Soapbox - Voting Rights
by Erin J. "Dede" Dunn
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no Law respecting an establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free Exercise thereof; or abridging the Freedom of Speech, or of the Press; or the Right of the People peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances.
It was September 17, 1787 that the Constitution was signed. I should know—I was born two hundred years later on the same day. I've always considered the Constitution to be my calling seeing as how I was born on the day it was signed (ba-da-bum-chi). As I grew older and read more into the loopholes of the intertwining amendments and articles, I saw that it doesn't say anywhere that I can't vote. I am sixteen. The law is that you must be eighteen years of age to vote. But do you see that written anywhere? Nope…didn't think so.
T'was only a fortnight ago that my youth group and I did a little thing called Youth Sunday at our church way out in the baddass lands of Franklin, MA. I was the Madd Tapper (you know like the Mad Hatter except with tap shoes, tap board, and a sermon with a beat). I was tapping out my stuff about how teenagers are licensed to drive but not given the right to use their brains in the ballot box. Then I decided to do a little baddass research into this matter of injustice...
Amendment XXVI [1972]
Section 1
The Right of Citizens of the United States, who are 18 Years of Age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on Account of age.
Section 2
The Congress shall have the Power to enforce this Article by appropriate Legislation.
There we go…That's where it went. I thought I lost my rights but, oh look! ...wait, nope. Still lost! Here's the funny thing: Congress can enforce this any way they please. So um…why aren't we out there asking for it to be changed?
I mean, look at it this way—at sixteen we can drive (well you can drive, I can't reach the pedals on the car but that's beside the point). At sixteen we can drive, in some regions we can get married (just not to someone of the same sex…boo), we can have sex legally (in MA), be put on death row and legally executed (in TX). And yet, we still can't vote. Go figure.
So here I am. There you are. Here I am, and I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. Join me in filling the White House with letters about this injustice.
In our faith we allow all of our people to vote on issues that concern them, whether it be who gets the last cup of apple juice and animal crackers or who's going to be the next president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). All ages are encouraged to vote. But outside of church, we the young people of America are silenced. We are told to be quiet and only speak when spoken to.
In the sermon that I gave I made the point to say that, "...at sixteen I can drive a car, I can drive a car and can be trusted on the road with my life and the lives of the other drivers on the road but I still cannot be trusted to use my brains in the ballot box?"
What I am here today to do is to educate your minds. I know that many of you probably don't care about voting. Yes I'm talking to you too, the ones over eighteen. Well, you should care about voting. You may not think that your vote counts but it does. Think about this: without your vote someone like, oh, say George W. Bush got elected to be president, but if his opponent had one more vote, your vote, Dubya wouldn't be in office. Every choice has its consequences.
It's time that we stood
up.
It's time that we stopped being quiet.
It's time…let's have a party
and get funky with it and start making noise.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
