BELIVEAU: I think voting is important, but I think it’s just the first step. I think my particular frustration with the glamorization of voting, of it being the totality of your democratic civil duty, is that we’re also constrained by our choice of candidates and the information that we have available about those candidates. So it’s good, but there are constraints there.
TASCA: Have you always voted since you turned 18?
BELIVEAU: Yes. If there was an outcome I disagreed with, I wanted to at least think I did my part and I tried. I also came out age with the Bush/Gore election. Seeing what happened in Florida in that election, I think, was pretty impactful on me; seeing how just a couple thousand people can change the course of a country. You never know when that situation’s going to happen here.
TASCA: What issues are you most concerned about as we approach Election Day?
BELIVEAU: For me, in particular, what’s important is LGBTQ rights. Here in Westerly, we recently had a controversy with the high school not wanting to put Gender Queer on the library shelf. That was pretty troubling to a lot of us at the bookstore and to a lot of us queer people in the community.
Here in Westerly, I think housing affordability is really, really important. All the development that’s happening around here is great. I love the culture. I love the United (Theatre). I love the bookstore. I love everything that’s happening around here. But if I didn’t receive disability compensation from the VA, I wouldn’t be able to live here. It’s only because I have that extra bit of income that I’m able to live in the town that I work. So being able to have affordable housing, I think, is really important to me and to people in my income level, which is, honestly, most of us.
TASCA: So the Supreme Court recently overturned Roe v. Wade. There are some folks who think that a lot of progressives are going to be galvanized by that decision and really come out and hit the polls hard in November. What’s your take on that?
BELIVEAU: I mean, I hope so. I really do hope so. I mean, it goes to show that we can think things are a certain way and are untouchable and can never be changed, but nothing is permanent. It’s the result of conservative folks in this country and conservative politicians – many decades of effort – to get more conservative judges, more conservative Supreme Court justices. I think it’s a scary time to be a person with a uterus right now. I’m very grateful that I live in Rhode Island where that right is still protected. There’s already abortion bans in a ton of states.
TASCA: But you don’t think that could happen here?
BELIVEAU: You know, I would say no, but I never thought Roe would get overturned either and here we are. That’s why it’s important to stay involved and stay educated. You can’t take it for granted.
TASCA: Being a member of the LGBTQ community, how do you feel about where this town is when it comes to protecting and accepting the rights of that community?
BELIVEAU: I think Westerly is somewhere in the middle. I think there are still people who are very conservative and deeply uncomfortable with what they see as a totally different lifestyle than what they’re used to. But overall, Rhode Island is still a pretty progressive area. There’s enough of us around and open now that it’s not an oddity. It’s not unusual. It’s more like those folks probably feel like they’re increasingly in the minority.
TASCA: As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a lot of political division in this country these days. Do you see that division here in town and in your social circles?
BELIVEAU: I think Westerly is a very older-skewing, white, Christian place. For that reason, I think it does tend to skew a little more conservative. But I think the people that I know and the younger people that I know tend to be incredibly open-minded, incredibly unbothered by people’s differences, actively seeking out difference. That gives me a lot of hope for the future, not just here in Westerly, but in general. I think that the younger folks are going to help all us of come out of our shells a little bit.
Joe Tasca can be reached at jtasca@ripr.org
