Irrational outcome, extra-rational persistence

I am a knee-jerk optimist. Call me naïve, but I can’t help hoping for the best. I tend to believe that the students in Perkins won’t steal my laptop while I grab coffee at VDH, which friends attribute to my “safe” Midwestern upbringing. I come from Iowa, a state that I’m proud to say legalized gay marriage the month before I graduated from high school. Knowing that the Supreme Court in this rural state could unanimously rule in favor of legalizing gay marriage, I was confident that NC Amendment One would be defeated on May 8. Durham was looking glamorous through my rosy glasses. Look at all the students voting early! Check out the Protect All NC Families signs on Main Street! How could this silly amendment pass?

Then, in the days before May 8, I visited rural Montgomery County. Passing through small towns, I began to see that our liberal dreams weren’t shared by the whole state. My optimism faded and realism set in. Sure enough, Election Day arrived and our beautiful state passed an ugly amendment. To clarify for anyone still confused about what they voted (or failed to vote) on, here’s a retrospective crash course on the implications of Amendment One. Gay marriage was already illegal in North Carolina. This amendment eliminates domestic partnership rights and benefits for anyone in a union other than heterosexual marriage. This harms adults in homosexual and heterosexual civil unions and domestic partnerships, as well as unmarried couples and the children of all these relationships. And now, it’s real.

Sickened by the outcome, I retreated to Facebook to take comfort in the outrage of my peers. But instead of a flood of FMLs, I found hope—hope and solidarity in the instantaneous, dizzying format that only modern social media can express. Where I once found “Vote Against” banners, I now saw profile pictures that read “Repeal Amendment One.” The message was clear—the immediate goal has changed, but the fight continues.

The media fallout has also been encouraging. Attitudes are shifting at all levels of political organization. In a characteristic political gaffe, Vice President Joe Biden jumped the gun in stating that he is “absolutely comfortable” with equal rights for couples of different sexual orientations. We can speculate about the extent to which this was sincere or calculated, but it certainly got the ball rolling. Almost immediately, President Obama came out in support of gay marriage. A few days ago, we heard a similar affirmation from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, which put pressure on Australian leadership to do the same.

Where were the executive stamps of approval after that milestone victory in Iowa in 2009? What about this spring, when Washington and Maryland became the seventh and eighth states to legalize gay marriage? Why did media attention quickly fade from these stories, but May 8 is sending international shockwaves? The fact is that heartbreaking losses often galvanize people more effectively than victories.

So, let’s break down the results from last week. Of those voting, 61 percent were for, and 39 percent were against Amendment One. According to the NC Board of Elections, more than 2.1 million people cast votes on the referendum. But what about all those people who didn’t vote—don’t they have opinions on civil rights? How do you make someone form an opinion and then actually vote on it? I gnash my teeth, realizing that my frustration comes from the same clusterf*** that the Duke Democrats have tried to combat through early on-campus voting and rides to the polls—collective action failure.

The logic of collective action says that rational people can’t get anything done in politics because individually, we stand to gain more from inaction than action. Sitting on my butt in my cozy apartment wins me more happy points than getting my lazy butt out to vote. Researching political issues takes time when I would rather study for finals or drink Fat Tire on the quad. Of course, many North Carolinian citizens overcame this logic. For some reason, some people voted. If you voted, what factors led you to do so? Was it your private institution that provided you a ballot box in proximity to your morning bagel? Was it your friend who bugged you to vote, and wouldn’t leave you alone until you did?

One way we might overcome collective action failures relies on extra-rational motivations. These can be positive or negative non-rational factors that get people to contribute politically. One extra-rational motivation is ignorance. For example, you vote because you think that Amendment One will protect families from the dangers of non-heteronormative love/companionship. It can also be an ideological standpoint or moral tenet—I vote because I believe in equal rights for all people.