With the election less than a week away, it is important to say, one last time how essential your vote is next Tuesday. If you aren’t already planning to vote, now’s the time to firmly plant the idea in your head. It may sound dramatic, but if you care about progressive issues at all, this may be the most important election and the direction for the next 8-12 years will begin without he outcome of this election.
If you look around the web, it isn’t hard to find many many LGBT activists who are frustrated and angry about the lack of progress made on our issues over the past two years. I’ve written about this. Their suggestion is to give up on the Democrats, many of whom haven’t been able to follow through on their promises to our community. But a different perspective is to consider that the fighting always gets the toughest just before the end. We haven’t made as much progress as we would like mostly because our opponents are fighting with every ounce of energy  they have (and dollar they can raise) to stop the full equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people. The past two years ought to serve as an illustration as to just how hard of a fight it is. Should it be that hard? Really? Equality should be available to all, right? However, if we look back over the history of our country, there has never been any effort for equality by any disenfranchised minority that wasn’t a horrifically difficult battle. Each struggle has been much harder than it needed to be, given the basic equality our country is supposedly founded upon.
While Queer issues haven’t been in the limelight this election cycle, except for where the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is working to unseat the judges in Iowa who approved same-sex marriage, the othering of immigrants, muslims, the poor, and the unemployed should be understood as an attack on any group who is not understood as being a part of the conservative mainstream status quo. I would say that queers aren’t a noticeable target at the moment, exactly because we are a major target for after the far right conservatives take power. Consider Pennsylvania, where we have successfully fought off a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage several times, most recently last year. But the GOP candidate for governor has vowed to push through such an amendment if he is elected. In other states, there is even talk of making homosexuality illegal.
It isn’t just Queer issues. The number of Tea Party candidates who believe that a woman should be forced to carry a baby to term even in cases of rape and incest is alarming. I suppose we all should have been horrified when abortion restrictions became one if the major stumbling blocks for Health Care Reform. If there was any evidence that progressive issues like Gay Rights wouldn’t go well, that was a big clue. Global warming, even Evolution and Science are under attack by the Far Right.
Here in Pennsylvania as well as all over the country, the choices are clear. If we are to move LGBT Rights ahead, we have to turn out, and defeat  the far right candidates. Registered Democrats outnumber Registered Republicans in the Keystone State. If we turn out to vote, LGBT Rights have a chance of moving forward.
Here is a link also to the PA Progressives Voter’s Guide. http://www.paprogressivevotersguide.org/
Hi There…I am brand new to PA. This is my first election here. I have no idea who stands up for gay rights. Can someone just tell me who to vote for. I have no time to do the research. Thanks…Chris
10 minutes reading my blog ought to give you a pretty good feel for how the different candidates stack up in terms of the Federal and State wide elections. Depending upon where you live in the state, there are democratic clubs (Steel City Stonewall Democrats in Pgh for example) that have more extensive voter guides.
You are welcome to review the Steel-City Stonewall Democrats endorsements list at
http://www.steel-city.org. They are posted at the top of the page. The next post down allows you to then read the specific responses candidates gave to questionairres Steel-City sent out earlier in the year.
Thanks for posting the link Dana!