal in Massachusetts, but proposes a federal marriage amendment that would write a ban on same-sex marriage into our nation’s Constitution. Bush opposes lifting the military’s ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military, opposes hate-crime laws, opposes sexual-orientation nondiscrimination laws, opposes the rights of same-sex couples to adopt children, and has also aggressively promoted abstinence-only sex education in the United States and Africa. On Tuesday, America voted for all of this – and has sent a message at home and to the world that we support the president’s war on terror abroad, his fiscal policies at home and his conservative social policies across the board, from GLBT issues, to abortion and immigration. Tuesday, America sent a message that we endorse the current administration’s policies of nighttime mass deportations of immigrants, even those seeking political asylum, and of detaining hundreds of American citizens at Guantanamo Bay as well as the revisions of civil freedoms in the U.S. Patriot Act. Americans have given our president a mandate to continue these policies, and an opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court Justice during the next four years.

It gets somewhat worse. This election cycle, 11 states chose in favor of state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages, with more than half of those 11 measures seeking to throw out limited recognition of same-sex partnerships as well, including civil unions and domestic partnership legislation.

And to return to the political front, Congressional Republicans were able to not only retain their majority in the House, but also increased their representation in the Senate by at least three seats, giving them majority representation.

Are there any silver linings in this chorus of dark clouds?

Locally, there really is some good news. At press time, it looked like 35 percent of votes in the San Diego mayoral race were going to a write-in candidate, and we think we know whom that write-in candidate is. And we also think Donna Frye, while somewhat of a wildcard in the race, will bring a tremendous amount of fresh air to the musty hallways of City Hall and its myriad selection of fiscal and process problems. If nothing else, Frye will shake up San Diego’s buttoned-up-Republican image somewhat and provide us with a colorful, tolerant, outspoken mayor – one who is 100 percent there on GLBT issues. San Diego may have a GLBT-friendly, environment-friendly, people-oriented mayor by as early as this Friday, and we’ll welcome her gladly.

More good news comes when we look at our delegation of openly gay and lesbian political delegates to the state Assembly and Senate seats: State Senator Sheila Kuehl, State Senator Christine Kehoe, Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg, Assemblymember Mark Leno and Assemblymember John Laird have all been reelected to state legislative posts, and the San Diego-area 76th District, just vacated by Kehoe, has been filled with a solid, community-oriented Democrat, Lori Saldaña.

More good news: Our state’s Democratic delegation to Congress has remained intact, and nationwide, some colorful Democratic personalities have been elected to Congress, namely Illinois’ Barack Obama over Alan Keyes and Colorado’s Ken Salazar over beer magnate Pete Coors.

We could use all of this to try and make you feel better. But others have probably said it better – John Kerry, for one. As the Democratic candidate said in his concession speech on Wednesday, “… in an American election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans.”

We agree: Yes, we’re gays, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals; we’re Latinos, Asian Americans, white guys and Middle Easterners; we’re women, men, cowboys, CEOs and secretaries; we’re Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and Naderites. But most importantly, we’re Americans, with a Bill of Rights and a Constitution, both of which will ultimately decide our rights as Americans.