Convention should be interesting (new GOP platform)

[billvon 3,131]

Looks like the convention will be one of the first places the GOP publicly discusses its new platform - pro-coal, anti-gay, anti-women's rights and . . . . anti-pornography.

Doesn't seem to me like pornography is one of the biggest risks to our public health - at least compared to, say, sugar - but it sounds like it's important to them. It's also odd that they consider pornography something that should be classified as a public health crisis, but gun violence should not be.

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Emerging Republican Platform Goes Far to the Right

By JEREMY W. PETERS
JULY 12, 2016

New York Times

CLEVELAND — Republicans moved on Tuesday toward adopting a staunchly conservative platform that takes a strict, traditionalist view of the family and child rearing, bars military women from combat, describes coal as a “clean” energy source and declares pornography a “public health crisis.”

. . . .

But the document positions itself far to the right of Mr. Trump’s beliefs in other places — and amounts to a rightward lurch even from the party’s hard-line platform in 2012 — especially as it addresses gay men, lesbians and transgender people.

As delegates debated in two marathon sessions here on Monday and Tuesday, they repeatedly rejected efforts by more moderate members of the platform committee to add language that would acknowledge or condemn anti-gay discrimination — something Mr. Trump has done himself.

The numerous additions to the platform on marriage, family, homosexuality and gender issues were a reflection of just how much society and the law have shifted since Republicans adopted their last platform four years ago. And the debate this week showed just how unsettled many Republicans remain with those changes.

. . . .

But while public and legal opinion has moved steadily in one direction, the official declaration of Republican Party principles appears to be heading sharply in the opposite direction. The party’s approach to social issues now threatens to disrupt the convention next week. Moderate delegates pushing for gay rights language in the platform secured enough signatures on Tuesday to demand a vote on their proposals from all 2,475 delegates.

. . . .

What Republicans will probably end up with when they formally vote next week to ratify the platform approved in committee on Tuesday is a text that can seem almost Victorian in its moralizing and deeply critical of how the modern American family has evolved.

The platform demands that lawmakers use religion as a guide when legislating, stipulating “that man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights.”

It also encourages the teaching of the Bible in public schools because, the amendment said, a good understanding of its contents is “indispensable for the development of an educated citizenry.”

The pornography provision was not in an initial draft that the Republican National Committee drew up and released on Sunday. But delegates added it on Monday at the same time they were inserting many of the amendments opposing gay and transgender rights. It calls pornography “a public menace” that is especially harmful to children.

Much of the most combative debate centered on language in the platform that describes gay and transgender people, and efforts to strip those words out and replace them with language proposed by a minority contingent of socially moderate delegates.
. . . .

Nearly every provision that expressed disapproval of homosexuality, same-sex marriage or transgender rights passed. The platform calls for overturning the Supreme Court marriage decision with a constitutional amendment and makes references to appointing judges “who respect traditional family values.”

. . .

Additional provisions included those that promoted state laws to limit which restrooms transgender people could use, nodded to “conversion therapy” for gays by saying that parents should be free to make medical decisions about their children without interference and stated that “natural marriage” between a man and a woman is most likely to result in offspring who do not become drug-addicted or otherwise damaged.
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[gowlerk 2,283]

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They're pandering to the religious right because they want the votes.

No, they are not pandering to the religious right. They ARE the religious right. The party has been co-opted by them because moderates are abandoning the party in droves.

How are these views different from those of Muslim fundamentalists?

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Democrats are always pro-illegals pro-amnesty to pander to the Hispanics and try to lock in the next 30+ years of votes from that block.

Dems aren't that smart or forward looking. They are in favour of less drastic policies because it's what they believe. Hispanics are actually people who tend to have conservative views. The Republican party could one day win a lot of votes from them. But first they must give up xenophobia.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

Of course while increasing spending on the military to protect yourselves from countries run by religious dogma.