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I guess if you’re gay and Republican, you have to take the crumbs tossed at you. This is progress. Chris Geidner at Buzzfeed:
A subcommittee of the Republican National Committee’s platform-drafting committee passed language this morning stating: “We embrace the principle that all Americans have the right to be treated with dignity and respect,” the head of the Log Cabin Republicans told BuzzFeed.
The move was “still early in process,” Log Cabin Republicans executive direction R. Clarke Cooper told BuzzFeed.
Although the language, which Cooper said had been proposed by a delegate from Hawaii, did not specifically address sexual orientation or gender identity, inclusion of such language would be a positive nod in the direction of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and LGBT rights groups like Log Cabin Republicans. Rick Cochran of Vermont, Cooper added, has proposed including sexual orientation in the full nondiscrimination list advocated for by the party.
Not that there’s “gay” or “LGBT” or sexual orientation anywhere in the proposed language. And no reference to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or repeal of DOMA, but as Clarke Cooper noted, there is a proposal on the table to add such references.
Is there any cause for celebration here? It’s kind of sad considering the equality gains that have been made around the country that the GOP is toying with limp language like ”dignity and respect”. What does that even mean?
- The right for unspecified Americans to exist?
- The right for unspecified Americans to not be beaten/set on fire/run out of your neighborhood for being “different” in some way?
- The right for unspecified Americans to be treated with ”dignity and respect” — and have equal access to the ballot box?
- The right for unspecified Americans to be treated with ”dignity and respect” when it comes to reproductive freedom? (See Rep. Todd Akin’s hot mess for more on that)
You could go on all day listing ways that the GOP doesn’t seem to have dignity or respect for individual freedom when it comes to people outside of the top 1%, or if you don’t hold a particular set of religious values. It also seems to value tyranny of the majority at the ballot box as well.
So if this new (proposed) platform language means a turning over of a leaf for the Republican party, then welcome to the 21st century.
Somehow I think the party base won’t be happy even with this tepid positive language.
2 Comments
“Dignity and respect” is just an empty, cliched soundbite for them that doesn’t translate into any actions. For many it probably only means voting for discriminatory laws while toning down the hateful and offensive rhetoric a bit
Ditto. This language doesn’t commit them to anything. Look how often the Catholic hierarchy insists that everyone should be treated with “dignity and respect” while also insisting that gays and lesbians are “intrinsically disordered” and spending millions to take away our rights.
And the Log Cabin Republicans, who seem to have developed Stockholm Syndrome, will lap it up as though it actually proved something.