Georgia Expelled for Standing Up for Women's Rights by self-proclaimed feminist political party
Georgia Expelled for Standing Up for Women's Rights
by self-proclaimed feminist political party
In voting which concluded this morning at 3am Eastern, the Green National Committee revoked the accreditation of the Georgia Green Party as a member state party of the Green Party of the United States. The final vote tally was 119 Yes, 17 No and 6 Abstain.
The vote was the result of a complaint filed by the National Lavender Caucus against the Georgia party accusing the Georgia party of “transphobia” for a platform amendment adopted at the state party's 2020 Bonaire Convention, held on February 22d of last year. The amendment endorsed the Declaration on Women’s Sex Based Rights, an international campaign that has obtained 19,078 signatures from 138 countries and 358 organizations. The Declaration supports privacy rights of women and girls to female only spaces such as changing rooms, communal showers, shelters, and jails, as well as female only programs such as sports programs, special scholarships and set-asides that aim to secure equal opportunity for the female sex. The Declaration also advocates for the protection of gender non-conforming children from experimental treatments that will likely render them sterile and cause other permanent harms.
to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it.
In 2021 the Green National Committee tells us they must
destroy the Green Party in order to save it.
A Minority Report from Accreditation Committee member Jeff Sutter paints his committee's upholding the Lavender Caucus complaint and referring it to the National Committee as having glossed over, "a reality that's psychologically, medically, and politically more complex" than proponents for expulsion have painted it. He found, ‘the positions taken by Georgia were not transphobic” and that Georgia had a “long history of empowering individuals and groups from oppressed communities.”
Indeed, the Georgia Party’s platform amendment endorsing the Declaration reflected an attempt to balance the conflicting rights claims of both sides:
"We believe that it is possible for responsible policy makers to weigh the conflicts between existing law and the demands of those campaigning for the legal protections of trans-identified individuals, and to find nuanced approaches which will protect the latter without gutting from the former the gains that women have made for the protection of the sex-based rights of women under the law."
Sutter also found that there were multiple authoritarian abuses of democratically agreed to rules of the national party; perhaps most significantly, a refusal, over objection to enforce the recusal rule, respect for which would have left the original motions on accepting the complaint failing for lack of a quorum. Also at play was an ongoing campaign of abuse, bullying and harassment of those holding dissenting views.
In her brief in "Defense of the Georgia Green Party to the Complaint of the Lavender Caucus", Ann Menasche, counsel assisting the Georgia Green Party in their defense, characterizes "(t)he Lavender Caucus's Complaint (as) full of misstatements of facts and half-truths, and smears based on nothing more than 'guilt by association' . . . This shameful persecution echoes the notorious methods utilized by the McCarthy witch-hunt of the mid-20th century”.
"Last week's vote, built on a record of repeated due process violations, has made it clear that the members of the national committee are neither prepared to govern nor to serve as 'responsible policy makers' in a democracy," said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party and a lead sponsor of the platform amendment at the heart of the controversy. The Georgia Green Party has been supported in its defense efforts by a broad coalition of hundreds of Greens across the nation (and around the world), many operating as a Dialogue Not Expulsion Caucus, which has given rise, as well, to a new Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights expected to soon announce the launch of its website.
"The vote of the National Committee does not represent the views of rank-and-file members of our party.” Sutter said. "This vote is the result of authoritarian actions across our party to silence dissent, to threaten and remove anyone in our party who fails to agree to a narrow and dogmatic view of transgender rights.” Sutter served as a Delegate of the Indiana Green Party to the National Committee until the publication of his Minority Report at which point the incoming leadership of the Indiana party autocratically removed him, without notice, due process or consultation with the Indiana state committee, from the National Committee nearly a month before the end of his term.
Advocates for Georgia have characterized the vote as a blow to the national Party’s long-held commitment to feminism. "The position of the Georgia party is far more consistent with the letter and spirit of our national party platform than is that of the Lavender Caucus which relied on a narrow misinterpretation of a single sentence in our platform," said Ms. Menasche. "We have apparently failed to conduct the political education necessary to integrate new Greens into our party's historic commitment to the liberation of women. It’s heart-breaking to watch as our party is captured, as have been so many organizations on the left, by this misogynist ideology."
"We remain confident that Green voters are still prepared to rally around the independent and majoritarian politics we offer which places sanity, material reality and the long term interests of our families, our communities, our global neighbors and our planet at the heart of its work," said Esco who has spent three decades so far building the Green Party. "The Evergreening of our national party, culminating in last week's vote ended an abusive relationship, but not the intention of the Georgia Green Party to offer the people of Georgia candidates worthy of their vote and trust."
– 30 –
For background, please peruse the following links, . . .
