The 'gay vote' demands more

The Pheu Thai Party candidate for Bangkok governor released a video encouraging city residents to understand and engage LGBT people.
Pongsapat’s campaign platform might be serious or it might be cynically latching onto a trend to garner votes, but I find it interesting that he openly talks about the LGBT community and its place in the metropolis.
Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people are recognised by the government but never officially supported. Politicians who do understand the issues of rights and equality that affect us still tend to lack perspective on sexual diversity. Tolerance is extended far enough that we’re allowed to be seen – but not heard. The government keeps a just-tight-enough lid on discrimination that no violent protest erupts.
Pongsapat’s video might be the first time in Thailand that LGBT people have been politically recognised.
I was also intrigued that he made the link with our status in a vast city. It’s been noted that LGBT identity stands out more in big cities, even populating whole districts like London’s SoHo, San Francisco’s Castro and New York’s Greenwich Village.
The fact is that LGBT people seek each other out wherever they are, and that’s easier to do in big cities. We live everywhere in this country, for all intents ignored by the government, but at least the big cities empower us to live more freely.
So it’s good to hear there is a politician daring enough to directly talk to us, even though I’m afraid it could be just flashy campaigning rather than concrete policy. It should be noted that Pongsapat has made no such proposals elsewhere in his bid to be governor. Nor, on his video, does he offer any examples of how to make his ideas tangible.
If the “latest thing” in running for election is going after the long-dismissed “gay vote”, it’s an impressive development on its own. But I can’t see it getting anywhere when only one politician is talking about equality. Meanwhile some of his fellow party members continue to toss around accusations of homosexuality as if it were a crime, or at least a sin.
Good ideas without an action plan to back them up are just words. I don’t want to vote for an intangible voice floating in the air.