Republicans quietly drop anti-gay proposals
Two anti-gay resolutions have been quietly dropped by the Republican National Committee, before reaching a vote.
Two proposed policies were set to come before the GOP committee this week – paving the way for the party to re-affirm its stance against same-sex marriage and LGBT sex education.
However, the controversial resolutions failed to earn enough support from the resolutions committee, which opted to kill the resolutions rather than allow them to come to a vote.
The first was submitted by Michigan lawmaker Dave Agema – and would require any schools “teaching the homosexual lifestyle in their sexual education class” to forcibly include “the harmful physical aspects of the lifestyle”.
Agema, who has been censured in the past for posting blatant racist and homophobic comments on-line, has been pushed by members of his own party to resign.
The second proposal from Louisiana committeeman Ross Little, Jr, was an effort to fight the Supreme Court legalisation of same-sex marriage, and would have spurred the Republican-dominated Congress to attempt to repeal the SCOTUS decision.
The likelihood of such resolutions appearing again is slim and even less likely to be supported.
Another proposal presented to the resolutions committee calling for Republicans to tolerate different presidential candidates’ opinions on the legalisation of same-sex marriage was unsuccessful.
Instead, individual legislation involving Planned Parenthood, the Iranian nuclear deal, the encroaching judicial decisions and the commemoration of a passed Republican committeeman were permitted.
Despite nixing the overtly homophobic resolutions, a proposed Democrat-sponsored Equality Act is yet to pick up a single Republican supporter.
The proposed Equality Act would protect people from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in all 50 states.
