Soft Support

A Victory for 'Values,' but Whose?

Three days ago I had a conversation with someone very dear to me who still hadn't decided for whom she ought to vote. "Not Bush," I said. "No matter what else you believe, he pushed that constitutional amendment. A vote for him is an endorsement of that sentiment and the use of my life as a wedge issue and political tactic."

"I just don't think that should be an issue in an election," she replied.

And that, my friends, is why we lost.

We lost because people who believe in equality, and separation of church and state, don't vote based on those issues. People who believe in "traditional values" like hetero superiority will back up their misguided beliefs with record turnout, as the results in Ohio and the national news stories today about moral values prove--even when their economic interests clearly lie with the other candidate. They'll check the box for an amendment that insures that no gay couple will have any legal standing in their state at any time in the foreseeable future--certainly for most of their lifetimes--then gratuitously vote for the guy they think will pass a federal ban as well.

"I just don't think that should be an issue in an election."

As long as that's the attitude of the people who agree that equality is important, we're doomed for decades. Either (a) the Democrats sell gays out for a generation to maintain their electability, or (b) we wait out a long demographic change that will eventually--decades from now--allow equality to prevail, or (c) we convince people like the one who said that this shouldn't be an election issue that it has to be.

I choose (c). Basic fairness matters. Letting all Americans enjoy the same rights and freedoms matters. People who share these views need to be convinced that they should vote based on them, consider them a part of their faith the same way our red-state-rural countrymen consider institutional homophobia a part of theirs.

There will be those who argue for (a). There will be those who say that (b) won't take as long as I think. But the only way we start winning again soon, and make this the kind of country in which I long to grow old, is (c), which harnesses the 62 percent of the population that said they approve of either gay marriage or civil unions. That's a majority of the country waiting to be told that their beliefs are righteous and fair and justified and worth fighting--and voting--for. I hope the Democrats realize that.