As a gay student and someone who opposes two-party politics,
Georgina Wakefield is faced with a particularly hard decision in
the upcoming presidential election.
While many students in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender community support Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry
in the upcoming election because he is the more liberal of the two
major candidates and has spoken out in support of civil unions
between gay couples, not all LGBT students have decided on whom to
vote for.
A few conservative LGBT students like Sheldon Ross, a
second-year graduate student and editor of the black on-campus
magazine Nommo, support President Bush in the upcoming election
despite Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment to ban
gay marriages.
Wakefield, a fourth-year English student, said that though she
is a registered Green Party member and opponent of the two-party
system, she might abandon her third-party politics to vote for
Kerry in the presidential election because she thinks it will be a
tight race between Kerry and Bush.
Wakefield said she has not made a decision on whether to vote
the Democratic or the Green Party, but she believes “a lot of
people will vote into the two-party ticket because they want to
fight for their rights and what they believe in.
“In my position, if you just look at queer rights,
obviously one candidate is going to be better than the
other,” she said.
As a representative of the Queer Alliance, a coalition of LGBT
groups on campus, Wakefield said alliance members “strongly
support candidates who fight for equality for everyone regardless
of sexual orientation,” but do not officially endorse any
candidates.
“We don’t want to alienate people based on party
affiliation,” she said.
Ross, a self-described political and social conservative, is a
member of the Bruin Republicans and said he does not believe the
presidential election result will have a significant effect on gay
rights.
“Despite as one would like to think, that the president
has the power to dictate policy, he can’t,” Ross said.
“Effective change that happens is not by what the president
says, it is what changes locally.”
Speaking on the perception that the conservative Republican
Party restricts gay rights, Ross said the party is
“unfortunately represented by the vociferous few euphoniously
called the Christian right” who “tend to misrepresent
the whole or the collective.”
On Bush’s proposed ban on gay marriages, Ross said it is a
smart political move by Bush, who depends on the “votes and
financial support of the Christian right.”
Gay activists should be fighting for civil unions, which give
couples the same legal rights as married couples, instead of gay
marriage, Ross said.
“Marriage is an archaic tradition. It’s like singing
the birthday song. It’s done just because it is the tradition
and everyone has accepted it as such.”
Ross said what most of his apolitical gay friends want is what
affects them on an everyday basis. Their desires do “not
revolve around a huge political campaign on one issue or the
other.”
The issue of gay marriage has been highlighted in the media with
the recent ruling that upheld the legality of gay marriage in
Massachusetts and the issuing of marriage licenses to thousands of
gay couples by San Francisco city officials as political
defiance.
When the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the
state’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, Bush issued
a statement calling the ruling “deeply troubling.”
During a speech in February, Bush called for a constitutional
amendment to ban gay marriage and protect the Defense of Marriage
Act, which defined marriage for purposes of federal law as the
legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.
“The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human
institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every
religious faith,” Bush said.
But Bush emphasized that the proposed ban on gay marriages does
not contradict American values of freedom and respect for all
persons.
“America is a free society. … This commitment of
freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our
most basic social institutions. Our government should respect every
person and protect the institution of marriage.”
Kerry has taken a more liberal stance on gay rights issues by
voting against the Defense of Marriage Act and speaking out against
the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
The Democratic candidate has walked a tight balancing act
between liberal and conservative groups in his presidential
campaign.
Though Kerry supports civil unions, he has said he is opposed to
gay marriages. Kerry’s definition of civil unions would give
couples access to pensions, health insurance, family medical leave,
survivor benefits and other basic legal benefits of married
couples.
Kerry accused Bush of using the amendment as a tool for his own
political gain and said “the floor of the United States
Senate should only be used for the common good, not issues designed
to divide us for political purposes.
“I believe that the American people deserve better than
this from their leaders,” he said.