The Republican platform committee finished drafting the party blueprint Tuesday, ahead of the Republican National Convention’s official kickoff in Cleveland next week.
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The meeting, which was aired live on C-SPAN, was mostly quiet as she introduced her amendment to replace hostile language in the platform about marriage for same-sex couples with language that would acknowledge “there are diverse and sincerely held views on marriage within the party and that support for allowing same-sex couples the freedom to marry has grown substantially in our own party”.
Rachel Hoff, an openly gay defense lobbyist for a center-right policy center, was among the GOP platform committee members who gathered Monday to shape the party’s platform.
CNN contributor Jeffrey Lord argued Thursday that Donald Trump’s support of the Republican Party platform was not as “hostile” to the LGBT community as last month’s massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
“Sitting in these platform committees was the first time I’ve ever considered leaving the party”, Hoff said.
“The idea of a border fence has been in our platform for many, many years and just changing the word from fence to wall is what they did and maybe it was a little hat tip to Donald Trump on that issue and that’s fine”. This raises the possibility that the more LGBT-friendly or LGBT-neutral language favored by a minority of the Platform Committee – but thought to be more palatable to a wider audience of Republicans – could be put to a vote of the full convention. The draft platform embraced a number of staunchly conservative positions on abortion, gun rights and immigration reform. He said the process was much easier for his group than in 2012, when GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign and party leaders tried to tamp divisive stands on social issues in the platform.
But some have also said his relative silence is helpful to them.
Graves later told BuzzFeed News in an interview that the platform committee included “frustrated policy wonks” and that the platform was getting too long and complicated to share with the average voter. “We have the ability to accept it or reject it. In my personal opinion I think it should be simplified, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to go my way”. And as such she says its failing. “I’ve always known Republicans are opposed to marriage equality”. My commitment to this party is really, really deep.
Chris Barron, a gay conservative strategist, said the platform is a document with few teeth.
Some pro-life leaders are now urging the Republican Party to include defunding Planned Parenthood in the platform, says Created Equal spokesman Mark Harrington. He watched those issues founder in George W. Bush’s second term.
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Mijente in Action, a group that calls itself “a new political home for Latinx and Chicanx organizing”, has started a campaign called “Wall Off Trump”, which is raising funds to construct a 15,000- foot banner wall around Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena, the site of the 2016 GOP convention.
