making a difference

[totient]

A week and change ago, I spent three hours in MassEquality's headquarters calling residents of Angelo Puppolo's district in Springfield to ask them to call up his office and leave him voicemail saying they support equal marriage and asking him to vote no in constitutional convention. Eighteen people told me that they would, and I left messages on dozens of answering machines. I'd like to thank those eighteen people: Puppolo changed his vote and joined 150 other legislators in voting down the anti-gay-marriage amendment today. And I'd also like to thank the random guy on the street who found me outside the Diesel and convinced me to go make phone calls, and the eight or ten other people making phone calls that night, and the dozens of volunteers on other nights, and all the Mass Equality donors who paid for the calls. I don't have any of your names, and that's just fine, but I appreciate you all anyway.

Comments

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

The question in my mind is not whether it would pass -- the polls say it would have failed resoundingly -- nor even whether it is worth spending taxpayer money on referenda that are unlikely to pass, but what we want our political discourse to look like, both locally and nationally. I don't want to give a bunch of out of state social conservatives a bully pulpit in a Presidential election year, especially not when it would waste a bunch of my time and the time of the citizens of this state to do so. And I think that is a legitimate concern: I cherish freedom of speech as a legal construct, but that does not obligate me to support financially and logistically the opinions of those with whom I disagree.

[dda.livejournal.com]

...what we want our political discourse to look like, both locally and nationally.

A very good reason but I would say that this is a good time and place for such a thing; to have them "do their worst" and still have it resoundingly defeated would say quite strongly that their arguments didn't cut it here. I'll grant you the timing might not be the best but said social conservatives are going to be out in force anyway (just because it is a Presidential election year) so all the rhetoric (on both sides) will be coming out regardless.

I'd rather set the venue and hand them a defeat than have them set the venue and have it pass somewhere else.