That was About Equality: Talking Marriage in Maine
I’ll admit that, when I see a person zero in on me with a clipboard and a smile, I do pretty much anything to avoid them. “I’m sorry I’m late for a dentist appointment; there’s something in my eye; and I need to tie my shoe…over there.” On a city block, if a canvasser doesn’t manage to pin you down, he will have a hundred other opportunities over the next minute to grab someone else. And I always let this inform my decision to avoid eye-contact and keep walking: someone else will care.
So I signed up to canvas in Maine with the No on 1, Protect Maine Equality campaign with the knowledge that I had years of bad canvassing karma on my back. We were going to go door-to-door in the town of Sanford and I expected blinds to be drawn, dogs to bark, and everyone to be rushing off to the dentist.
But the first door I knocked on opened and a tattooed man with a shaved head and a cigarette filled the door frame. I stumbled through my opener as he scrutinized me and finished hesitantly with: “Do you support marriage for same-sex couples?” “I don’t care,” he said.
By this point I had started backing slowly off his porch.
“No, I mean, I don’t care what two people do. Everyone should have the same rights.” He took my clipboard and filled out a postcard, pledging to vote no in November.
As I walked through the neighborhood, doors opened and people came out to talk and pledge. Even though the person on the other side of the door might not be quantifiably affected by the new marriage equality legislation, he or she always acknowledged the profound difference it would make to all of Maine’s families. Mainers stopped us on the sidewalk and called to us from their porches. “Hey, I heard you talking to so-and-so, what’s going on?” The people in Sanford cared about their neighbors and cared about what was happening in Maine.
But it was what happened after the pledge was signed and the door swung closed that was truly amazing. People shuffled inside to their waiting partners and children. What was that about, children would ask. That, their parents would reply, was about equality. Do you know how important that is?