Whether by design, indifference or self-preservation, Trump has been mum – and is seemingly caught in the middle – at a time when powerful and polarizing forces care a lot about the party’s platform next week at the GOP convention in Cleveland.
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Meanwhile, well-funded advocates are pulling and tugging to soften the language of the GOP’s 2012 platform, which is “replete with disapproval of homosexuality”, the Times reports.
The draft, provided to CNN by members of the RNC’s Platform Committee, states, “We need better negotiated trade agreements that put America first”.
Boyd Matheson, former chief of staff to US Senator Mike Lee, president of Sutherland Institute and member of the 2016 GOP platform committee has partnered with Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, to promote a principle-centered platform reflective of the platforms of Abraham Lincoln.
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.
Four years ago, the platform called state court decisions legalizing same-sex marriage “an assault on the foundations of our society”.
The amendment passed easily by voice vote.
Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land, defending the rights of gay people to marry under the 14th amendment.
“This just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, the whole thing”, said Maryland delegate Ben Marchi, who also decried the group behind it, especially Singer.
“At this point in time, we don’t need it in the platform to make sure that it happens”, Mr. Stepanek said. One amendment was the one proposed by the American Unity Fund on same-sex marriage, and another enumerated gay people are the targets of radical Islamic terrorism as well as religious minority groups, women and “freedom-loving Americans”, Angelo said.
Republicans veered sharply to the right on immigration, family values and climate change as they crafted the party’s platform ahead of next week’s convention that will formally anoint Donald Trump as their White House nominee. That proposal, Angelo said, endorses the Utah compromise, which enacted state LGBT non-discrimination protections while allowing clerks to opt out of issuing marriage licenses if they object to same-sex nuptials. Rutledge said she doesn’t believe the platform should include those exceptions.
The platform committee was set to give its final approval to the draft late Tuesday afternoon.
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After Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican party conducted what it called the “most comprehensive post-election review” ever, a diagnosis of how the GOP lost and what it needs to change to have a broader appeal. The next step in the process is ratification by delegates at the Republican National Convention next week in Cleveland.
