Natural Law Party
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The Natural Law Party is a trans-national political party with national branches in over 80 countries. The party is the political arm of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation movement.
The party bases its platform on the Transcendental Meditation view that natural law is the supreme organizing principle that governs the universe. All the problems of humanity are caused by people acting against the natural law. The Natural Law Party claims that it can realign humanity with this organizing priniciple through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, and all problems would disappear.
The UK Natural Law Party was founded by Beatle George Harrison.
In April of 2004, the Natural Law Parties of the United States and of the United Kingdom formally disbanded.
U.S. Natural Law Party
In the United States of America the Natural Law Party, led by Dr. John Hagelin, ran as a third party that was center-left. It took liberal positions on abortion and gay rights, promised that it had scientific solutions to combat social ills such as poverty, crime, racism, bigotry and came off as being politically moderate to conservative on economic issues.
In 2000 Hagelin made a bid to create an independent coalition between the Natural Law and Reform political parties, that failed when Patrick Buchanan took control of the Reform Party.
The Natural Law Party made some efforts between 2000 - 2004 to try and create an independent coalition of voters interested in election law reform. In 2002 the party endorsed Independence Party of Minnesota candidate for Governor; Tim Penny. In 2004 the Natural Law Party endorsed Democratic Party presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich for President. Not long afterwards the Natural Law Party headquarters announced that it was shutting down and many state chapters followed suit. Hagelin went on to start the US Peace Government.
It is not clear why the Natural Law Party dissolved. It was seen as one of the more organized third political parties in America, along with the Constitution Party, Green Party and the Libertarian Party. In 1996, it ran over 400 candidates in 48 states and was attracting support from Democrats, Repubicans and independents. One theory put forth is that the party dissolved over accusation that it was a front for a religious cult. In 2000, an organization called Tracenet published a exposé on the party in which it accused Hagelin of being a crackpot fraud and that far from being a secular, coalition building, center-left party, the Natural Law Party was secretly being run by Hindu fundamentalists that wanted to turn America into some type of theocratic dicatatorship.
See also
- Political parties of the world
- United States Natural Law Party
- Natural Law Party of Canada
- Natural Law Party of New Zealand
- Naturgesetzpartei (natural law party of Germany)
External link
- Homepage of the International Natural Law Party (http://www.natural-law.org/)
- GLBT Planet Out Interview (http://www.planetout.com/news/feature.html?sernum=158)
- Is the Natural Law Party a cult? (http://www.trancenet.org/nlp/index.shtml)
- U.S. Natural Law Party Platform 2000 (http://www.partyplatforms.com/naturallaw2000.html)