My Vote

I’m one of the unlucky ones when it comes to voting early. My state doesn’t allow it unless there are specific conditions that can be met. Yes, they expanded the ability to vote by mail this year, but… I honestly don’t trust my state to not have some obscure rule that would discount my mail in vote. The fact that we have a measure on our ballot that is a very deceptively worded measure that nullifies a measure overwhelmingly passed 4 years ago by voters to prevent corruption and gerrymandering really kind of says it all.

Because of that lack of ability to vote early, Hubby and I will accompany MC, our 18 year old, to the polls for the first time on November 3.

I do not care how long we may have to wait. We will vote.

I will vote because my oldest child deserves to live their life as the person they are and to love who they love. We had enough differences for them to choose a life separate from us, but that difference was never because of the fact that they are LGBTQ+. I will always fight for their right to live life as their true self without discrimination and hate and fear. Just because they are no longer physically in my life, doesn’t mean I stop fighting for their right to live their truth.

I will vote because my daughter has a right to choose if she is going to have children or not and the right to make the kinds of choices to ensure that decision stays in her hands. I will vote to ensure she has access to the means she needs to make that choice in the best, safest way for her and for everyone to have that same access.

I will vote because MC’s future can so easily be impacted by laws surrounding healthcare and family planning and pre-existing conditions because the young woman who is almost surely going to be a part of his future is already high risk if she were to ever get pregnant. I vote to ensure they are able to not only make the best choices for her health and safety as well as the health and safety of any children they may have, but for the ability for them to care for any future children and themselves in the best possible way.

I will vote for every single child that has spent years without a parent, stuck with strangers, all because their parents hoped for a better life for them only to be torn apart when they crossed a border.

I will vote because no one deserves to die because they can’t afford a doctor. Or be refused health insurance because of a pre-existing condition (and every single person who has had Covid-19 and lived falls into that category). I will vote because no one should be forced to make a choice between rent or food and life saving medicine.

I will vote because no one should be forced to bow to anyone else’s rigid moralistic religious views and our government and laws should not be framed and cemented in by those views. In a country that likes to claim religious freedom, we’ve gotten to where freedom to discriminate and control others based on religion is more important than basic freedom. We’ve forgotten that, at one time, the ideal was that people could worship or not as they saw fit. To give priority to one faith over another or over others’ basic rights goes against that very core.

I will vote because no one deserves to die simply because of the color of their skin.

I will vote because no one deserves to die because our government refuses to act and follow the science, whether it is in a pandemic or the environment.

I will vote for a world where we are more than just our skin or our gender or our physical ability or how we love and for one where those things are not allowed to create an automatic bias and an excuse to treat another human as less than.

I will vote for kindness and compassion and decency and the dream that we ALL deserve to live a life free from hate and fear.

I will vote because I want my kids, and everyone else’s, to have a future and a chance at happiness.