I live in a liberal bubble. Three years ago I moved to the United States from Toronto. I lived in Boston (where I became a Massachusetts liberal), and I now live and work in the New York City area where 87 percent of the population is Democrat. NYC is an extension of Toronto in my mind (although many here would argue the opposite).
In a recent interview for a job at a gay and lesbian newspaper I was asked to explain why I wanted to write about gay news. I explained that when I lived in Canada I didn’t need to care about gay politics the way that I do here. Sure, in Toronto I had linked arms in a human chain around Queen’s Park, marched in protest of anti-marriage bills and voted with the interests of my community in mind, but political awareness never seemed so detrimental to my basic existence as it does south of the border.
In the last three years I’ve read the front section of the newspaper every day, watched the news as my only daily TV programming, and spent hours mulling the future of this country and plotting ways to make things change with friends. (Admittedly most of my friends work in media, but even those not attached to that auspicious field wanted to talk politics too.) Contrary to my previous not-overtly-political life in Canada, I joined liberal political action organizations and even gave money to elect John Kerry as president. Never in my life before had I given money to any political cause or been a part of a community action group.
Last year I cried daily when reading about Ontario’s move to allow gays and lesbians to marry. Not only did I feel that I was a part of that historic moment, but I felt like I had helped see it come to be with my small contributions. After witnessing a good friend’s wedding to her partner in Montreal, I returned to the States to watch as the Massachusetts courts decided to give residents the same rights as straight couples. It was almost too good to be true.
I was glued to C-SPAN during the Massachusetts Constitutional amendment debates. The process of watching lawmakers make laws was equally fascinating and frustrating. Although the outcome was to allow the amendment to go to the next stage, it is still likely to be defeated in the next round of debates (it has to be agreed upon three times by the legislature in order to be put on the ballot).
While that painstaking process was happening, groups of gay people around the country (mainly in liberal areas) began getting married. Driven by the momentum of what was happening in Massachusetts, gay people in other places wanted in on the marriage action. Although I understand where their hearts were, I now feel that they should have waited for due process of the law to assist them.
I was an early supporter of Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential candidate and former Governor of Vermont that brought civil unions for gays to his state. Although Dean was left of centre, I thought he had the right idea about gays in the national agenda. John Kerry had said he was for an amendment to block gays from marrying, but wanted to see civil unions passed. When Kerry swept the primaries I shifted my focus to supporting him because I knew his heart was in the right place and that his politics had to be more in line with the rest of the country’s in order to win the presidential race. My personal goals had to take a back seat to the goals of the nation, but I was still voting for a candidate whose party advocated for civil rights.
Last Tuesday, I voted for my first time in a presidential election in the U.S. I am one of those fortunate folks who has an American parent but was born in Canada, making me a dual citizen. As Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation earlier this year, Kerry wasn’t exactly the best choice for the Democratic ticket but since he got the post, he became the only choice.
As I got into the voting booth-an old-style one with a red lever that pulled the curtain closed and small manual levers that you pulled down to indicate your choice-I knew who I was voting for.
On the morning of November 3, I woke hoping Kerry had won Ohio and Iowa. He hadn’t conceded and his running mate John Edwards had made a statement that they wouldn’t give up until all ballots had been counted. This gave me hope. But that hope was dashed away hours later when Kerry called the Republican incumbent President George W. Bush to concede. It wasn’t until that moment-after years of canvassing, e-mailing, calling, and financial backing-that I felt it was time to go home. It was the first time since moving here that I felt that way.
And it wasn’t just because Kerry lost. It was because reports said that the number one thing on voters’ minds wasn’t the war in Iraq as had been told (sold?) to us, but that moral values dictated who they voted for. A slim majority of this country didn’t think liberals had moral values. That made me feel no longer welcome in this country.
The dust is now settling from the election. I still feel very unwelcome in half of this country and I’m jealous of my friends in Canada who no longer have to fight for equal rights. The good news is that I don’t want to live in Alabama or Wyoming. But the bad news is that gay people in that half of the U.S. are now in one of the biggest fights of their lives. It’s because of them that I know staying is the right thing to do.
Matthew Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming when he was brutally beaten and left to die because of his sexuality. He wasn’t able to vote this year, but I was. My voice should yell louder, reach further and fight harder to make a difference for people like him, not only for myself. I will stay here and take pride in knowing that my home country is leading the world on gay issues. It is also a difficult battle there in Canada, but it’s one that gays are winning. I need to apply the knowledge I gained in my years fighting in Canada to let the White House know that I just won’t stand for second-class citizenry. And I’m firmly planting myself here to help right some very big wrongs.
Toronto’s Zoë Gemelli is a writer and music critic in New York City.
