Who would I have voted for?

When I spoke to my son this week, he asked me who I voted for. I answered his question, and tried to explain why I had chosen the person I voted for. It started a chain of thinking in my mind that I need to release. I voted for Barack Obama this week. I chose him because he was the candidate that supports my right to marry whoever I love. I feel strongly that this is the civil rights question of my time.


But what if I had lived in another time? Who would I have voted for in another time, and other important issues. If I had lived in the time of the American Revolution, would I have supported the cause of liberty, or been loyal to the British? When the states voted on the U.S. Constitution, would I have cast my vote to ratify? Would I have recognized in the 1860’s how fundamentally wrong Slavery was and supported Abraham Lincoln? When women were campaigning for the right to vote, would I have been a man who supported their cause, or one who felt women were subservient?

But perhaps the question that came most powerfully to my mind was a fundamental question of my parent’s young adulthood. Are men truly created equal, and really endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, despite their race? Would I have supported Martin Luther King’s efforts to end Segregation? Would I have cheered at the passage of the Civil Rights Acts? Or would I have been one of those intolerable bigots spewing hatred at these efforts? I certainly hope I would have been the former, and not the latter.

And now, a generation later, in my 40’s, I find myself a white man in a small minority. I am a gay man. I have felt the sting of bigoted remarks my whole life, and hid my true self in shame for 40 years. I saw no path in my youth which allowed me to love a man, though I was attracted to men. That period of my life has ended, and with it, came my public support of the Gay Rights Movement, and against those souls who believe that I’m somehow evil for choosing to accept my sexuality. Perhaps it’s karma for the wrong vote in a previous life. It certainly has taught me fascinating things, and opened my heart far more than it otherwise would have been. Would I have chosen to support this cause had I not been born a gay man? I hope so, but fear not. So if you are one of those incredible people who aren’t gay, but support the fundamental right to marry whomever you love, then I thank you for your choice, which I know history will prove correct.