GOP Platform

Section 6 of the GOP platform, simply titled “Great American Families, Education, Healthcare, and Criminal Justice,” includes a section on “Marriage, Family, and Society.”  This section seems to use the benefits of children being raised in a two-parent home to take a giant leap into rolling back LGBT rights.  The entire section is worth a read, but I’d like to bring one paragraph to your attention:

“Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in this platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states. We oppose government discrimination against businesses or entities which decline to sell items or services to individuals for activities that go against their religious views about such activities.”

Let’s examine the statement in three parts:

1. Only heterosexual partnerships should be recognized by the government, because we believe that the only “correct” to raise children is in a household with one man and one woman.
2. We refuse to accept the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States.
3. We support the right of businesses to discriminate against a certain group of people.

This is not simply Donald Trump making crude comments.  This isn’t one bad apple ruining the reputation of the GOP.  This is the official position of a major political party, agreed upon by the members of the party.  This is a position that Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and all state and local government republicans agreed to.  This is a stated goal.

The GOP wants to deny American citizens their civil rights.  The GOP wants to allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against American citizens.

But it’s not just abstract American citizens.  It’s not “the gays.”  It’s me.

The GOP doesn’t think that I deserve to marry the person I love.  This isn’t based on whether we could afford to raise children (we could), whether we are murderers, pedophiles, or drug addicts (we are not), and doesn’t even take into account whether we want children (irrelevant).

The Republican Party intends to not only legalize discrimination against me, but to actively deny me the same civil rights afforded to murderers, pedophiles, addicts, and generally lousy people.

I’m going to put this bluntly: If you choose to vote for a GOP candidate in any race next month, unless the candidate has disavowed this section of the Republican platform, you are voting to restrict MY rights.  You are telling your elected officials that you believe institutionalized discrimination is okay.  You are saying that my soul mate and I do not deserve the same right as Donald Trump and his three wives.  You are gambling on my future.

…and I have to admit, that hurts my feelings quite a bit.