@JoshuaDolin
With the presidential election only days away, I find myself more and more distraught about whom to vote for. For me, the decision comes down to voting for what I believe is the right path for my country versus voting for equal rights for my community.
I am a gay Republican.
I have been a passionate Republican my entire life. In 2008, I was the most outspoken supporter of all things that involved Sarah Palin. She inspired me to work hard for the Republican Party. I created the very first Young Republicans Club at Los Alamos High School.
I created a club for a political party that, because of my sexual orientation, does not believe I deserve equal rights. And at the time, I saw nothing wrong with that.
Sarah Palin is still my favorite politician and I am absolutely in love with her. I am well aware of her opinion regarding same-sex marriage, but to me she represents a fresh face in politics. She is a political outsider who is free from corruption and just wants to give those hockey moms or fellow mavericks a voice in Washington.
While I still like Sarah Palin, I am beginning to have a falling-out with the Republican Party. The more imminent same-sex marriage becomes, the more the party pushes against it with harsher views.
I used to be a member of the College Republicans club on campus.
That is, until I received an email inviting me to join them for “College Republican Chick-fil-A Day.” While the club’s reasoning for the event was to support “free enterprise and free speech,” I don’t recall the club actively supporting Chick-fil-A in this manner until the company became the face of anti-gay activism.
I want so badly to be a Republican, but how can I vote for a candidate such as Mitt Romney who says, “I’m going to want to see a marriage limited to a man and a woman. I don’t want to see civil unions either.”
I feel as though Gretchen Wieners from the critically acclaimed film “Mean Girls” represents the Republican Party, and that she is telling me I can no longer sit with the plastics at lunch just because I am gay.
Upon feeling alienated from Republicans on campus, I attended the College Democrats UNM meeting just to try it out. I wasn’t comfortable with all of the group’s values and beliefs, but it is a great group of students. Members there included me, and they are just as passionate as I am about achieving equal rights for LGBT people.
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I support almost all Republican values, and I do not trust President Obama as much as I believe in Mitt Romney. The only problem is that Obama supports who I am, and Romney does not.
So now I have to make a decision. President Obama has done many great things for this country. In addition to opening new health centers for veterans and reforming Wall Street, he repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and inspired a new generation by becoming the first African-American president.
President Obama even inspires me to believe that one day it might be possible for this nation to overcome the fact that I have a different sexual orientation from most of them, and become president myself.
That being said, during Obama’s presidency the national debt has doubled, and students are actually paying an average of 25 percent more for college tuition. I think it is time for this country to try something new because these policies are failing.
Mitt Romney doesn’t believe I am entitled to the same rights he is, but he does have a plan to save this country. I am worried about more than just my own rights. I am worried about this country’s spending problem and the lies that the current administration has been spreading, more recently regarding the attacks in Libya.
This is a very important election and we all have a choice to make. For me, the choice is between a vote for my community and a vote for a bright and prosperous economic future for my country.
