Vote as though our lives depend on it - sometimes they do

We are fortunate to live in a country where individuals have the right to vote. Each November, we can go to the polls and cast our ballots. Our job is to protect this sacred right by educating ourselves on the issues, familiarizing ourselves with the candidates and making sure that we get to the polls on election day.
To not vote is to pretend that everything will be fine, that our rights and liberties will just continue unabated, and that eventually LGBT equality will be achieved because it is simply the moral thing and it should happen. This magical thinking is dangerous and irresponsible. And in that vein, we are encouraging everyone reading this to get out and vote Nov. 2, and make a special effort to take at least one other person along with you.
Rabid anti-gay Michigan organizer Gary Glenn would love it if you did not vote. Last Saturday, in the 99th Michigan House race, Glenn, the American Family Association president, blasted that district with vicious robo-calls against openly lesbian candidate Toni Sessoms. Glenn would like nothing more than for LGBT voters to stay home. He should motivate us all to vote, to get involved in campaigns and to donate to candidates like Sessoms, who stand up for fairness and equality for all citizens in this state.
Meanwhile, in Ann Arbor, Andrew Shirvell has relentlessly stalked Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student body president. Shirvell is still an assistant Attorney General for the state of Michigan under Mike Cox, still collecting his considerable salary while on leave. If Cox had won the Republican primary election for governor in August and gone on to win in the general election, perhaps he would have installed Shirvell as, say, head of the Health & Human Services Department, or maybe the state's Civil Rights Commission – a terrifying thought. It is up to us to protect ourselves and our community, by voting anti-LGBT activists like Mike Cox and his merry band of right-wing fruitcakes right out of office. We dodged a bullet this time because Cox will soon be out of office and out of a job. (He certainly did enough gay-bashing of our families when he took domestic partner benefits away after Prop. 2 passed). Unfortunately, it is probably not the last we will see of him. And while we are talking Attorney General: Bill Schutte does not fall far from the Cox tree. Please vote for democratic candidate for Attorney General Leyton.
Finally, we must vote because teenage LGBT people can't. We must provide hope and encouragement to those young people who are vulnerable and scared. Corey Jackson, 19, committed suicide last Tuesday evening in a wooded area on the campus of Oakland University, becoming another tragic LGBT suicide in what has become a devastating pattern this fall. Yet our state legislators cannot pass anti-bully legislation, leaving our state one of the few without an anti-bullying law. We need to elect candidates who support LGBT equality and who are brave enough to stand up to the pressure from the far-right, especially when it involves the youngest among us.
Between The Lines has produced a comprehensive LGBT 2010 Voters' Guide. It provides research and endorsements from all the LGBT PACS, including Equality Michigan Pride PAC, LAHR PAC, the Kalamazoo Alliance PAC and the Democratic Party LGBT Caucus PAC, and it lists which candidates are endorsed by Labor and whether the candidates are pro-choice or not. It also lists which candidates are supported by anti-LGBT, far-right wing groups. These candidates are not our friends, and if elected to office have indicated that they will work actively against our interests.
The LGBT vote in Michigan can make a difference in many of the key races this year, but only if we get out to the polls on election day in significant numbers. So to stymie Gary Glenn, to protect ourselves from the likes of Mike Cox and Andrew Shirvell, and to stand up for our young people who deserve the right to live long enough to reach voting age, go to the polls. Take your BTL Voters Guide. Make a difference.