Op Ed from the Human Rights Campaign

Love and Friendship and the Voting Booth

By Vic Basile

October 28, 2004

Submitted on behalf of, Vic Basile a longtime GLBT leader, a Human Rights Campaign Board Member and former Executive Director and current Executive Director of Moveable Feast in Baltimore.

In this crucially important election year, I intend to do all that I can to prevent my family and friends from voting for candidates like George Bush who oppose my equality. I encourage all of my Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender brothers and sisters, as well as all who understand that inequality for one is inequality for all, to do the same.

We can't really stop them 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. In fact, 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.

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 seek to amend the Constitution to forever cast us second class citizens 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. 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.

My godmother, a truly good woman, would never knowingly hurt me, but she thinks nothing of making a joke about how her vote would make me unhappy. No longer can I smile back when she jokes about voting for candidates opposed to my equality. It is just not funny and it is morally unacceptable.

I believe most Americans 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-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 school vouchers 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 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 upcoming 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. The threat is horrifyingly real and if allowed to succeed, will set us back at least a generation. We have come too far at too great a cost to be silent now.

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Vic Basile is a longtime LGBT civil rights leader who is a former executive director and current board member of the Human Rights Campaign. He is executive director of Moveable Feast in Baltimore, and serves as a board member of Equality Maryland and co-chair of Equality Maryland's legislative committee.