Why not today? Yes, voting does absolutely matter.

Democracy is an always-changing contraption, an evolutionary marvel adapted by many societies throughout history even if it is rarely, if ever, perfectly executed.

The United States has a complicated history with democracy. Ours is very much an imperfect democracy, one with flaws too often exacerbated by racism, bigotry and other systemic issues.

The electoral college, for example, was a terrible idea from the start with most of the justifications for it by proponents being shown to be wrong simply through empirical observation.

But imperfect democracies are not only worth fighting for but worth participating in as well.

There are also specific reasons why LGBTQ people in particular should vote and participate in our democracy.

The U.S. government does not have the best track record when it comes to its treatment of LGBTQ people. The Lavender Scare, in which LGBTQ people were actively persecuted by the government through what was essentially a giant witch hunt to fire as many queer government employees as possible.

Nor were LGBTQ people able to serve in the military openly until the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2011.

The Supreme Court of the United States had a handful of positive rulings in favor of the LGBTQ rulings (such as One Inc. v. Olsen in 1958) but most SCOTUS decisions prior to 2003 upheld anti-LGBTQ laws.

In 2003 SCOTUS held that states could not enforce anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas. Such laws were frequently used to persecute gay men for having sex in private.

This marked a turning point when it came to the Supreme Court with cases that affirmed LGBTQ rights. Since then, we’ve gotten U.S. Vs. Windsor, which helped create marriage equality, and Bostock Vs. Clayton County, which held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal.

The point being that we should give into the too common cynical views such as politics does not matter or that both democrats and republicans are the same. Nor should we reduce our imperfect system as one where we can only choose the lesser of two evils.

Ultimately we need to remember that progress is possible even if it is not always easy. It took electing of democratic politicians to get liberals on the Supreme Court. We had to elect Bill Clinton to get the end of LGBTQ people being actively persecuted in the military, replacing it with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had it’s problems, it took the election of Barack Obama to get it repealed altogether.

Obama also helped to temporarily ban discrimination in the military on the basis of gender identity, while Trump then tried and somewhat succeeded at repealing Obama’s progress on the issue. It took Biden to fully end discrimination against Transgender service members.

In Minnesota we have also seen the benefits of having a democratic Governor in Tim Walz, who banned conversion therapy in our state via executive order in 2021 and later signed the ban into law in 2023.

The thing is, democracy not only “dies in darkness,” it dies when we give into the darkness of cynicism and apathy. It dies when we forget what’s possible.

So vote and vote again (in the next election as well as the one after that) so that we may continue to benefit from being part of a free and democratic society.

Write to jeremy.redlien@gmail.com