GOP leaders still exhibit strong opposition to transgender rights, and oppose the top legislative priorities of the LGBTQ community. But on the most prominent battlefield of the past few decades, same-sex marriage, they’ve all but conceded defeat.
and even encouraged people not to donate to the RNC. But the attacks, particularly from the evangelical right, were met with a shrug by the party.
In this image from video, Rep. Dan Crenshaw speaks from Houston, during the third night of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020. | Courtesy of the Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via AP There have been moments over the past 20 years, however, when prominent conservatives warned Republican party leaders they were dramatically out of step with the public as a whole on the issue. Ken Mehlman, who managed George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential run, apologized for the anti-same-sex marriage rhetoric of that campaign and for his role in fighting marriage equality, while announcing that he was gay.
Gay rights activists and Republicans acknowledge there is still much work to be done within the GOP. For now, the official Republican, unchanged since 2016, includes language defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, and gives what some say is a nod to the controversial practice of conversion therapy. Gay rights advocates in the party said Republicans missed an opportunity to change the platform’s text in 2020.
“We brought a lot of attention to the weaknesses of the platform, the mean-spirited language of the platform and it doesn’t reflect the party. It reflects a few dozen people who show up at the convention and try to run the platform committee. And we’re not going to let them do that forever,” Deaton said.
“Donald Trump's embrace of people who are LGBT truly did help make it OK to be an out, gay Republican,” said former White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere. “As president, he hired and promoted LGBT Americans to the highest levels of government, including positions at the White House, of which I was honored to be one of those people, Cabinet agencies, including the first openly gay Cabinet member, and ambassadorships.
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