Lavender Caucus Report to CC
June 15, 2004
Report of Lavender Green Accomplishments in support of
the gay,lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexed and
queer communities.
* In December of 2002, the caucus discussed and
issued a press statement in opposition to the war in
Iraq noting our opposition as both glbtiq people and
Greens. The statement generated international press
coverage- including coverage in the largest
circulation glbtiq community publicantion in the U.S.,
the Advocate- and brought many new people to the party
and caucus in many parts of the country.
* We recieved many emails through our website as the
result of our anti-war statement including a large
number from Gay/Straight Alliances and glbtiq youth
groups in major cities around the country. the emails
generally requested information on how to contact
Green Party locals because the young people writing to
us said- “we believe what you believe” and “thank you
for giving voice to our concerns.”
* We help one another bring people together within
states to form Lavender Green affiliates that have
obtained official recognition from their state
parties. Our most recently organized and recognized
are Wisconsin, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
* We have organized and launched a
website(www.lavendergreens.org) to help link people to
caucuses in their area and help build participation
within and accessibility to the national caucus. it
also helps make the caucus officers particularly
accessible as there are links to each of our personal
email addresses from the site. It’s been great for
outreach and many Greens and glbtiq people send us
inquiries through the website. Some of our state
chapters have setup their own websites to which we
provide links. We also provide links to campaigns of
lavender greens running as Greens for office,
information on Lavender Greens elected to public
office, and information on Green races of particular
interest to the glbtiq community nationally.
* We have tabled at national events such as “The
Creating Change Conference” held every November by the
National Lesbian and Gay Task Force. Our national
Delegate, Starlene Rankin, and our caucus chair,
Brandon Lacy Campos, have led workshops at creating
change. We plan on expanding our presence at national
and international events this year. Currently plans
are underway for our presence at the International
Conference on Bisexuality at the beginning of August.
* We have purchased ads in targeted conference
brochures to demonstrate support for Green concerns in
the glbtiq community such as an ad purchased in the
“Pride At Work” convention brochure. “Pride At Work”
is an organizion of glbt and allied labor activists
within the AFL-CIO.
* Our Caucus Alternate Delegate, David Strand from
Minnesota, led two workshops on behalf of the caucus
at the Chicago Campus Greens Convention in 2001. He
is also coordinating a workshop during this
convention.
* Among our more active state chapters, the
Minnesota Lavender Greens have been very happy with
numerous successes they have had in getting glbtiq
issues forwarded by the party in the public sphere and
within the state party. Public policy achievements
have ranged from domestic partnerhsip and marriage
related items to a rewriting of restroom ordinances to
better accomodate gender diversity. The Minnesota
Lavender Greens are now pleased to be supporting
Lavender Green Jay Pond for Congress in Minneapolis
and working with others on a medical marijuana
initiative to be on the ballot in Minneapolis this
fall.
* California is another of our more active chapters
gaining significant coverage of passage of platfrom
changes making the Green Party of California the most
broadly supportive of sexual and gender minorities in
the state. Locally organized chapters in California
have been very active. The San Francisco Lavender
Greens have helped bring intersex issues forward in
the city among other accomplishments of note. The Los
Angles and San Diego chapters are particularly active
as well.
* Caucus Chair Brandon Lacy Campos spoke as a
representative of the Caucus at Creating Links:
Exploring the Queer Role in Resisting War in
Minneapolis in July 2003.
* On an ongoing basis, we help educate numerous Green
Party candidates and elected officials on glbtiq
issues generally and answered their questions and
inquiries. We also have entertained requests from
state parties and locals requesting information on
particular issues and concerns.
* We spread news of glbtiq community victories, both
internationally and locally, that have been
spearheaded by Greens.
* We issued our first endorsement of a Green Party
candidate for congress in Bob Kinsey’s race against
Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado. Marilyn Musgrave is the
author of the proposed constitutional amendment to ban
same sex marriage and we have used our endorsement to
draw attention to this race in the glbtiq community
around the country.
* We have distributed information about our many fine
Lavender Greens running as Green Party candidates for
all levels of offices including Terry Baum for
Congress in San Francisco and Jay Pond for Congress in
Minneapolis.
* We worked with the GP-US media committee to get
several press releases issued on glbtiq issues from
the party istelf including one on the landmark sodomy
case that set precendent last summer and another on
the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling supporting
equal marriage rights for same sex couples.
* Letters and statements of the National Lavender
Green Caucus have been printed in the Washington Blade
four times since February 2003. The Washington Blade
is one of the premier weekly nespapers of the LGBTIQ
community in the United States. Statements and
letters from the National Lavender Green Caucus have
also been printed in numerous local and statewide LGBT
publications across the nation.
* Lavender Greens have also supported statements
issued by other organizations by endorsing statements
when appropriate. This has helped build name
recognition for the Lavender Greens, supported work in
the glbtiq community which supports Green values and
goals, and educated glbtiq community members about
Green positions. Most recently, the caucus endorsed a
statement condemning the torture of detainees in Iraq
issued by Al-Fatiha- an international organization of
glbtiq muslims.
* We have established democratic processes within our
caucus to assure the widest possible input. Our
decisions are made mostly by email similiar to the CC.
Because this involves a volume of email that is
perhaps less than being on the CC but still more than
many care to have, we have developed a tiered email
system so our membership can choose the level of
participation which best suits their needs and
purposes.
* We have begun to elect representatives to GPUS
committees. We recently elected Starlene Rankin, Owen
Broadhurst, and Cyndi Norman as our representatives to
the GPUS Diversity Committee. We hope soon to elect
representatives to the International Committee.
Requests and communications from the international
glbtiq green community have increased and we hope to
be involved in the launching of a global glbtiq green
network.
* We are a learning organization. In the process of
doing the caucus’ work and working together with the
national party organization and state and local
parties, we have sought to be both practical(getting
the job done) and conscious of how certain actions set
precedent for not only the Lavender Greens but other
Diversity Caucuses. The Lavender Greens are
increasingly active in communicating with other
caucuses to share and learn from each other as well as
working on common concerns.
* Brandon Lacy Campos joined Mayor Jason West for a
fundraiser for the caucus and the national party in DC
this past spring.
* We are committed as a caucus to seeing to it that
we don’t leave behind the “b” for bisexual or the “t”
for transgender, the “i” for intersex, or the “q” for
queer. These communities issues are all too often
subsumed by the more visible gay and lesbian
communities issues in organizations that are supposed
to serve all in the glbtiq communities and we are
sensitive to that history of marginalization. We are
further committed to being inclusive of those whose
identities were displaced by the imposition of
heteronormativity through colonization and welcome and
support those whose identities don’t neatly fit into
our western categories but express sexual and/or
gender difference.
* We are a nexus point for members of the Lavender
Greens caucuses in various locales and states to share
information on their strategies and efforts for
activist actions, doing policy work within the party
and engaging lavender green locals and Green Parties
in actions supportive of glbtiq rights.
* We dispense information and have had much
discussion to educate one another about diverstiy
within our own community and caucus be it racial,
ethnic, religious, relationship praxis, disability,
gender identity, gender expression, gender
characteristics, sex, class, region, urban/rural,
nation of origning, etc. - and perhpas
surprisingly-sexual orientation.
The Elected Officers of the National Lavender Greens
Caucus:
Brandon Lacy Campos, Chair
Thomas Leavitt, Secretary (2003-2004)
Tim Casebolt, Secretary (current)
Starlene Rankin, National CC Delegate
John St. Denis, Treasurer
David Strand, National CC Alternate Delegate
Represenatives to GPUS Diversity Committee:
Owen Broadhurst
Cyndi Norman
Starlene Rankin
