[I have copied this content from my original post on Facebook, and have backdated it appropriately to maintain context.]

I don’t normally say much publicly about donating anything, and until lately about politics or social causes, either. I only really occasionally mention my support of loans through Kiva (mainly because it’s a long-running passion of mine). Today is a bit different, though; today, in honor of our democratic process, I thought a number of organizations could use a bit of extra help for the coming months and years.

So, as a constructive start, I’ve donated $1,000 each to the following organizations:

• Planned Parenthood
• Center for Reproductive Rights
• Reproductive Health Access Project
• RAINN
• ACLU Nationwide
• NAACP
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights
• Transgender Law Center
• Gender Diversity

If you, too, are looking upon the election outcome and wondering how the hell we got to this point of intolerance, overt racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and hate, then I encourage you to find a few organizations that you can support, too, in whatever way you can.

I’m certainly not going to ask anyone to give all your money to the DNC (ugh), or run out into the streets with torches. I certainly don’t believe that a president Trump and Republican majority across the government will instantly be the end of the world, or even that half of the rhetoric upon which Trump’s entire disgusting campaign was based is even serious.

However, I do believe this is a clear signal from a large number of my countrymen that they support divisiveness over inclusion, fear over understanding, spectacle over reason, and hatred over love. And I can’t say I am surprised, but it leaves me dumbfounded and heartbroken. Not for Hillary Clinton’s loss–I could have easily supported any other serious candidate on either side without much regret–but for the loss of the dignity of our country. And, not even the loss, but the recognition of that loss, or the realization that that dignity was a farce all along.

This is not what *I* stand for, it’s not what I want my children to grow up with, and certainly not what I want my grandchildren to face. We can do a hell of a lot better. Why don’t we even bother trying? Why can’t we get past the color of a person’s skin, or the gender of a person as an authority figure, or the religion practiced by another person? How do we have so little compassion for others? Why do we continually act in a self-serving way and abuse others? I struggle to accept that the human race is just incorrigibly terrible, but I don’t see anything materially changing, either. I want more than anything for America to be a positive example to the world, but we just keep proving that we don’t have the courage for it.

While I fully respect the democratic process that allows for a country to be cast in whatever way its constituents decide, I am sure I don’t have the stomach to sit idly by while it is cast in *this* way. The fact that it has even gotten this far gone makes me feel physically ill, and doubly so because I know or am related to so many of the people who have made it so.

So, I won’t stomach it anymore. If you’ve ever claimed “Obama is a muslim” or “but he’s black”; if you’ve called someone a “nigger” or “sand nigger” or “towel head” or “wetback”; if you’ve championed from your sofa to restrict the rights of women or called Hillary a “bitch”, or made any reference to her inability to serve due to being a woman; if you’ve called someone a “fag” or “dyke” or “tranny”; seriously: fuck you.

Yes, I know that includes quite a number of people closely related to me. Sorry, but I am not sorry. This has to stop.

Look inside yourself, ask yourself: Does this make you a better person? Why do you do it? Do you truly believe that you’re just better than these people? Can you defend your ideas and ideals? Can you defend your choices? Can you defend your sense of decency?