The Green Party is constantly reviewing our policy platforms as new information becomes available so that we can use the latest information in making an educated decision on the best way to govern.

In some respects, our society has moved toward realizing the ideals of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that we are all created equal, and that we all have equal rights under the law. In other respects, however, these goals continue to elude us. Differences of class, race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, and other ways of being, continue to stack the deck against many members of society, and society as a whole is the poorer for it.

These truths about our society today are self-evident:

1. A person born into poverty does not have a chance to thrive equal to a person born into wealth.
2. A person born into an abusive or neglectful home environment does not have a chance to thrive equal to a person raised in a comfortable, nurturing home environment.
3. A child sent to a poor, run-down school with overcrowded classes, poorly paid teachers and outdated textbooks does not have an opportunity equal to a child sent to a well-funded, well-equipped school with small class sizes, well-paid teachers and modern tools of learning.
4. Despite considerable progress, a person with a skin color other than white still must confront institutional barriers, negative assumptions and expressions of hostility today that a person with white skin rarely has to confront.
5. Despite considerable progress, women must still confront institutional barriers, “good old boy” networks, insidious biases, sexual harassment, and both physical and political attacks on their person that men generally do not have to confront.
6. Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people are often subjected to violent hatred and brazen discrimination without much legal protection.
7. Persons of different nationalities, religions, or non-religious beliefs, persons with disabilities and persons who simply have a physical appearance that differs from the “conventional” still face prejudice and persecution.
8. Notwithstanding the fact that there are many police officers who perform their duties responsibly, all of us may potentially have our rights violated by police agencies that are institutionally encouraged to mistake repressive and sometimes brutal practices for zealous law enforcement and by the courts that increasingly give tacit approval to such practices.

To deny these realities is to allow them to persist and reproduce. The evils of social inequality, prejudice, bigotry and hatred must be recognized, rooted out and combated, both politically and in our daily lives, if we are to attain the promise in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and live the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King.

The Illinois Green Party is dedicated to that battle for social justice. We are defenders of civil liberties and human rights, and proponents of social equality. We stand with all Americans who hold the view that diversity should be celebrated, not made a basis for oppression, mistrust or hatred. And we are dedicated to transforming these values into political action.

To some extent, these values are advanced by other sections of this platform. Working people of all races, both male and female, can and should unite around their common interests to attain full and equal economic opportunity for all, quality health care and education for all, and a healthy environment for all living things. To the extent that these goals are realized, working people will be less prone to be divided against, and scapegoat, one another along the lines of race, sex or other differences.

However, the evils of discrimination and prejudice must still be confronted directly on the political field as well. Toward that end, the Illinois Green Party supports the following measures:

1. Strengthen the Illinois Department of Human Rights with more and better-trained investigators and legal staff. Authorize the Department to conduct independent investigations of discriminatory lending, housing and employment practices statewide, including the use of “testers” of different races.
2. Provide adequate funding to our public legal services agencies that serve low-income people and authorize them to handle civil rights cases.
3. Halt racial profiling by making it illegal and setting up a state program to monitor police practices regarding traffic stops and arrests. Strengthen Fourth Amendment law with legislation to make trumped-up traffic stops illegal.
4. End the racist “war on drugs” and the unofficial campaign to incarcerate young black males.
5. Defend affirmative action in higher education – while working to make higher education freely available to all who need it.
6. Make “welfare to work” programs realistic: Provide real support that can enable single parents to survive, with child support, transportation and other social support, so that they can obtain meaningful job training and conduct a meaningful search for a job that can support a family. Hire more social workers to give the down-and-out meaningful, one-on-one assistance and attention.
7. Aggressively enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act and implement the Olmstead decree (a Supreme Court ruling requiring all States to provide a range of housing options to people with disabilities) in Illinois. Provide living assistance, support services and transportation assistance to our disabled brothers and sisters so that they can fully participate in our society.
8. Improve public health research for afflictions that primarily harm minorities and women.
9. Provide full, explicit, anti-discrimination protection and equal rights for gays, lesbians, bi-sexual and transgender persons, including the right to marry, by amending the Illinois Human Rights Act. We recognize that another valid approach to the question of marriage rights would be to remove government from any association with “marriage” altogether, limit government’s role to the recognition of “civil unions” only, without regard to sexual orientation, and recognize “marriage” as a purely religious matter, to be defined by each religious denomination as it sees fit.
10. Honor and enforce treaties with Native Americans.
11. Eradicate environmental racism.
12. Support passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
13. Make every child a wanted child: Defend and support women’s full right to reproductive choice – including genuine social support for those who choose to bear children, affordable access to safe abortion for those who do not, and better sex education and access to contraception for all. We are motivated by considerations of gender equity and civil rights, consistent with Green Party values.

The right to privacy and women’s (and men’s) right to control their bodily integrity are protected by our Constitution. Government should not be permitted to impose its will, or the tenets of any particular philosophical doctrine, on society, and we advance the view that this should be a matter of individual conscience.

On the other hand, many in the Green Party oppose the practice of abortion, motivated by a “consistent ethic of life” (a commitment to the protection of life on the planet, which is threatened in today’s world by war, poverty, environmental degradation, racism, capital punishment, abortion and euthanasia). The Ten Key Values of the Green Party are certainly consistent with this philosophy. We want to protect life, especially human life, and enhance the quality of that life.

We acknowledge that people on both sides of the abortion “divide” are motivated by deeply held principles. We should not let the abortion issue divide people of good will, but should promote a unified struggle to create conditions that will make abortion increasingly unnecessary and rare.

We also acknowledge that people on each side of the abortion “divide” don’t always agree with each other, and that there are complex sub-issues. While no reasonable person can deny that the human embryo and fetus are living, reasonable people can disagree as to the point at which the embryo or fetus becomes sufficiently developed to be a “person” protected by law.

However, both sides recognize the need to act to protect the health and safety of the mother. There is also broad agreement that abortion is the least preferred method for preventing the birth of an unwanted or unplanned child. On this basis, we can bridge the divide: We can stop making abortion such a divisive issue by working together to reduce the incidence of abortion – but without criminalizing it.

The unifying goal should be to help men and women avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place and help make every child a wanted and well-supported child. We can enhance women’s right to full reproductive choices by improving women’s (and men’s) economic opportunities, by working toward the goal of promoting full employment at living wage (or better) jobs. As described elsewhere in our Platform, if the economic and social policies advocated by the Illinois Green Party were adopted, they would ensure that every child raised in America would be guaranteed a good material start in life, with a home, adequate and nutritious food, quality health care, and quality education.

Such a quality education must include comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education and free family planning services for young adults. We support free access to, and promotion of, contraception, including “morning after” or emergency contraception. We need to provide genuine societal support for single mothers who do choose to bear children, so they can provide a nurturing home environment for their children through infancy before having to return to the workforce.

Through these policies, we can reduce the incidence of abortion while still respecting women’s right to choose.

The Illinois Green Party opposes the many attacks on our civil rights and liberties, and the unauthorized and unconstitutional consolidation of executive power that have been imposed on our people, as well as people of other nations, in recent years. These include:

1. The USA Patriot Act and the use of “national security letters.”
2. The Real ID Act.
3. Domestic spying on American citizens, except as supported by probable cause and a warrant, consistent with our Fourth Amendment.
4. The Military Commissions Act and the general undermining of the fundamental right of habeas corpus.
5. The Protect America Act of 2007.
6. The use of presidential “signing statements” to undermine duly passed legislation.
7. The attempted legalization and/or rationalization, and use, of torture.
8. The practice of extraordinary rendition.
9. The FBI’s InfraGard program, which partners the agency with large corporations for domestic spying purposes, in exchange for security “threat” information.
10. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which, despite its name, is aimed at monitoring and possibly criminalizing a broad range of unconventional political speech and activism.