No Shows for LGBTQ+ Rights…

I attended a forum for candidates hosted by the Western North Carolina chapter of Equality North Carolina, the nation’s oldest LGBTQ+ organization. I will be honest, it was a bad event. The moderator seemed to have no sense of timing for the candidates, candidate timing was irregular, most responses verbose because there were no limits. Some candidates we heard from a lot, others not so much. The one notably bad thing aside from one of our candidates leaving was that there were more candidates than citizens at this forum.

No one showed up save for my husband, myself, and a few other people totaling about five-ish people, with one being a friend of mine and her husband who I invited. It was really sad to see, and made me think to myself if this is how engaged we are as an organization and as a demographic, it makes sense why Republicans view us as a wedge issue, not a voter base that would be bad to alienate or mobilize. The lack of participation was so uncomfortably notable that I was by proxy ashamed. Asheville is one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly areas that has one of the largest populations of us in WNC. For us to be a no-show sucks. Part of this is on the organizer and moderator, a woman who’s name I don’t remember.

But a lot of this is on us. It sucks, and things will get worse if people don’t show up. On the silver lining side of things, I enjoyed meeting and getting to know all candidates that attended, minus Maggie Ullman, who was the councilor who left. It’s hard to argue with her decision: we didn’t show up, why cater to us if we won’t show up?