I recently got into a dreaded Facebook debate with an incredibly conservative man who told me because I am worried about LGBTQIA+ issues, I am a one-issue voter.
I was immediately insulted. How dare he call me a one-issue voter? At least I care about an issue besides Secretary Clinton's emails!
But then I thought about it.
Why are we so concerned about single-issue voters?
Our political discourse illuminates an obsession with "uninformed voters," as though people actually have the time to educate themselves on every issue at stake in an election for every single candidate campaigning. Most people do not have the emotional capacity to care about every single issue.
Say there are approximately 50 candidates on each ballot. Each of those candidates has hundreds and hundreds of stances on important issues in their platform. That makes literally thousands of issues. No one has the time to engage in debates about every single one of these issues.
Does that mean every single person voting is an uninformed voter? Obviously, no. So if no one can be completely informed, why do we care if other people focus specifically on one or two issues?
Most of the time, instead of single-issue voters and uninformed voters, we are actually worried about misinformed voters--which, once again, the majority of us are. We are constantly barraged with fallacies from all parties, and we easily fall prey to viral posts.
Whether someone is a single-issue voter, and uninformed voter, a misinformed voter, or someone who randomly fills in the circles on the page, they still have the legal right to vote. We all do.
Is it even possible to be a single-issue voter?
Everything in life is interconnected--politics, economics, social justice, foreign policy, all the way down to the clothes you are wearing and the food you are eating. Nothing in life happens in a vacuum.
So if this is true--which it is--how can a single-issue voter even exist? The short answer is, it cannot.
If I were to vote for Secretary Clinton specifically because she supports LGBTQIA+ rights, I would not be a single-issue voter. This is because the queer community is intertwined with communities of other marginalized people--people of color and women, for example. As one group gains rights, the other groups also gain rights because of the new precedent. Thus, a vote for Clinton because of her queer policies already makes me a three-issue voter. But that is not the only way the gender and sexual minority community affects politics; because with social justice issues come economic issues.
Minorities in America are disproportionately affected by symptoms of poverty, including poor education, increased experiences of violence, poor physical and mental health, significant lack of food and medical resources, and higher rates of imprisonment and violence from law enforcement. So a vote because of LGBTQIA+ issues or women's issues or issues for people of color is also a vote to reform health care, education, the economy, social security, mental health programs and hundreds of other policies.
Is single-issue voting actually a bad thing?
Now that we have discussed why we worry about single-issue voters and why single-issue voters cannot truly exist, we should eradicate the stigma surround single-issue voting.
The majority of people do not vote for candidates specifically because of one aspect of a candidate's platform. But there are people who do. And those people typically have pretty good reasons.
Let us continue using the LGBTQIA+ "single-issue" voter example. In this particular election, not only are equal rights an issue on the ballot, but the very livelihoods of queer people are up for debate.
Yes, you read that right. This election could actually be life or death for many of the citizens of our country.
Donald Trump's Vice Presidential nominee Governor Mike Pence has expressed support for conversion therapy, which nearly always leads to downright dangerous effects such as depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide. He has also enacted several Religious Freedom Acts which limit the basic human rights of queer people--including the ability to obtain food, water, and shelter.
If your life was at stake, you would be a "single-issue" voter, too.
We need to stop demonizing single-issue voters. We need to stop demonizing other people exercising their civic duty and right in general. We need to encourage people to vote instead of putting up barriers to prevent people from voting. We need to stop shaming people for voting.
Voting is the essence of Democracy, and if we must defend and uphold our democratic ideals or else we cease to be what the United States has always been.
