Jill Stein ushered in the state Green Party; what you need to know about a pro-Obamacare group’s efforts in the Beehive State; and an LGBTQ+ group in the socially conservative bastion is gaining two or three members every day

In the wake of the inauguration of Donald Trump, folks deployed practices found in “Indivisible Guide - A practical guide for resisting the Trump agenda.” One of the tactics found therein is to use town halls to attract attention and gain media visibility. The groups organized a “Town Hall for All” in Cottonwood Heights, a Salt Lake City-area town.

As part of the event, leaders of 34 co-sponsoring groups spoke and tabled on what their organization is. Three were the Green Party of Utah, the Healthcare Rights Coalition and Queer Friends.

“Having a voice in government is great,” QF founder Libby Meyer said. “It was a great opportunity to inspire individuals to become more passionate about their issues.”

Green Party of Utah

The Green Party of Utah is gathering signatures to become official and will hold its convention June 24 at The Acoustic Space in Salt Lake City. (GreenPartyUtah.com)

At its April 29 meeting at Mestizo’s Coffeehouse, a Salt Lake location meant to be an incubator for social action, 17 individuals, many of whom had just marched about climate change or immigration, were there to vote on bylaws, second nominations and generally lay the groundwork for the party’s formation in advance of its convention. That is set for 1 to 4 p.m. June 24 at The Acoustic Space in Salt Lake City, where the party promises the election of new officers, a silent auction, guest speakers including Jill Stein, who ran for president last election cycle, a live DJ and nominations of candidates for the 2018 ballot, which include state and federal seats.

One of those candidates is Abrian Velarde, a native of Salt Lake County and “seventh-generation Giants fan” — he was wearing a jersey — who lived in Brooklyn during 9/11. He said he was going to start campaigning in May before officially filing in March.

“I know I’m the dark horse,” the candidate for Utah senate district 12 said. “(Incumbent) Daniel Thatcher, he’s a nice guy, but he’s done enough. It (will be) eight years.”

Velarde said he was upset that nobody has engaged 14,000 voters in the district that could be 65,000.

“Democracy is supposed to be more than two wolves and a sheep voting for what to have for dinner,” he said. Before the interview started, he told a fellow meeting attendee “my voting record for president has swung all over the place.”

Kim Murphy helped get Stein the 2,000 signatures she needed to get on the ballot in Utah. Murphy also raised funds and canvassed her neighborhood for Bernie Sanders. A vocal participant in the meeting, she is helping the party get 3,000 signatures, as she did during the climate march that same day, to become official, as she estimates 30 percent will not be able to count, she said.

When asked about folks’ reservations about the party because of its reputation for being socialist, she said it was more “eco-socialist.”

Brendan Hobbz Phillips was the statewide coordinator of the get-Stein-on-the-ballot initiative and gathered party signatures at the “Town Hall for All.” Early in the meeting, he was clear: for the marketing committee, “we need people,” he said.

“We need people promoting ourselves, marketing ourselves,” he added. “That is going to mean promoting our convention.”

Jill Stein, the 2012 and 2016 Green Party presidential candidate, is reportedly coming to Utah to speak at the state Green Party convention. (Gage Skidmore, The Rocky Mountain Collegian)

It’s a convention that was moved back two weeks to allow for Stein to appear. That ticket is $450, part of the reason the party wants to raise $1,000, Phillips said. $550 had been raised as of April 29, but most was meant for their fund for involvement in the 2017 Utah Pride Festival. Phillips acknowledged it may need to be re-allocated to the convention. The party raised $2 at the climate march, Ashlee Phillips said.

Phillips put forth a call for service on one of the national party’s 21 working committees. Eight nominations ensued, all passing, within seconds.

“We’re all so damn agreeable here,” Murphy responded.

Where they weren’t: when a debate ensued over a resolution requiring 51 or 67 percent of party delegates’ votes to allow for a grassroots coordinator position.

Going into the meeting, two folks had submitted for offices. By the end of the gathering, two hands raised in response to a call for last-minute filings, aside from those that occurred in the meantime. Leaving, there were two candidates for party chair, two for secretary and five for national delegate.

Phillips is on the national party’s ballot access committee, where he participates in a conference call every other week “about ballot access in America” besides responding to one or two emails each week, resulting in total involvement of perhaps two hours every other week, he said.

Healthcare Rights Coalition

“Disability doesn’t discriminate, but a for-profit healthcare system does,” Psarah Johnson said at a Healthcare Rights Coalition rally at the Utah Capitol. “Health savings accounts aren’t an option when you have nothing to save.”

On a damp evening in late March at the Utah Capitol Rotunda, Psarah Johnson gave many reasons for why she spoke at the organization’s “Protect Patients” program. It was meant to promote the Affordable Care Act over legislation like the one that on May 4 passed the House that many call health care reform disguised as tax reform and a protection of tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Among Johnson’s reasons:

“I want to honor those of us here in spite of pain.”

“Disability doesn’t discriminate, but a for-profit healthcare system does.”

“Health savings accounts aren’t an option when you have nothing to save.”

“We need to be taking care of the people who need it.”

After Johnson spoke, a Holladay, Utah resident recited a poem about how her father, who looks like a certain cultural icon, would die without health insurance, which would go away under the GOP plan.

“My future children… will not see him as Santa Claus,” she said. “I used to be grateful just to come home from elementary school and see him just watching Dr. Who.”

“I am no longer asking to see my dad smile,” she added. “I’m just asking to see him alive.”

right, Utahns Speak Out founder Madalena McNeil at a Healthcare Rights Coalition rally at the Utah Capitol. She said she was not a political advocate until after Donald Trump was elected president.

She then said that she called the office of resigning congressman Jason Chaffetz, telling about the man who used to tuck her in at night and tell her inspiration quotes taken from a Gatorade ad would die as a result of such legislation.

“(My daughter) will grow up knowing to grow up angry,” she said. “And she will have learned it from me.”

Stacy Stanford is the membership coordinator of the coalition and a Utahn who brought the organization to the state.

“President Trump said we get Obamacare if this doesn’t pass — make your calls,” she pleaded to attendees.

Later, at a rally on the 4th asking the Senate not to pass the bill the House sent them, Stanford spoke to fox13now.com.

“We’re mourning,” she said. “We’re sad about those whose lives are at risk.”

She noted she got messages from folks concerned about the legislation.

“Terrified people with severe disabilities and chronic illnesses,” she said. “I woke up to messages, ‘OK, so when do I lose my health care?’”

According to its Facebook page, “the Healthcare Rights Coalition believes healthcare is a human right. That every person regardless of gender, religion, race, creed, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, immigration status, existing physical or mental health disability or illness, deserve the same health care benefits and treatments as any other person. We believe that anyone seeking medical care should have equitable access to all that is medically and technologically available as soon as it is brought to market.”

The mission, on the Fb page: “The Healthcare Rights Coalition is dedicated to preserving the ACA (Obamacare) in whole and in part while improving upon its basic tenets and preserving health care for all. With current governmental changes happening at a rapid pace we intend to be vigilant in comparing proposed changes, repeals and replacement whether by suggestion or proposed legislation scrupulously and publicly through media, rallies, or lawful demonstration, and point out defects in those proposed changes that would result in less care, more expensive care, non-inclusive care or delayed care. Our members’ lives depend upon it.”

The Capitol program and Senate-appeal rally are among several other actions in which the organization has participated since the Trump inauguration.

Queer Friends

Queer Friends has gained nonprofit status. (Queer Friends via Meetup)

“We are normalizing queerness,” Meyer said from her new Salt Lake home, where she moved shortly after marrying her male-to-female transgender partner. QF also does “normal stuff” for the LGBTQ+ community, which has issues with alcoholism and drug abuse, she said.

QF gained nonprofit status in October, at its one-year anniversary.

“We announced it at our anniversary party,” said Meyer, the founder.

QF had 1,206 Meetup members as of June 4 and Meyer said that two to three members join every day. Half are active, as in, had login activity with the group on Meetup at least once per month.

The climb happened after Meyer recognized that Rainbow Girls, as an organization for lesbians, “was not a very comfortable place” to invite her “straight, hetero boyfriends” to a pub crawl. So she went looking for such a destination.

“I couldn’t find a single group where (queer) people came together,” she said. “I said, ‘hell, I’ll make one.”

Before Meyer stepped down as the head of QF, three goals were set in motion for the board: a scholarship program, an expansion of educational offerings and a youth mentoring program.

On the scholarship program, Meyer said the poverty rate is higher than average in the queer community, and the more you are intersectional, or have overlap with various social identities like race, gender, sexuality and class, the more likely you are to be unemployed or under the poverty line.

“So if a $5 movie night is a hardship, or it’s hard to get there because you cannot pay for gas, we want to create a scholarship program so those who have a need don’t need to worry about the cost of the event,” Meyer said. “Because we just want people to come, really.”

On the educational offerings, QF seeks to do more functions like the once-a-month Intelligent Conversations about Queer Stuff, where folks will talk about topics like gender identity, polyandrous relations and microaggression, Meyer said.

“It’s an academic opportunity,” she added. “We separated it from other activities because… we’d be talking about micoaggressions at the bar.”

On the youth mentoring program, QF seeks for functions like all-ages events and family picnics where youth would be matched a QF member who has been designated as a mentor, Meyer said. She mentioned doing a series of activities at the Volunteers of America youth center in Salt Lake City, which would include a game night, an Ask a Queer Question forum and a coloring activity that would allow a more comfortable place for youth to talk about difficult but “intelligent” issues as are done on a monthly basis generally by the group.

QF got political during the legislation session (as a 501(c)(3), it can support issues), when Meyer, organized a “let them pee” protest, indicating favor for transgender individuals going to the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. About a dozen chanted “one, two, three — let them pee!”

“You can only yell at the idiot box for so long without getting an answer back, whereas walking around the Capitol and having employees… asking us what the cause is and getting support from those people is really cool,” Meyer said, noting that an entire youth group stopped and watched in support.

“It was really cool to watch the next generation be so enthusiastic for trans rights,” Meyer remarked, adding that QF would “look for opportunities (for future events) as specific legislation comes about on a national level.” She noted that there is plenty of “queer lobbying” in Utah given Equality Utah, ACLU and the Pride Center, “but our experience is more about… our members having an opportunity to speak out.”

Libby Meyer is the founder of Queer Friends. (winutah.com)

“Bridge-building” is important for QF since many in the queer community will still enjoy racial and/or gender privilege — “gay men, it’s different for them as from a queer, trans woman of color,” Meyer said. Also, “a lot of misogyny is contained within drag,” she said, as “everything is exaggerated, with extremely large breasts” and “padded asses and things like that — it’s expressing femininity in a very limited context.”

Folks can donate to QF through cash donations at events (found on Meetup and Facebook), paypal.me/queerfriends, doing an individual yard sale, paying through Amazon Smile or through QF’s Facebook fundraiser. A goal was corporate donations, Meyer added.

“Many people have remarked that Queer Friends saved their life,” Meyer said, “as they realized through association with Queer Friends members that it is OK to be LGBTQ.”

Meyer encouraged everyone who signs up to attend an event to actually make it at least once.

Links to other groups:

Utahns Speak Out

Utah Indivisible

Salt Lake Indivisible

Alliance for a Better Utah

Lupus Foundation of America, Utah Chapter

Utah Moms for Clean Air

Athletes For Clean Air

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment

UTAH WOMEN UNITE

PANDOS

SLC Air Protectors

Planned Parenthood Action Council of Utah

Voterise

Utah Rivers Council

ACLU Utah

Utah Trout Unlimited

Indivisible Ogden

Indivisible Utah County

Wasatch Mountain Arts/Wasatch Mountain Film Festival

Iranian American Society of Utah

Utah Chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers

Mormon Environmental Stewardship Alliance

Coalition of 57

Fair Redistricting Caucus of Utah

Utah Chapter Sierra Club

Comunidades Unidas

Term Limits Convention — Utah

Constitution Party of Utah