LABOR DAY OFFICIALLY MARKED THE BEGINNING of the 2006 campaign season. If you went to Pride or the State Fair, you were assaulted with smiling, hand-shaking, baby-kissing folks wanting your vote. Following in the candidate's wake were volunteers plastering you with enough stickers to look like a well-traveled valise.
Tongue-in-cheek aside, politics is business. Serious business. Long after the campaign signs and stickers are sitting in a landfill somewhere, the consequences of our actions or apathy will either laud or accuse us for the state of our community, state, and nation, and for our own quality of life. Hopefully, we are realizing how much our votes really do count. Considering the 2000 presidential election came down to a meager five electoral votes, it's unconscionable that 76 million of us decided to stay home on Election Day. Had even 1% of that crowd cast a vote, history could have been dramatically different!
Quorum members-you-by definition, stand out as leaders and make a difference.
One of the benefits Quorum members enjoy is affiliation with NGLCC (the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce), whose business advocacy efforts in Washington continue to make landmark changes for the GLBT/A business community.
Locally, our own members, including OutFront Minnesota are daily educating the public and lobbying on your behalf for GLBT issues. I hope many of you took advantage of Quorum's lunchtime meeting with OutFront to get up to speed on the political climate. I'm also pleased that the Human Rights Campaign is a new Quorum member and sponsor. Not only is HRC a visible and effective nationwide advocacy organization, our own Heidi Schreiber is also the co-chair for this year's gala.
Q!, as the voice for Quorum, necessarily does not endorse any candidate for public office and by extension I will not tell you how to vote. But at the risk of being redundant, I will encourage you all in the strongest possible terms to get educated, get involved, and cast your vote. After all, Quorum members really do make a difference.
Todd Park, Editor
