Make Your Vote Count: Vote Nader

November 2000

Given Al Gore's terrible record on sexual freedom and social justice issues, why are many gay and lesbian voters supporting him? Gore voted to retain DC's sodomy law, defended the military's "don't ask, don't tell" debacle, boasted to the Christian right that he opposes gay marriage, waffled on HIV discrimination protections, and refused to utter the "g" word at his convention.

Ralph Nader supports gay rights, universal health care, and economic justice– and opposes turning the government into the police arm of a corporate-controlled state. Why aren't more gay and lesbian voters supporting Nader's challenge to a campaign choreographed by big money interests?

Two reasons account for gay support of Gore despite Nader's better record and platform. First, gay voter's are told that Nader "can't win." Nader has polled between five and 10 percent of the vote, putting electoral victory in November seemingly out of reach. Jesse Ventura had similar poll numbers a month before Minnesota's 1998 gubernatorial election; but a series of debates and an energized electorate led him to victory. Had Nader been allowed in the presidential debates, he, too, might have forged a coalition of progressives abandoned by Democrats and "McCain voters" disgusted with soft money bribery. Who knows how the votes would have totaled November 7?

But no matter Nader's eventual tally, it is myopic to think "winning" means success in any single election. Our strategic goal is to use electoral politics to make our culture and laws more humane and just. We lose whenever we abandon that goal for a short-term, tactical "victory." Why should Democrats perform for us when they can take us for granted? Why should they nominate a real progressive if we'll settle for Al Gore?

The second reason gay voters are urged to support Gore is fear of the supposedly much worse George Bush. Bush is running on an unabashedly anti-gay platform, and Gore does support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (though he never made effort to bring even this watered-down legislation to a vote when the Democrats controlled Congress). But beyond rhetorical flourishes, the differences between Gore and Bush are marginal: both support dismantling welfare protections for people (but not for corporations), both favor free movement of capital (but not labor), and both support more prisons, laws, citizen surveillance, and executions. And Gore has chosen as his running mate Joseph Lieberman, a Republicrat senator who has crusaded with zealots like William Bennett against godless immorality in the entertainment industry and with Jesse Helms against HIV-positive immigrants.

Gore supporters concede that he is not a principled champion of our issues, but warn that he, not Bush, must be elected since the next president will make several Supreme Court appointments. The Court's current five-to-four majority defending abortion rights is cited as how pivotal Supreme Court nominations will be. But Bush is not likely to nominate an anti-abortion crusader for the same reason that Gore wouldn't pick a true civil libertarian; both men will seek out "centrists" so as not to offend the electoral middle ground. (In any case, Supreme Court nominees have a history of unpredictability: Kennedy saddled us with Byron White, while Eisenhower and Nixon rewarded us with Earl Warren and Harry Blackmun.)

Furthermore, there could be serendipitous outcomes to an anti-abortion Court. The Court's 1986 five-to-four decision to uphold Georgia's sodomy law galvanized our community, leading to the 1987 March on Washington, ACT-UP's energy, the formation of Queer Nation, and renewed efforts at sodomy law repeal. Perhaps if the Court abandoned reproductive freedoms overwhelmingly supported by the electorate, we could sweep out reactionary legislators, currently tolerated only because they can't do harm with the Court's current composition.

This November, don't waste your vote on either Bush or Gore. Instead, make your vote count by supporting a real champion of civil rights and freedom– vote for Ralph Nader.

Editor's Note: To find out more about Nader's campaign, click here.

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