The poisonous influence of those I call the Christofascists - i.e., American right wing Christians who basically want a Christian theocracy in place of constitutional government with themselves in charge, of course - continues to make itself visible as the Republican Party platform committee works on the party's 2016 platform. So far the draft looks more like something from 1956 than the 21st century. And, as is always the case with the Christofascists and the con-artist professional Christians/hate group leaders who are their spokesmen, no group is more targeted for abuse and denial of civil rights equality than the LGBT community. Blacks, as also is the norm, are not far behind in terms of the animus with which they are viewed. The New York Times looks at the increasingly reactionary aspects of the GOP platform. Here are excerpts:
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.”
The document . . . . 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 . . . . . 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.
Social conservatives in the party exerted significant influence over the drafting and amending of the platform this week, succeeding in almost all of their efforts to add language that pushed the document more to the right.
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.”
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.
[N]early 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 [thoroughly discredited] “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.
[C]onservative activists like Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council [a certified hate group] . . . exert greater influence. Mr. Perkins’s hand could be seen in dozens of amendments on issues like gun control, religious expression and bathroom use.
And for those who don't know, Tony Perkins has documented ties to white supremacy groups, including the KKK.
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