UPDATE: The platform committee passed a resolution affirming “the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy, for their minor children,” a reference to state laws barring ex-gay therapy from being practiced on minors.
The draft platform also calls for the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality to be overturned: “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 the 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 states.”
Earlier today, the platform committee of the Republican National Convention considered a number of anti-LGBT resolutions.
Tony Perkins of the far-right Family Research Council, who is serving as an RNC delegate from Louisiana, reportedly proposed an amendment calling for the endorsement of ex-gay “conversion therapy.” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus met with him about the amendment and, according to Time’s Zeke Miller, told him that he missed the deadline but “can bring it up on the floor”:
.@Reince meeting with @tperkins on margins of platform meeting was about Perkins’ call to endorse ‘conversion therapy.’
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 11, 2016
Perkins missed deadline to pre-file amendment, can bring it up from floor (but RNC doesn’t want it) https://t.co/P3uC1kJ9XA
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 11, 2016
Perkins is an extremist anti-LGBT activist who has championed sexual orientation conversion therapy, calling it a way for gay people to find “wholeness,” “escape the homosexual lifestyle” and “come out of a lifestyle we know is destructive and harmful.” He also likened the discredited and dangerous practice to saving someone from a burning building .
The Texas GOP endorsed ex-gay therapy in 2014.
The RNC appears to be set to approve a proposal to back anti-trans facility laws like the one passed by North Carolina, which was recently endorsed by Donald Trump.
GOP platform subcommittee passes amendment calling for legislation restricting bathroom use by biological sex
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) July 11, 2016
