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STORY: Joining the voices opposing war in Iraq is the Lavender Green Caucus. The caucus represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and inter-sex people in over 25 state Green Parties. Lavender Greens issued a statement yesterday stressing the dangers that the war would pose to human rights in general, and what they called the hypocrisy of the Defense Department's "Don't ask Don't tell" policy implemented under President Clinton. Member Brandon Lacy, helped draft the statement: "The United States is not a safe place for LGBT people and we haven't achieved equal rights and we're not willing to support and prop up a military industrial complex that is attempting to use LGBT people without recognition of our struggles and our equality." Lacy says in November 2002 the U.S. Army fired nine linguists for being gay, including six trained in Arabic. But with the Bush administration preparing for war on Iraq, the military's discharge of gay personnel will now likely be suspended. "If someone were to come out or if they discovered someone was homosexual in the military they would not be discharged during the war. Basically saying they could die for their country, but once the war is over and they've served, then they will be removed from the military. They're saying, you know that they're good enough to die for their country but they're not really good enough to serve during times of peace." The Lavender Greens join the United States Green Party in opposing a pre-emptive strike on Iraq as a violation of international law. They support the right to self-determination of Iraqi people. E-mail Renee Feltz at chickpea_@ziplip.com . This story was broadcast on January 8, 2003.