by publius
The Oklahoma GOP recently held their state convention. And judging by the party platform they adopted, it seems the GOP rebranding effort has a long road ahead. The platform is genuinely creepy – and apparently uninfluenced by Meghan McCain’s Twitter feed. (The blog Forever in Hell has multiple posts on the platform, and was my original source. The GOP platform itself is available here and here*).
Anyway, I know Kevin Drum has previously noted the looneyness of the Texas GOP platform. And the Oklahoma platform has a lot of similarities. You know, all the good stuff you’d expect like withdrawing from the UN, restoring the gold standard, requiring biblical creation education, and Taliban-like intrusions on all matters related to sex (e.g., abortion, pornography, indecency regulation, no-fault divorces, Gardasil vaccinations).
But what’s most scary about this platform is its obsessive focus with homosexuality. The level of hate and vitriol directed at homosexuals by this document – adopted by a state political party – is jarring. If the national GOP is curious about the source of its image problems, look no further than to the Oklahoma GOP platform. It’s legitimately frightening. (On an aside, I think the intensity of this institutional hatred further supports judicial efforts to protect equality).
What’s most disturbing is that the platform references homosexuality again and again in multiple sections. But of all these references, the section below takes the taco – it’s truly the worst thing in the entire document.
This passage comes from a section called “Commendations” (p.29):
7. We commend state Representatives Wright, Blackwell, Christian, Coody, Duncan, Enns, Faught, Johnson, Kern, Key, Liebmann, Moore, Murphey, Osborn, Ownbey, Reynolds, Ritze, Sanders, Terrill, and Thomsen for opposing inclusion in the House Journal, the introduction of an openly homosexual minister’s male “fiancé”.
Initial reaction was … huh? So I hopped on Lexis, and this story is hard to believe, even by the lofty standards of the rump of the Oklahoma GOP.
At the beginning of Oklahoma’s legislative session last February, the only openly gay Oklahoma legislator invited a gay pastor to give the opening prayer. In introducing himself before that prayer, the pastor had the audacity to say: “dear friends, my wonderful parents, and my loving partner and fiance, Michael.”
Well, that last bit crossed the line and several GOP legislators objected and wanted his subsequent prayer excluded from the official House record. They lost 64-20, but the Oklahoma GOP felt the need to formally commend the Fightin’ Twenty in its party platform for their efforts. Nice work team.
Note too the platform's quotation marks around fiancé. You can almost feel the Christian love and tolerance. (Also, Jones has a blog and wrote about the incident here).
This obnoxious provision, however, is far from alone. Below the fold, I’ve listed other provisions in the platform that explicitly reference homosexuality (I excluded hate crime stuff, but that should arguably be in too).
As you’re reading, note how many different sections of the platform reference homosexuality in some way. Note too the provision that would – by my reading – ban homosexuals from being teachers or interacting with children in any professional context.
It’s an eerie and creepy obsession. It’s more than that actually. It’s just hateful – and that’s about as precise an adjective as I can conjure to describe the Oklahoma GOP at the moment.
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