Here in Virginia, I’ve been a volunteer with the Commonwealth Coalition all year, to defeat the so-called marriage amendment. But being really shy as I am, I hadn’t had the nerve to go and campaign before the public until today, Election Day. They needed polling place volunteers… a few days ago I looked within myself and thought “Why not?” As Jean-Luc Picard said, “Things are only impossible until they’re not.”
I normally never get up before 10:00 AM, so to be at the polling place this morning at 6:00 AM is a measure of how motivated I was for this. Getting into the spirit of the thing, just relax and have fun. I smiled and made a lot of eye contact, got lots of smiles and good energy back, which was really pleasant. (I dressed in enough layers that I didn’t freeze to death the 3 hours I was out there.)
My supervisor from work came by to vote and introduced me to her husband. He said he’d heard my name. I asked if he was in the same line of work, and he said he does background investigations. I answered, Well, that’s a good way to get to know people! and he laughed.
I felt happy to be part of democracy in action, what I love about America. People bringing their kids to the voting booth with them, new citizens voting for the first time, all warmed my heart despite the cold weather. Many voters expressed a lot of support for defeating that amendment, nobody told me they were in favor of it. It was in a swing precinct that is right now tipping over from Republican to Democrat. A Democratic volunteer I hung out with this morning told me when he moved in there his were the only Democrats on their block, and now they’re surrounded by other Democrats.
Virginia was the first governing body in the world to enact a Bill of Rights, thanks to Mr. George Mason. The Virginia Bill of Rights formed the model for the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and that in turn has done more than anything else in history, I think, to spread the values of freedom and democracy around the world. Virginians can rightly feel proud of having started this. So what a disgraceful blot on our state’s heritage of liberty it would be to amend our Bill of Rights, for crying out loud, to take away rights from a defined group of people. This mean-spirited discrimination is unworthy of our people. In the latest poll released 2 days ago, opposition to the amendment had come from behind and was now tied 49-49. We can win this one! I’m joining the other Commonwealth Coalition volunteers tonight for what was billed as a “victory party.” Let’s hope so.