I’ll be honest. I was not excited about organizing here in Palmdale. Having gone through an awkward queer adolescence in this desert town, returning to it was not high on my wish list.

But in this windy valley I have found dedicated, tenacious and stubborn volunteers who have stepped up again and again; volunteers who have said “Yes!” at every turn and who gather, glowing, in our donated SEIU office after every shift going toe to toe with paid signature-gatherers.

There truly is something special about doing this work at this time and in this location. Palmdale is state Sen. Pete Knight territory: an area best known for electing the man who authored the last ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage in state law; known as Proposition 22, it passed with 60 percent support in March 2000.

Yet on our first day out talking to voters in this conservative town, we found almost 400 supporters of the freedom to marry for LGBT couples. Our team of 16 covered six priority sites in Lancaster and Palmdale, most of them saying the words “gay and lesbian” to a stranger for the first time in their lives.

We were joined that day by a lesbian and her 17-year-old gay son; by a straight Catholic woman and her gay nephew; by several couples who have children and by their friends. Many of our volunteers were bilingual and we were able to have twice as many conversations with supporters than if we had a less diverse team.

Kathy, a first-time volunteer who has lived in Palmdale her whole life, stood in front of a Wal-Mart on a very blustery Saturday. Behind her sat a particularly ornery petitioner who tried to pressure her into leaving. She said, simply, “I’m staying here.” When his irate supervisor showed up and threatened her with a lawsuit, she told him the same thing: “I’m staying here.” When the manager of Wal-Mart said she had a right to be there if they were, both petitioner and supervisor packed up and left in a huff. I asked if she wanted to go to a different site after such a confrontation and she said no, adding, “I’m staying here.”

And the Task Force is staying here, too, all the way through the end of April and beyond, if need be.

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