Your Vote, IS NOT ENOUGH.

If there is one thing I have learned, it's that my vote is a final effort of what must be a greater cause. I do believe that every vote counts, I do believe that we all should vote, but if we don't have open dialog, it is all for not.

The reality is the LGBT is a minority.  I’m sure you read that and think no shit, but do you actually realize what that means?  Our own community has become so comfortable that a majority do not vote.  In 2004, 23 states won the battle against marriage equality, meaning it was actually made illegal to be gay and married.  In that year 60% (a CNN poll) of the LGBT community DID NOT VOTE.  Let me repeat this, in 2004 when a presidential candidate ran for office using bigotry against the LGBT community to energize the base, six out of every ten gay men and women sat at home and did not cast a vote.

This is why your vote is not enough, but your voice in combination with it is!  Take me for example; I have had the amazing privilege of speaking in front of over 3,000 people.  Do you know how many people I can say for sure I have convinced to vote? Ten, I can say with great pride and conviction that I have seen the light switch click, the OMG moment cross a person’s mind and a point of view change, and I am proud of this, but I can only say that with 100% confidence for those ten people.

Take the time and start to talk to your friends.  You may think they are going to vote, you may think they are helping people understand our rights are being denied.  The thing is you don’t know until you ask.  I have been very involved in politics and our rights for some time now, even with that I have come to realize I have close friends who were not taking it serious, who were not going to vote. 

We are a minority and if our rights are being put to a vote that means we all have to work.  Our rights, our lives are being put in the hands of a majority of people who do not understand.  I have awesome news though, a majority of people are good, a majority of people will listen to reason.  The commercials that ran in 2004 were demoralizing and inaccurate we all knew that, but guess what a majority didn’t.  They looked at those commercials as a resource, as a tool educating them on an issue they didn’t understand.  There was a connection made to fears, to stereo types, to outright lies. 

We are better than that; we can explain what’s really going on.  People know love just as well as they know fear, the best thing is when you make someone choose one over the other, they pick love!  When you have someone stand in your shoes, when you make them think of how it would feel to have their husband or wife be shamed or treated as less, when you make them think of how much they love their children, the fear that comes from not understanding melts away and the passion for love overrides.


When I walk into the voting booth this November I will imagine the line of people I have created.  I will think of the people that were not going to vote, the people who were going to vote against my rights but changed their minds.  I will think of all the conversations that may have felt repetitive, that may have been less fun then drinking, or joking, or even sleeping.  I will smile and know that I have gone far beyond being just one vote; I have been one voice that has influenced many.  I want everyone I know to feel this same way, that they have become a much bigger denominator, that they have influenced people to understand and help our fight.  My one vote is not enough, but I know for a fact that I have stretched far beyond that one vote.  Have you?