What drew you to get involved in politics? What is your political background?

I am curious if we all have a similar theme going on.

How many people here got interested in politics because you were LGBT? How old were you when you got involved, and how old are you now? Has your political thoughts / philosophy evolved over time?

I am interested in responses from straights as well!

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Here is my story:

I grew up in a small rural town in Southern Virginia. It is a highly conservative area, where in some cases it is not impossible to meet a Democrat who is actually more conservative than a Republican. The Christian Right have a strong foothold here, and probably make up roughly 60% of the population give or take 10%.

Both of my parents like to vote in every major election. Yet, they are very much political novices. They don't know much about the issues, don't know a lot about what is going on, and frankly don't have much interest. Their vote tends to be one based upon gut and likability. My sister is very similar, yet she does not vote.

The first election I voted in was the 2000 presidential election. I had just turned eighteen that summer, and I had an axe to grind. I was ENRAGED (and still am) at Bill Clinton for signing DOMA and DADT. To call me a one issue voter would be an understatement. I was a one issue voter on a mission to give Bill Clinton the political finger.

I was largely ignorant of the entire system and politics in general. It was not something that was important to my life growing up, and thus I was hugely ignorant. I managed to be looped into a Log Cabin Republican webpage (I accidentally stumbled upon it), where they proclaimed that Al Gore had attended some fundraiser back in the 80's by the Phelps Family. I was VERY aware of who they were (the GodHatesFags folks), and so after Gore chose Lieberman as his running mate he became dead to me.

Bush was an idiot, this was clear even to an ignorant person as I was, and it was also clear about the type of people he surrounded himself with – the Christian Right. Growing up in the place that I did he was easy to dismiss as a viable choice, although I had heard Cheney's daughter was a lesbian. So I held out hope that Cheney would step up, influence Bush, and keep Bush from doing anything against gays. Ha! Was I ever right in all the wrong ways.

However, in a lot of cases people in my position likely would have been turned away from the process as a whole. I know a lot of people who proclaim that it does not matter who they vote for, they are all the same when they get into office.

Enter Ralph Nader. He not only said that, but he was pro-gay all the way. When he said, "Turn onto politics, before politics turns onto you!" I understood exactly what he meant. Politics HAD turned on me, and thus I was offered with two choices: do nothing and allow the status quo to continue or stand up and fight. Doing nothing I was assured to get the same result, but if I stand up and fight even if the chance is small, at least there is a chance I can change things.

Ralph Nader is responsible for getting me politically active and into the system. But being gay was what motivated me to stand up and fight.

Over the years, my political philosophy has grown and evolved. My understanding of issues, government and politics grew. I grew as a person. I became older, wiser, and more refined in my thinking. As my self-education continued, I became more empowered. I began to feel confident in the decisions I made, and became aware of the political ramifications.

I have grown so much in the past nine years. I am twenty-seven years old now, having had my twenty-seventh birthday just a few days ago. I am not the same person I was back then. I am very much unrecognizable.

I supported Kerry and then Obama for President in the next two cycles. I've tried on a number of different labels, but in the end I have found that left-libertarian fits me the best.

I consider Thomas Paine to be the spiritual father of left-libertarianism, and perhaps the forgotten founder. I believe Thomas Paine helped define what it means to be an American. Although I believe my philosophy has evolved beyond his, it is certainly built into every crack of its foundation.

I believe in individual freedoms, and that when people are given the opportunity, they will act in the way that best benefits their own lives. Without government there can be no freedom, but similarly government must always be guarded against. I believe that large corporations are just as dangerous as an overly large government. I believe that government exists to EMPOWER people to make choices that best benefit their lives, not to dictate how they should live their lives.

There is more to my philosophy, but suffice it to say, in the end I find myself squarely on the left and in staunch opposition to authoritarianism.

It is difficult to imagine where I would stand today if I were straight. I am not sure if I would have become interested in politics at all. I became interested in politics out of necessity, I saw how it was impacting my life (and not for the better!).

So, I wonder if others here have similar experiences.

Lived in NYC and suburbs, Dad read 4 newspapers per day.

If you call it that, He was a member of the NDP, The New Democratic Party, previously, the CCF, the party of Tommy Douglas, the Father of Medicare in Canada. I had a great teacher in my Dad who was pro Union, read socialistic literature from all over, including China and Russia, and although was by no means a supporter of Communism, he pointed out some of the benefits to society of some of their philosophies. I was recruited as a lad to post election signs for the NDP and came under much attack from my friends over my political choice. But I learned to point out that the NDP was responsible for those very critics health care, baby bonus checks, and other social programs such as Unemployment Insurance that they loved so much, and that shut them up! My Pa was anti corporation and very much into "Green" years before any movement started, and we were taught to not litter, and carry out our garbage from the fishing trips we went on. Most of all, he taught me to read between the lines, especially when it came to right wing rhetoric, and to keep an open mind about things.

>>>>t is difficult to imagine where I would stand today if I were straight. I am not sure if I would have become interested in politics at all. I became interested in politics out of necessity, I saw how it was impacting my life (and not for the better!).>>>>>>

I'd be much more conservative had I been straight. I became profoundly alienated in the early 70's from what was going on politically and it seemed a logical extension of identifying as gay to also identify with other elements of the culture that seemed to be marginalized or seemed to be in opposition. So I was pretty much an unreconstructed lefty for the next 20 years.

Became more of an incrementalist during the Clinton years. It was nice to *win* an election once in a while for a change and "half a loaf"... yada, yada, yada.

Bush II and Iraq II reawakened me to how deeply flawed, and utterly unevolved our entire social order is and now I've gone back to being a "get to the roots" radical. But more pragmatic than I was in the old days.

Hey, half a loaf is half a loaf.

That was the first week of November. I've never forgiven myself (I've voted for every Democratic presidential nominee since). Within 2 months I was working to impeach the bastard. Shortly after I helped form my college's first branch of the "Young Democrats".

My folks were working class-a long haul truck driver with a 9th grade education and a grade school cafeteria cook who raised and educated 5 kids. Neither were political but both were progressive.

2 quick vignettes...

When I was in the 2nd grade, a school crossing lady gleefully told me that President Kennedy had been killed. I remember going home and asking my mom if we should be happy or sad. She said we should be very, very sad. That small memory tells me much about my family.

I became a supporter of government health care at age 12 in 1966. I remember being in bed but hearing my younger sister quietly crying in the next room because of a toothache. My dad worked really hard just to feed us-any idea of dental care was a distant dream. My dentist says that today I need about 25k to have my mouth fixed. Not in this lifetime....

So thats part of why I'm a Democrat

on edit: At 18 when I began to identify as a Democrat I was in deep denial over my sexuality. It was a full 7 years after I became a Democrat before I was willing to admit to myself that I was gay. Very, very different than today

Got motivated to become politically active for my (our) own protection. It was only when I left home that it really hit me how lucky and protected I'd been growing up and hard it could be for GLBTs in the real world and how strong the theocrats and the homophobes were and what their goals were and how I'd better get off my ass and start contributing a little bit

...as a result of the civil rights movement in the 60's and the Vietnam War. Didn't get invloved in GLBT issues until later, when I was in college.

I guess this really dates me, doesn't it. Ah well, that's the short and sweet of it for now. Gotta run some errands!

NY Daily News. World Telegram and Sun, Long Island Star Journal at home. RC mom was a yankee republican I guess for generations.Me, a young Goldwater ite. Came out, smoked Pot , took LSD and learned to think for myself, and moved to SF in my early twenties, got involved in the Movement then Gay Liberation Front, environmental activism, later my Union, and never looked back ( in a nutshell).

I admit as starting off as left wing, but now, I am so far left, I can't see the center, let alone the right. ;)

I think living in a small country town full of racist and bigots has made me a lot worse. Especially considering my partner is a full blooded Aboriginal who faces a lot of shit from both the white and black communities here.

Just yesterday we took the kids fishing about two hours from here at a lovely little country hamlet. On our way home we decided to stop off and get something to eat. While we were sitting in having dinner we had people just staring at her. It was so bad it made our son uncomfortable, and he couldn't eat his dinner because of it. We ended up saying a few things before we left, but it is because of narrow minds like that one, that I am who I am, and fight for what I fight for.

Prior to meeting my partner, I faced a lot of homophobia from the locals, and believe it or not, I had full acceptance from the Aboriginal community here. The homophobia was a joke though... I had grown men trying to get in my pants, telling me I would never look at another woman, once I had been with them. For about 9 months, I felt like I was a piece of meat on display in the butchers shop. I have since changed their minds and now they look at gay people as being people. I decided instead of giving up and just putting up with their shit, I would sit them down and explain to them how it felt being a citizen in this country that was less than they were, because of the people I happen to fall in love with.

Now the way my partner and I look at it is simply for them to bring it on. We go out and we don't hide the fact we are a couple. This method has caused us some problems from having windows in our home smashed to having beer bottles and bricks thrown at my car, but for each small minded idiot who thinks they are causing us problems we are managing to change the minds of at least two people, and to be able to do that, makes all the bad shit worth it in the long run.

Statistics show that here in Australia the majority of citizens want equal marriage rights for the gay community, that has been because of people like my partner and I not shying away and working with in our communities to open the eyes of so many people.