Republican Platform Swings Far to the Right & Attacks Queer Rights

On Tuesday, Republicans moved toward adopting a very, very, very conservative platform that takes a traditionalist view of the family, bars military women from combat, describes coal as a “clean” energy source, threatens to take away queer rights, and declares pornography a “public health crisis.”

As we waited for the platform to emerge just before the national convention this weekend, we expected anti-queer rhetoric, but didn’t expect the party to sprint as hard and as quickly to the right. Within the platform ranks is a provision that calls for a Constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. Another supports the practice of conversion therapy, which is both scientifically and medically unsound.

Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, a Republican National Convention delegate from Louisiana, spearheaded the conversion therapy amendment, which claims it’s “the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy for their minor children” without interference.

It didn’t stop there.

A proposal to bar publicly funded adoption agencies from giving custody of children to gay couples, was met with a passionate argument to throw the proposal aside by Annie Dickerson, an adviser to pro-queer billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer.

“We need children to be adopted, so hooray to the gay community for trying to raise children in a happy and stable home,” Dickerson said. “I object to allowing patent discrimination against gays over the right to adopt…This is blatant discrimination and should not be in our platform.”

Despite her argument, the measure passed.

Annie wasn’t alone in a room filled with people who passed a these measures, as well as another that “salutes” North Carolina for passing its bathroom bill.

Washington, D.C., delegate Rachel Hoff is the only openly gay delegate on the 112-member platform committee. Her plea for toned-down language on the marriage issue also fell on deaf ears.

“We’re your daughters, your sons, your neighbors, colleagues and the couples you sit next to you in church,” Hoff said, fighting back tears. “Freedom means freedom for everyone, including for gays and lesbians.”

Her proposal was shot down after almost no debate, according to The Hill.