On the ground in Florida on Primary Day

Yesterday was an incredible day in Florida. The sky was blue; the temperature hovered in the upper 70s. Pretty nice. But the best part? The amazing face-to-face conversations we had with nearly 2,000 Floridians who were going to the polls to vote in the presidential primary.

Polls opened at 7 a.m., and our Organizing & Training team members were on the phone by 6 a.m. giving the volunteer captains their wake-up calls. We all needed to be at the polls by the time they opened, because many voters cast their ballots before work.

There was no candy-coating going on during these conversations. They were point-blank dialogues about how the proposed initiative seeking to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions and possibly domestic partnership rights would severely affect the lives of LGBT people.

We spoke with folks from all backgrounds and ages (well, I guess voting age and up, given the circumstance!). The responses were overwhelming positive. For example, there were a couple of guys in military uniforms who were going to vote. A volunteer approached them and starting talking about the initiative; one of the military fellows wound up being so supportive of what we were doing that he vowed to sign up his wife to volunteer to work against the initiative if it got on the ballot.

And then there was that little old lady who drove up to the polls; I swear she could barely see over the steering wheel!

She got out and said, “Is this the polling place?” and I said yes. “Is it open?” she asked. I told her yes, and then started talking about the anti-marriage measure.

“Is this about the homosexuals?” she interjected. I told her it was. “Is this for the homosexuals?” she asked, referring to the efforts of myself and the 81 volunteers. I told her it was indeed. “Well good,” she said, “because I’m for the homosexuals!”

It doesn’t get much better than that…

Well, actually it does, because during the debrief we held after the polls closed at 8 p.m., volunteer after volunteer shared similarly inspiring stories — one after the next after the next.

Wow.

It really made everyone see just how much support we have in the world, and how much people can and do support equality and fairness — especially when asked.

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