I wanted to bump up this post by Vic Basile because with less than 50 days before election day Vic’s message is even more important than ever. This video from the Human Rights Campaign also underscores Vic’s message and makes clear what is at stake this election for LGBT voters.

By Vic Basile

Vic, a longtime GLBT activist, was the first executive director of the Human Rights Campaign and a co-founder of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund.

During the 2004 election, I wrote about doing all that I could to prevent my family and friends from voting for candidates who oppose equality for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people. More importantly, I encouraged all of my GLBT brothers and sisters, as well as our straight allies, to do the same.

Of course, we can’t really stop our friends and families from voting for whomever they choose – it is, at least for them, a free and democratic country – but we can prevent them doing it without damaging our bonds of love, trust and friendship. The reality is that they can’t truly love or even respect us, and knowingly vote for candidates who work to deny us the same equality and freedoms they enjoy. The two are simply incompatible.

However, before drawing a line in the sand, it is clearly our responsibility is to educate them, to make them fully understand that what they are doing affects our lives in the most fundamental ways possible. My sense is that they are largely unaware of their candidates’ positions on these most basic human rights issues and are supporting them for completely unrelated reasons. Unwitting though it may be, they are nevertheless complicit in a political struggle that seeks to deny us our full equality.

Those who see themselves as our friends and yet vote for politicians who oppose equality for us need to be reminded of the meaning of friendship. Friends treat each other with respect and dignity, and as equals. Voting for enemies of your friend’s equality is not an act of friendship and certainly not one of love. The same is true for family members. In matters as basic as human rights and simple equality, the old refrain that “friends can agree to disagree and still be friends” has a deafeningly hollow ring.

Friends and family can disagree about the economy, national security, taxes and the environment, and still respect and care about each other. But can the same be said when one participates in the oppression of the other? It doesn’t really matter whether the issue is race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. People who participate in the oppression of others or who sit quietly by while their elected officials do the dirty work ought to be called to task. Their behavior is shameful and excruciatingly painful. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, the greatest injustice is not the strident clamor of bad people, but the appalling silence of good people.

I believe most Americans today would not knowingly vote for someone they thought to be racist, anti-Semitic or misogynistic. Yet they don’t think twice about voting for homophobes. They just don’t make the connection and we let their actions go unchallenged. Shame on us! Many of my friends tell me about their Bush/McCain-supporting Republican parents, but go on to say how accepting they are of them. When I ask how that is possible, how loving parents could support someone who wants to hurt their child, I get a blank look or a glib comment about how “that’s just the way they are.” It isn’t the way they are – they just don’t know any better and it is our job to teach them.

Sometimes I hear (and sadly, this often comes from gay people) “they aren’t single issue voters and consider many issues when deciding how to vote.” What does it say about our sense of self worth when we accept from our parents the explanation that taxes and the preservation of wealth are more important than the dignity, safety and equality of their children? Why are we are so reluctant to challenge them when their behavior so fundamentally and so adversely affects our lives?

I have been as guilty of this as anyone, but no more. Ending our silence is the only way to educate the people we cherish most that our equality is important and that it requires respect. Love and friendship demand nothing less.

If more convincing is needed, imagine our electoral power when we vote as a bloc. Arguably, it was our vote that swept Bill Clinton into office in 1992. The 2008 election promises to be another cliffhanger, providing us with the opportunity to determine the outcome. Imagine how much stronger our vote would be if we were joined by our families and friends. Never have the stakes been higher or the issues clearer. John McCain has voted against our interests at almost every opportunity. Barack Obama has a nearly perfect record of support.

If we fail to put a friend in the White House, our long battle for equality will be stalled for decades. The next President will, in all likelihood, appoint at least three new justices to the Supreme Court and we cannot afford for them to be chosen by the far right. This threat is horrifyingly real. We have come too far at too great a cost to be silent now.

Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, John McCain, LGBT rights, Voting

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under LGBT rights, Out and Proud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.