Green Party
Enjoying the campaign so far? If not, don’t worry: It soon will be all over, and no one will give a good tinker’s damn about pigs, pit bulls, or lipstick—until the next campaign starts, which, I’m guessing, will be about 15 minutes after this one ends.
On the docket this issue is the Green Party of the United States.
According to its 2004 platform, the Green Party wants to focus on what it calls “10 Key Values”:
1. Grassroots democracy
2. Social justice and equal opportunity
3. Ecological wisdom
4. Nonviolence
5. Decentralization
6. Community-based economics
7. Feminism and gender equity
8. Respect for diversity
9. Personal and global responsibility
10. Future focus and sustainability
The 2008 draft platform narrows this down to “Four Pillars”:
1. Environmentalism
2. Nonviolence
3. Economic justice
4. Grassroots organizing
Exactly what does this mean for the GLBT community?
In the original “10 Key Values,” Item Number 2 (Social Justice and Equal Opportunity) reads: “All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and homophobia, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.”
In the 2008 revision, the words “and transphobia” have been added.
The 2008 platform also states in its section titled “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”: “In keeping with the Green Key Values of diversity, social justice, and feminism, we support full legal and political equality for all persons, regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
a. The Green Party affirms the rights of all individuals to freely choose intimate partners, regardless of their sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
b. We support the recognition of equal rights of persons gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender to housing, jobs, civil marriage, medical benefits, child custody, and in all areas of life provided to all other citizens.
c. We support the inclusion of language in state and federal antidiscrimination law that ensures the rights of intersex individuals, and prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, characteristics, and expression. We are opposed to intersex genital mutilation.
d. We support the right of all persons to self-determination with regard to gender identity and sex. We therefore support the right of intersex and transgender individuals to be free from coercion and involuntary assignment of gender or sex. We support access to medical and surgical treatment for assignment or reassignment of gender or sex, based on informed consent.
e. We support legislation against all forms of hate crimes, including those directed against people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, and intersex.”
Current Green Party candidates running in Minnesota:
• Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente—President and Vice President
• Farheen Hakeem—State Representative, District 61B
• Allan Hancock—State Representative, District 46B
• Colin Lee—State Representative, District 36A
www.gp.org/index.php
www.farheenhakeem.org
www.hancock4you.org
www.colin-lee.com
Most Green Party candidates in Minnesota are running for positions in the state House of Representatives. A link to their District Finder: http://geo.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/districts/start.html
