July 11th, 2016
According to Zeke Miller, political reporter for Time magazine, a Republican Platform Subcommittee on Healthcare, Education, and Crime, has approved a plank offered by the Family “Research” Council’s Tony Perkins:
An amendment offered by the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins offered support for the controversial practice of “conversion therapy” for children who identify as LGBT.
“We support the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy, for their minor children,” the amendment said. Perkins originally drafted a more explicit embrace of the practice, but amended the text after consultations with top RNC officials. Perkins’ amendment, which passed the subcommittee, also calls for legislation to require parental consent for minor women to cross state lines for the purposes of obtaining an abortion.
Perkins is an official GOP delegate from Louisiana.
The subcommittee also recommended platform amendments calling internet porn “a public health crisis,” and it reportedly strengthened language opposing marriage equality. Miller doesn’t say what the new language consists of. He also reports that a separate Subcommittee on Restoring Constitutional Government has approved its own language opposing same-sex marriage. Miller also reported on the debate over the so-called “bathroom bills”:
The subcommittee also considered several “bathroom” amendments following the ongoing controversy in North Carolina which requires transgender individuals to use bathrooms as their birth gender, rather than how they identify. “I think this takes us to a dark place,” (New York delegate Annie) Dickerson said. “It shrinks our tent. We should be about addition not subtraction,” she added. West Virginia National Committeewoman Melody Potter disagreed, speaking in favor of amendments to echo the North Carolina law, which has sparked a backlash in the state, “nobody wants to discriminate against anybody, but I think it’s an issue of safety.” The measure ultimately passed.
Dickerson is a longtime fundraiser for Paul E. Singer’s conservative think tank that has been pushing for more support for LGBT equality in the Republican Party.
Dallas Morning News reporter Lauren McGaughy adds that “the same subcommittee approved platform language that opposes prekindergarten, supports the teaching of the Bible as a literature elective in all public schools and calls for a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution” to “give parents the right to direct their children’s education, a tacit critique of the English language and math standards known as Common Core.”
The full Platform Committee is set to begin taking up subcommittee recomendations later this afternoon, with the final draft expected to be completed tomorrow afternoon.
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Hunter
July 12th, 2016
“nobody wants to discriminate against anybody”
Excuse me? Lady, it’s what you do. Why do you think Tony Perkins is on the platform committee?
JEM
July 12th, 2016
Hunter, Melody Potter did say “but,” so she knows they are discriminating. It seems unfortunate there aren’t more Annie Dickersons on the committee, and indeed leading the party.
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