Election Day Joys

Everything is beautiful, and nothing hurts.

Obama was re-elected President. Maryland citizens passed the Dream Act. Maryland, Washington, and Maine have granted all citizens the right to marry. Minnesota citizens struck down a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. In Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren was elected Senator. In Virginia, Tim Kaine was elected Senator. The list of victories goes on.

Maryland approving same-sex marriage was probably the most exciting and stressful part for me, because that was the election I was most invested in. Over the past two months, I've gone canvassing four times, in addition to electioneering at voting areas, because granting equality to all Maryland citizens under the law was and is very important to me. Both canvassing and electioneering aren't as awkward as one might think they would be, but they certainly are exhausting. Walking around neighborhoods talking to people for four or five hours at a time wasn't easy, but it was rewarding, both in the results of the election and in the responses I got from people. I canvassed mainly in liberal areas--Silver Spring, Bethesda, Glenmont--and talked to some very nice people. I'm introverted, but I like people, and I like meeting new people, particularly people who are excited about the same issues as me. The vast majority of people were supportive, and those who weren't were usually polite about it. On a whole, people don't slam doors in your face, and the one person who lectured me about sinful acts did so with a smile on her face, in a condescending voice. I got the feeling she thought she was teaching me good, wholesome life lessons, that maybe she could change this young person's mind and save me from the devil. Sorry. It didn't work.

(That's a lie. I'm not sorry).

Canvassing also ended up being a good bonding experience for me and my mom. The first time I went, they partnered me up with a nice woman who had gone canvassing before, but the second time I was by my lonesome self. Since I can't drive, I took the Metro out to my canvassing area, before realizing that I didn't have enough money to get home. I canvassed for five hours, then called my parents to pick me up. I got a cup of ice water from a couple of nice ladies who were doing something in their garage, and then sat on the curb for forty-five minutes talking to my sister on the phone. After this experience, my mom didn't want me to go canvassing alone, so she came with me, which was lovely. I don't get to spend enough time with my mom, and canvassing, in the sheer amount of walking, provides great conversational time. The first time, when we were in Bethesda, I did most of the talking, and my mom offered the people literature about the issue; the second time, I was tired and made my mom do the talking, which luckily she saw as me forcing her to confront her shyness and talk to strangers, as opposed to me just being lazy.

I also signed up to volunteer at voting areas on Election Day. This meant that I arrived at Kennedy HS at 6:20 in the morning to give the election judge a piece of paper that meant I was certified by Marylands for Marriage Equality to be at the voting area, giving out material and talking to voters. According to the rules, I was not allowed to enter the voting area itself, but I was welcome to stand outside, and catch whatever people I could. So that's what I did.

The fun part about electioneering is that you can be as obnoxious as you want: while I tried not to annoy people, and didn't interrogate or talk with anyone who clearly wanted to be left alone, I did my best to be as loud, cheerful, and direct as possible. When someone approaching the entrance was within ten or fifteen feet of me, I called out, "Hello, [ma'am/sir]! Please vote *for* Question 6 in order to support marriage equality!" and gave them literature (a leaflet with quotes from people (including Democrats and Republicans, religious leaders, and Michelle Obama) detailing why marriage equality should be approved. Regardless of what they said (or didn't say--some people just ignored me entirely), I'd say, "Thank you for your support [ma'am/sir], have a lovely day." In my head, I referred to it as practicing relentless cheerfulness and optimism. I don't know how effective electioneering is: most people come to the voting area with their votes figured out, or make snap decisions based on values. There were certainly people that I handed literature to who said, "Vote for Question 6?...Okay." These seemingly opinionless people are the probably the voters who made a difference: if a large part of people really wanted equality to pass, and a large part really didn't, the ones in between were the ones we had to sway.

This isn't to say I didn't meet people with strong opinions, but rather that I really couldn't tell which way the election was going to go. As one voter put it, we were "cautiously optimistic" about our chances, but the opinions I got from people were split just about down the 52-48 percent lines. One guy high-fived me. Several people expressed their excitement about it, and their hopes for its passage. People thanked me for coming out and supporting it, and for doing what was best for my country. A very nice lesbian couple gave me hugs.

But not everyone was rainbows (heh) and sunshine. When I asked people to vote for Question 6, people looked furious. "No", "Of course not", and "Certainly not" were common responses. One man pulled his wife closer to him and put his arm around her, as if to protect her from me and all the other crazies out there. One African woman with a thick accent ranted "No! Question 6 is no!" Her friend asked her which one Question 6 was. She answered, "Homosexuals marrying!" and continued muttering unhappily under her breath, darting angry glances at me as she walked up the steps. In general, the people saying no were middle-aged or (more often) elderly, and either wealthy whites, immigrants with thick accents, or very religious Christians. One elderly African-American woman with a cross around her neck spoke to me kindly, explaining that it just wasn't Biblical. I smiled, and told her to have a nice day. She told me to "take care, sweetie."

Other than her, the nicest person who was against Question 6 was a woman in her thirties who reminded me of Jennifer Garner in that she was very pretty, with soft, wavy brown hair, and looked like an extremely kind lady. Some people just look nice. She told me very sweetly that she didn't feel she could support it. I didn't really mind responses like that. My least favorite person, however, was an elderly man who, after hearing my pitch, turned around, glared me in the eye, and said--or, rather, spat--that it was the "most repulsive thing" he'd ever heard of. I had a couple of knee-jerk responses to that, none of which I said out loud (I thanked him for his opinion, and told him to have a nice day). My first thought was, "Don't hurt yourself, honey." He was clearly very old, perhaps in his 80s, and it seemed that the force of his hatred for me and the issue might break him. That much hatred can't be good for you. I wonder if anyone's ever done a study on the effect of bigotry on the heart. It's probably a leading cause of heart attacks. My second thought was, "You must be incredibly sheltered if loving couples getting married is the most repulsive thing you've ever heard of." Even if you don't think it's "Biblical", or if you consider it sodomy, what about war? What about poverty? What about starvation and genocide and mass rapings? You're clearly unconcerned with human rights and equality, but can gay people getting married really be more repulsive than the millions of people who have died in combat, who continue to die in combat, for no good reason? If you want to direct hatred against something--and, again, I don't think hatred is healthy, but whatever--direct it against a worse sin than love. Regardless of your opinions on it, murder and suffering should really be much more repulsive to you than love.

My last thought to that man was one of sadness, that he may not get a chance to reverse his beliefs, to be on the right side of history. Fifty years from now, this is no longer going to be an issue. My grandchildren will look at people like that man the way we look at 19th-century racists and slave-owners, marvelling at their stubbornness and irrational hatred, wondering how anyone could be so intolerant of something so ordinary. That man will be an emblem of bigotry. Did he deserve that? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he's just following what his parents told him when he was little. It's just a shame that they were wrong. A lot of people brought their children to the voting area, to show them what was going on, what 'civic duty' entails. One of the women who ignored me entirely was holding the hand of an adorable little girl with a pink knit hat designed to look like a pig. It made me sad to think what was being put in her precious little head, beneath her precious little hat. But, with any luck, she will be growing up in a country that embraces equality. Even her parents can't ruin that.

We made history on Tuesday. But there's still a lot of history left.