Vote Gay

hazimel

I had the idea when I was in college that it would be interesting for some budding journalist to go around to various political parties and ask them what they intended on doing or have done in the past to support students' needs and then for those results to be published in a student newsletter in time for an oncoming election.

I'd kind of forgotten the idea until recently when I was in Canada and was reading a local free gay magazine (along the lines of what we have here but...good), which had an interesting enough article in it about how much money gays draw into the economy in North America and how politicians would certainly listen to us if that money were pulled out. Let's see George Bush condemn gay marriage if his economy suddenly looses billions.

So it occurs to me that it would certainly be a nifty idea for someone (ideally I'd do this myself so that I'd get an unbiased account) to quiz representatives from various political parties on their stances towards gay issues and what they intend on doing about them in the future. These results would ideally be published somewhere (here, or in a magazine article), so that campaign promises are submitted in print and written down for history to record.

Ideally this would lead to a situation whereby political parties have to stand up to their actions or inactions in the past and have to make promises to us for the future that they'd need to keep, because they're in print for all to see (and oh yes, the savvy reporter would be reporting regularly on their progress). The political parties involved would certainly be foolish to disregard the votes of a large mass of people that could really make a difference to them.

Now while I genuinely would love to do this myself, there is the issue that I don't have time and I don't know enough about politics in Ireland to even know the names of half the ministers in government, let alone their political history to grill them over. This situation would require a more discerning mind than mind in that regard.

I guess the purpose of this post is to suggest this idea for people to consider. Is it a good idea? Would anyone be interested? I suppose too, as a preliminary discussion, I'd certainly enjoy it if people posted up their experience of political parties and their involvement for good or bad in gay issues.

Annasopra

Yeah it's not a bad idea - it's kinda been done on small scales before here - I suspect thought that the editor of GCN probably has something planned for the next election similar to the UK one where Tony Blair and the other leaders were interviewed by gay times and attitude