John Anthony La Pietra

Disagree

I support using national and international law to protect living humans from death by execution, nuclear war, torture, criminal action, enviromental threats, and other unnatural causes. I also support comprehensive single-payer health care for all, which can prevent or postpone some deaths from natural causes. But I would leave decisions about pregnancies to the pregnant woman, her medical caregivers, and others she chooses to consult.

Helping a student who *ASKS* relevant staff for counseling or aid, medical or otherwise, in handling the situation *AS THE STUDENT CHOOSES*.

Strongly Agree

A nation's government is responsible for making sure all the nation's people can meet their needs -- as far up Maslow's hierarchy as the nation can go.

I support it. Strongly.

Agree

I don't see them as any more essential than comparable tenets of other faiths, and would tend not to display them. However, if they are displayed, those other faiths must be represented -- and their core beliefs displayed -- as prominently and clearly. (It might be a surprise to some to find out how many parallels there are among religions.)

Strongly Agree

But not *ONLY* Christianity . . . and there is the old saying about my right to swing my arms ending just short of your nose. (Rights are hardly ever absolute precisely because rights conflict in many situations.)

Agree

Perhaps a teacher could be let off from teaching a portion of curriculum they find objectionable -- *IF* they agree to let someone else teach that part of the curriculum (possibly with a comparable portion of salary shared) -- and to avoid, while they are in any school role, contradicting the lessons they refuse to teach.

Yes, it is very important. Without US aid and support, Israel would likely not have felt safe in committing genocide in Gaza.

Strongly Disagree

In seeking "full-spectrum dominance" while allying with too-big-to-be-allowed-to-fail (but failing) corporations, the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank) Complex has weakened our people's lives and livelihoods, our country's reputation and standing in the world, and ironically our military strength as well.

Strongly Disagree

I support strong public support of public education -- at all levels, from all levels. This includes a significant role by Federal and state governments in helping local schools: * provide and pay for programs that maintain equity among communities; * uphold standards for depth and breadth of education offered; and * meet needs that local governments can't afford to meet for their mutual constituents.

Disagree

Public funds should pay for public education. Those who want to support private education should find the funding for it -- either paying for it themselves or raising non-public funds to cover the cost. I would consider a proposal to give parents who want to home-school their own children (in their own homes or perhaps facilities open to the general public, like libraries) some portion of basic per-capita school funding to support that activity, with public schools keeping the rest.

It's hard to answer this without a list of what courses are "such as" Comprehensive Sex Education.

Strongly Agree

All these subjects are worthy of including or covering in K-12 public schools. I might suggest combining Critical Race Theory -- with its focus on considering how laws, rules, and practices in our society may not be neutral in their effect on or application to people of different races -- with Political Activism (in a non-partisan, not just bi-partisan, sense) into a course or study arc titled Critical Thinking. Civics could also be connected with or incorporated into this topic.

Disagree

Children have a right to age-appropriate protection from age-inappropriate actions. Others merit parallel protections as well. However, I see the "definition" of sexual grooming above as considerably overbroad.

Disagree

I have been in such a marriage for 13 years now, and happy all that time with my wife and two daughters. I value our family greatly -- but I do not believe it is the only form of family that can lead to well-being, prosperity, or happiness . . . for us or for our society.

Disagree

If a child's relationship with a parent is healthy, consultation and even consent are appropriate. But we cannot always presume this is the case -- especially with some controversial diagnoses or treatments.

I was born and raised Catholic (Worker). These days, I see myself as curious about other beliefs – and mostly non-practicing, except when I look back to re-read select passages of the Bible and contemplate the Prayer of Saint Francis: God, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Savior, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Agree

As long as photos and other acceptable forms of identification are provided at the time a person registers or re-registers to vote, a photo ID at the polls should not be necessary. (To my understanding, vote fraud by individual voters is rare. I would focus more on stopping more damaging and potentially larger-scale cases of fraud by election administrators. For maximum security, I would recommend paper ballots, hand-marked whenever possible, and counted by hand in public.)

Agree

Ideally, factors that don't really matter to someone's ability to do a job or fill a position should not be allowed to matter in the selection process. But we're not yet in that ideal world. We can only get there by paying attention now to the systemic effects of past discrimination (personal and structural).

Disagree

As millions saw and heard in the recent Olympics competitions, "biological" males and females are not always so easily defined and distinguished. Exceptions to the "biological" rules are generally not too frequent, and people honestly presenting themselves as such exceptions should be treated fairly as innocent until proven guilty -- just as honest people who present as their originally-assigned genders. Abusers motivated by sex or gender (among other things) also come in all shapes and sizes.

2014 General Election 2016 General Election 2018 General Election 2020 General Election 2022 General Election

I believe I have voted in every general election since I came of voting age in 1976. However, I have been an active Green Party member since 2000, and I do not have an allegiance to either Democrats or Republicans. Since Michigan has had at least a semi-open primary for all that time, I have voted in most if not all regular and Presidential primaries -- on whichever side I thought my vote could have more and better effect.

No.

No.

Choose not to answer

Even before I joined the Green Party -- which sometimes uses as a motto the phrase "Neither left nor right, but forward" -- I have been doubtful about the value of viewing anyone's political preferences as matching any one point on a single line.

Disagree

Anyone who carries a gun on school grounds must be held responsible for the harms caused by any actions taken with their guns, whether they took those actions or not. And yes, that includes law enforcement as well as school staff. I would add that I support the agenda of End Gun Violence -- Michigan: https://www.endgunviolencemi-action.org/issues

Requiring vaccinations against a disease should be considered as a policy option whenever there is a genuine public-health risk . . . and a valid public-health plan including true sterilizing vaccines (as well as non-sterilizing but protective treatments and non-pharmaceutical interventions) provided at no or truly minimal cost, indicated safe by the best available testing and research, unbiased by financial/professional conflicts of interest, and with protections for vulnerable populations.