Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyThis commentary is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin.
September 2nd, 2008
The New York Times has polled the delegates to the Republican and the Democrat national conventions and compared their positions with those of the voting members of their party. Invariably, on each issue (with one exception) the demographics broke down as follows (from most conservative to least):
Republican Delegates
Republican Voters
All Voters
Democratic Voters
Democratic Delegates
However, quite surprisingly there was one issue in which the Republican Delegates proved to be slightly less conservative than Republican voters at large: recognition for gay couples.
Republican voters support marriage with 11%, civil unions with 28%, and no recognition with 57%. Fewer delegates support marriage (4%), but many more support civil unions (43%). Astonishly, more Republican delegates support recognition of same sex couples (49%) than do not (46%).*
Sadly, while that survey is unexpected good news, it is not reflected in the platform of the Republican Party. Although civil unions are not mentioned by name, they seem implicit in the following language:
Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives. [emphasis mine]
The anti-gay languages continues for several more paragraphs and homophobic sentiment is reflected throughout the platform. It really is a nasty document.
Traditionally, the platform of the Republican Party has been turned over to the extreme right of the Party and mostly ignored by candidates and local party activists. In fact, in several instances the 2008 platform takes a position that is directly contrary to the stated position of the presidential candidate.
But if this survey is accurate, perhaps with time and with a growing national support for gay and lesbian Americans, there will come a day when concessions are not made to intolerance and the party platform of both parties will be neither shameful nor discriminatory.
* More than half of Democrats who expressed an opinion, both party and voters, support marriage.
(hat tip to reader Charles)
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cany
September 2nd, 2008
I don’t find this surprising in either case. Remember, in the case of the GOP, many if not most of the platform makers are hard right Christians (still–sigh).
This STILL has to do with the religious right. And if you think they are backing off any time soon, you are wrong. Palin, for instance, comes from a VERY hard right religious background and embraces that thinking to this day (Assemblies of God). AOG are Biblical literalists and as hard right (and also becoming more and more militant… do some reading about Joel’s Army at Hatewatch.com) as you can get.
In regards to the GOP, what people seem to forget time and time again (and who wouldn’t want to?) is that the religious right attack dogs don’t let go. And they CANNOT change position because of their Biblical literalism.
The VP, for instance, was picked for two reasons: 1) she is a woman (read McCain=panderer), and 2) she is a literalist, creationist evangelical (read pander to the hard evangelical right). He had to cement that vote, which now, as it turns out, it would appear he did not do. He most certainly did not meet his first reason (1), above as yesterday’s polling CLEARLY shows.
I mean, Lordy: When Phillis Schlafly doesn’t like Palin (remember–this strict bunch believes the Bible demands women be homemakers) and is pissed off, that gives you some idea where issues stand.
Until and unless the GOP moves away from the hard religious right (and that doesn’t appear to be happening contrary to some popular opinion, though McCain DID try to move away from them but his overall weak support, generally, wouldn’t allow that to stand), don’t expect their platform to change or expect meaningful change in the GOP.
Won’t happen.
Lynn David
September 2nd, 2008
Clear as an Alaskan glacial-fed stream.
Jen
September 2nd, 2008
I have been saying this forever but I’ll say it again. The Republicans need to take back their party from the Christian conservatives. Reagan brought them in and it has messed up the party ever since. I am not abandoning the party but I don’t have to vote for them either.
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