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Brighton’s Greens publish ‘gay manifesto’
Tuesday 20 March, 2007
Brighton and Hove’s Green Party has shown its pink credentials by drawing up a 15 point manifesto for the LGBT community.
While it’s a welcome and radical move, it’s quite a wise one considering the sizeable gay community. Rough estimates reckon the seaside city has an LGBT community of 35,000 people, or 13% of the total population.
Introducing the Green LGBT Manifesto, Phelim Mac Cafferty, spokesperson for the Brighton and Hove LGBT Green Party Group, said, “We pride ourselves on being the only local party standing in the upcoming council elections in Brighton and Hove to produce a comprehensive 15 point manifesto for LGBT people.
“We’ve done this because we care passionately about the quality of life in our city for the LGBT communities. We hope LGBT people can see what a Green vote means in the 3rd May city council elections which are so important for the future direction of Brighton and Hove, renowned as the ‘gay’ capital of England.”
The Brighton Greens have also been heavily involved in the campaign against ‘Murder Music’ (songs which incite violence against women and gay men). In 2006, due to pressure from the Greens and Peter Tatchell, the council threatened to withdraw the licence of Concorde 2 if it allowed Buju Banton – a Jamaican singer known for his controversial homophobic lyrics – to enter stage. Consequently, the concert was cancelled.
The Green Party’s 15 pledges to the city’s LGBT communities ahead of the May 2007 city council elections are:
(1) Build on the Green-led campaign against the 30% cuts to the HIV/Aids budget to ensure that the special needs and profile of Brighton and Hove are recognised by NHS budget commissioners.
(2) Campaign for increased supported housing for those in vulnerable situations – whether homeless, poorly-housed or suffering harassment or domestic violence.
(3) Increase the council’s grants to community and voluntary sector groups by 5%
(4) Encourage the city’s record stores to remove all hate or ‘murder’ music.
(5) Ensure the effective targeting of social care, housing and health services – including HIV/Aids support and mental health services – to all members of the LGBT community who need it.
(6) Raise the profile of the needs of older LGBT people. This would also benefit the whole LGBT community, through developing community belief in our own future.
(7) Greens pledge to send all education workers guidance on their responsibilities to ensure LGBT pupils are protected from bullying.
(8) Provide head teachers with training on how to create safe and inclusive environments for LGBT staff and students.
(9) Ensure LGBT issues are monitored in all teaching recruitment.
(10) Reinstate back to full-time the schools anti-bullying officer cut by 40% in hours by the Council’s Labour-LibDem budget.
(11) Ensure that all schools include LGBT issues in their equal opportunities and anti-bullying policies and procedures.
(12) Invest (with the police and other crime-prevention agencies) in specific research into hate crime prevalence and perceptions of safety within the LGBT community so that hate crime trends reduce.
(13) Prioritise the protection of council staff from homophobic bullying and other prejudice-fuelled harassment through accepting the recommendations of the equalities scrutiny committee and ensuring a LGBT dedicated officer post.
(14) Campaign for the reinstatement of the recently-deleted Corporate Head of Equalities Post.
(15) Prioritise a green transformation of the St James’s St street scene, the ‘unofficial gay village’ which reflects the various communities who live and use the area on the model of London’s China Town.
And you think the BNP is bad, now we are going to have a “gay green’s only zone”.
Its a shame there more Polish people in Kempton than gays.
Maybe they can chagen the street signs into Polish with some nice rainbow lettering to keep them help too.
Sod the rest of us who have to pay for it.
They’ve missed out several points that could further enhance the activities of the LGBT community (poofters to you and I).
1). Free condoms to be issued on request – only for bum bandits and fudge packers. (Evidence of preferred activity required to avoid hetero-sexuals taking unfair advantage of this scheme).
2). Anal lubricant dispensers to be affixed to all trees in public parks.
3). All public toilets to have holes pre-drilled through the walls in between the cubicles. Two sizes to be made available as standard ….a) smaller ones for viewing and b) larger ones for ”activities”.
4). All bus shelters to be equipped with privacy areas to enable poofs to snog each other in comfort.
5). Pink minature poodles to be available free from the Local Authority to enable fairies to maximise their ‘street cred’ when camping it up in public.
6). Free elocution lessons in all schools and colleges to assist younger camp screamers to squeal ”Oooooh ducky” convincingly. These free lessons to be coupled with deportment classes to enable drag queens to mince convincingly down the High Street.
7).Free issue doggy food, and diamonte collars and leads to be used with pink poodles (see 5 above).
8 ). 100% Local Authority funded discounts to be applied to all wigs, make-up and female clothes used by drag queens. (Proof of poofyness required at point of purchase).
9). Er …… that’s it !!!
BTW … for all those who want to hurl accusations of homophobia at me – don’t bother as I couldn’t really care less.
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