With the exception of a few major court cases, trials or indictments, almost all the biggest stories last week were politically based, and everything that happened undoubtedly will have implications in both congressional procedure and people’s everyday lives.

And yet, somehow, people say politics are boring.

Often, many of my friends are ignorant of current events, especially if they are based in politics, telling me they don’t understand the complexities of the political process, so it must be dull and dry.

It baffles me.

When civic engagement and voting are so lauded, but political knowledge and awareness are so often not, it worries me that so many people will go blindly to the polls and vote on a contentious issue without following its progression the rest of the year.

Remember when many people changed their Facebook profile photos to red equal signs in March to show support for marriage equality? I saw a handful of my own friends do the same but not understand the timing and significance, that the whole campaign coincided with the Supreme Court’s oral arguments. They were oblivious to what was happening until it suddenly was right under their noses.

I acknowledge it’s easy to hear about any of last week’s events and think, “Well, I’m not a minority voter,” or “But I don’t live in Texas,” and brush off the relevance of the situations.But once a political story takes roots, it’s easy to find patterns.

Look at the Supreme Court’s decision to nullify a portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Section 4 required several states, mostly Southern with a history of racial discrimination, to obtain federal approval before changing any election laws, but now, unless Congress acts to remedy the situation, those states could change their voting laws without oversight.

It’s an interesting time for such a decision to come from the Supreme Court, when many states have been re-examining their voter identification laws in recent years. Michigan saw a similar battle just last summer, when Republican Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed laws to broaden photo ID requirements — a surprise to some Republican legislators. Some Michigan voters still complained about unfair citizenship and ID questions that could disenfranchise minority voters, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Then there is the Texas Senate filibuster, in which Democrat Wendy Davis stood on her feet for nearly 12 hours arguing against a bill that would eliminate a majority of abortion clinics in the state. When the Republican majority finally stopped her, there was mass confusion about if the bill had passed at all.

Again, the abortion debate is something that has spread across the nation recently and in Michigan last summer, when a few anti-abortion bills found their way to the Legislature. The ensuing argument left two female representatives banned from speaking on the House floor and brought a slew of protestors from both sides of the arguments out to the Capitol steps.

In the second major Supreme Court decision of the week, the court handed down another landmark case moving marriage equality efforts forward by declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and overturning California’s Proposition 8 gay marriage ban.

It was a victory for gay marriage advocates — one that already has rippled across the states. Right here in the Mitten State, House Democrats already have introduced a package of bills, coinciding with the Supreme Court’s timing, to amend Michigan’s constitution to allow gay marriage. Just days after that, a federal judge in Michigan denied the state the ability to refuse employee benefits to same-sex couples, another small win for marriage equality.

In the middle of all that, journalists were plane-hopping all over the world to try and intercept National Security Agency document leaker Edward Snowden, who was hiding out in Moscow the whole time. And while that might seem too distant to make a feasible connection to, remember the scope of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program — even if most American citizens aren’t necessarily targeted, it still raises important legal questions of privacy versus security.

Media and pundits already have begun speculating on the 2016 presidential race, and the many 2014 gubernatorial races are sure to see their own gossip soon. But for too many voters, no news matters until the month before the election, by which time it might be too late.

It’s so easy to blow off a political issue, to call it boring, confusing or irrelevant when it affects a completely different group than you. But it might soon become your problem, too. And then being able to recognize its implications for everyone is essential.

To end with a quote from my favorite American writer, Mark Twain, “Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man.”

Rachel Jackson is a guest columnist at The State News and a journalism senior. Reach her at jacks981@msu.edu.