Green Party Euro candidate Joseph Healy will be making LGBT History Month (1) a central plank of his 2009 Euro election campaign, promising to continue the Green Party’s long standing support for LGBT equal rights issues in the European Union. Dr. Healy will be attending the LGBT History Month pre-launch today (2). The event, which is being held this year in a Hackney school and backed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, is part of The National Anti-Bullying Week
Dr. Healy, who is aiming to join Green Party human rights campaigner Jean Lambert MEP in Brussels, said
"All across Europe, the Greens are at the forefront of the battle for LGBT rights.
“At this very moment, European Greens are helping to develop new anti-discrimination laws which will enshrine new equality rights for LGBT citizens across Europe.”
Commenting on LGBT History Month, Dr. Healy continued
“As a gay man and a candidate for the European Parliament for the Green Party, I am absolutely committed to LGBT History Month and am attending its pre-launch event tonight for the third year in succession.
"The pre-launch being held this year in a school is most appropriate, as homophobic bullying and prejudice often displays itself most openly in the school system. It is vital that LGBT school pupils and teens know their history and have a strong sense of how generations before them fought for their rights.
ENDS
(1) The LGBT History Month is similar event to Black History Month, and takes place in February each year. Although more recent that BHM, it has gained an increasingly high media profile and its aim is to highlight the achievements and struggles of the LGBT community in the past and to cast light on the lives of LGBT people, who were forced to live in the shadows. A major organisation has sponsored the pre-launch each year. Last year it was the judicial organisations of the state and the emphasis was on making the legal system more open and sympathetic towards the LGBT community, as well as ensuring employment possibilities for the community in the service. This year the emphasis is on education.
(2) The Hackney Free and Parochial Church of England School, Paragon Road, London E9