TAKING THE INITIATIVE, WHAT ABOUT VOLUNTEERS?

The lack of willing, reliable, volunteer signature-gatherers is a problem facing most single-issue political causes in the USA today. Although their will be great enthusiasm expressed at reformer gatherings, when push come to clipboard, an organizer will usually find himself standing alone in front of post offices and supermarkets.

The only exception to this truism I know are the efforts of religiously-orientated groups such as Right to Life (RTL) and its culture war allies. For instance, RTL & Co. actually gathered over 400,000 signatures in less than 180 days - on an all volunteer basis - to amend the Michigan constitution to ban gay/lesbian marriage in 2004.

RTL type volunteers perceive their cause to be a matter of life or death - saving babies from abortion or human souls from eternal damnation.

This kind of fervor has been the ultimate political motivator in the USA from the time the first "witches" were hanged in Salem, Mass. In the 1700s, to the efforts of the Women's Christian Temperance movement in amending the US Constitution to ban alcohol in 1919.

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