Today I was voter 307 at my polling place. I voted around 1ish like I have for the past ten years. In the primaries this summer I think I was voter 34. The past two times I voted before today I was outnumbered by voting judges like 7 to 1. Today when I voted every single booth was filled, a lot of them by people of color.

When I made it back to Ruby, after I took the obligatory sticker selfie, I promptly burst into tears. The past two years have been exhausting to say the least. The past few months have been extra exhausting. And yet I was still moved to tears by the democratic process. For the first time I felt a small bubble of hope, which my body didn’t know how to process after so much despair.

As I type there are already a lot of small victories to celebrate — both my senators will remain Democrats as will the Governor. My friend Wendy won her city council race, and it looks like my state Rep will be a Dem. It’s too close to call for my US Rep but at least Garbage Pile Lewis is behind right now. But still, hope.

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Once upon a time in the 1990s of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the daily newspapers you chose to read said a lot about you. Just like your preference for Pearl Jam over Nirvana or The Joynt over The Cam. At least it said a lot about you if you were a journalism major.

Twin Cities kids usually split down Mississippi lines with the kids from Minneapolis & the western suburbs choosing the The StarTribune and kids from St. Paul & the eastern suburbs choosing The Pioneer Press. The Wisconsin kids usually went with one of the Twin Cities papers as well one of the Milwaukee or Madison papers. I’m testing my memory here, but I think this might have even been in the days when each of those cities had two papers. The Minneapolis and St. Paul papers had consolidated in the early 80s.

I came from a staunchly STrib home. Even though my dad grew up in a PiPress house and he liked the St. Paul paper, my mom made the newspapers subscription decisions. She still reads the paper every day. Because we were so pro-STrib, I found the PiPress downright exotic. It was blue and pretty and the comics were different. I’d read it whenever we were at any my dad’s brother’s or sister’s houses.

It felt like a tiny form of rebellion to become a PiPress reader when I was in college and making my own newspaper buying decisions. I bought it every day and for that one year I took Russian, I’d forget it in the classroom every day. It’s why, twenty-years later, the only thing I can remember how to say in Russian is “I forgot my newspaper.”

Even though the PiPress was the more politically conservative newspaper, I was secure enough in my radical-leftiness that it didn’t bother me. Plus, they had Jim Walsh and if you don’t know how much and for how long I’ve loved Jim Walsh, well then you don’t know me at all. NOT AT ALL!

Today, the PioneerPress broke my fucking heart by running a poorly-written editorial in support of Minnesota’s bigoted, intolerant marriage amendment.

If you’re not living in Minnesota, you might not be familiar with this issue. See, the chuckle-headed Republicans in our legislature wanted to get social conservatives out to the polls. They thought the perfect way to do that was to put a constitutional amendment on the ballott that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. The intolerance and bigotry astounds and because we like to give bigots as much say as possible we also have a Voter ID initiative on the ballott too, we want to make sure that only good white Republicans vote. So we, the good, kind, rational, tolerant Minnesotans get the opportunity to channel our inner two year old and VOTE NO on these racist and homophobic amendments.

The Minnesota Marriage Amendment is the type of issue that I have a hard time rationally discussing. It’s an issue I feel so strongly about that my passion for it becomes overwhelming and when my emotions get that ramped up the only thing I can do is cry. It’s hard to have a discussion with someone who is crying.

Also, when I think about the Minnesota Marriage Amendment and the people who would possibly vote to limit the freedoms of other people my brain short circuits and that only helps the tears along.

My brain cannot fathom any way to justify limiting the freedom to marriage to heterosexual people. Like I can’t intellectually grasp any logic for this. I can’t understand how people can use the Bible as the reason for their bigotry. I mean, conceptually, I can understand it, but don’t these people realize that our very Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

That’s the very first line of the very first amendment. Do they not know what that means? Do they not sit around and thank their lucky stars that the religion they choose to believe in is the “dominate” religion in this country? Do they not realize that if the atheists were in control they’d have to shove their God and their Leviticus and their Adam & Eve right up their tightly clenched assholes? Because they would.

And if they’re so worried about the sanctity of marriage, why don’t they protest every episode of the Bachelor or Bachelorette or you know, Kim Kardashian?

Here’s why I’m VOTING NO on Tuesday: because it’s the right thing to do, because rights should not be voted on, because what two consenting adults do is none of my business, because even though I don’t believe in marriage and loathe the whole Wedding Industrial Complex with an acid-tinged fury I don’t need to push my beliefs onto other people, because we are a better society when everyone is equal, because love is love and like Lenny Kravitz said we got to let love rule, because homosexuals being given the same rights and protections under the law does not take a single right or protection away from me, and because I want to.

Also, because I heard this song The Current at 7 a.m. on Friday morning and while waiting at a stop light it made me bawl my fool head off.

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It snowed on Election Day 1992. I remember this because I had to walk about a mile to the polls to vote. It was my first time voting in a presidential election. Sure, I had voted in the primaries but it didn’t seem to count as much. At least it didn’t count in my head.

So on that snowy November night when my shitty car was in the shop and I was unable to find a ride, I bundled my ass up and walked the mile or so to the polls so I could vote. I was like the Post Office, yo. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night. . . ”

You know what almost stopped me from completing my appointed round? An eighty-something-year-old election volunteer.

See? I was so alit from within by the power of democracy. So giddy about the chance to exercise my right to vote. So filled with hope that we could get Bush the First outta office and replace him with Bill Clinton that I could not shut the fuck up. Not at all.

Apparently talking about who you’re going to vote for and why, and asking the people standing in line what they thought of Hilary and Al is considered “campaigning at the polls” and that’s a big no-no. I had no idea. I don’t remember anyone telling me anything about campaigning at the polls.

Old Lady White Hair told me “If you don’t stop campaigning at the polls we’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“But, I’m not campaigning,” I said.
“You can’t talk about the candidates at the polls,” she said. “It’s against the law.”
“Oh,” I said, and promptly shut my yap.

To this day I have no idea if that’s true or not. What I do know is that I didn’t say a peep for the rest of the time I was at the polls. I was pretty certain Old Lady White Hair could take away my vote. After all she’d probably been voting since Millard Fillmore was elected and knew whatfor about the rules and regulations of voting.

I voted for Bill Clinton on that snowy night in 1992 and tonight as I watch him address the Democratic National Convention I feel like that stupid, giddy, optimistic twenty-year-old lit from within by the power of democracy. Judging by the tweets flitting across my Twitter client, the entirety of Generation X feels the same way. And I love that. LOVE IT! If I could, I would hug the entirety of GenX right now.

While I know that the National Conventions are nothing more than political theater and pageantry, I don’t care. I love them. I love them more than Pretty Little Liars and reruns of A Different World combined.

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I voted and drooled on my shirt. Here is photographic proof.

As I told the Westernerds earlier this morning, there aren’t very many times in our lives where we have the power to change the course of history. But here you are. Today is that day.

History repeats itself. It’s a cliche, because it’s true. Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? Do you feel like this country is in a better place? Like I said I watched a sit-com from 1992 that could have very well been about the state of our country right now. SIXTEEN YEARS have passed, and we’re right back there.

But the power to change is in your hands. Go determine history, people. Vote for Barack Obama someone with the vision, the passion, and the intelligence to lead us in a new, better direction.

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