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GOP Platform Supports Conversion Therapy And Bathroom Bills, Bans Marriage Equality And Gay Adoption

The committee's one gay member was left in tears.

The Republican Party is prepping its platform in advance of its national convention this weekend, and to no one's surprise, it's full of anti-LGBT rhetoric.

Among the planks in the GOP statement are a provision calling for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, and another supporting the scientifically and medically unsound practice of conversion therapy.

"These are not values that the majority of fair-minded voters—of either party—share," said HRC policy chief JoDee Winterhof

"The RNC should immediately reject ignorant and hateful provisions targeting LGBTQ people."

The conversion therapy amendment comes courtesy of the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, an RNC delegate from Louisiana. It claims it's "the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or therapy for their minor children."

Would that include leeches or trepanning? Or how about not vaccinating your children?

The few moderate conservatives on the platform committee made little headway: Annie Dickerson, an adviser to pro-LGBT billionaire GOP donor Paul Singer, seemed at times to be the sole voice of decency.

Dickerson, who has adopted children, raged against a proposal to bar publicly funded adoption agencies from giving custody of children to gay couples.

“We need children to be adopted, so hooray to the gay community for trying to raise children in a happy and stable home,” Dickerson said. “I object to allowing patent discrimination against gays over the right to adopt...This is blatant discrimination and should not be in our platform.”

Unsurprisingly, the measure passed.

Dickerson also lost the fight over language that “salutes” North Carolina for passing its bathroom bill.

Washington, D.C., delegate Rachel Hoff is the only openly gay delegate on the 112-member platform committee. Her plea for toned-down language on the marriage issue also fell on deaf ears.

"We're your daughters, your sons, your neighbors, colleagues and the couples you sit next to you in church," Hoff said, fighting back tears. "Freedom means freedom for everyone, including for gays and lesbians."

Her proposal was shot down after almost no debate, according to The Hill.

Delegates also unanimously adopted an amendment that called pornography “a public health crisis” that is destroying lives.

“Pornography, with his harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions.

We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children’s safety and well being.”

Translation: Guns don't kill people—porn kills people.

Tomorrow, on the one-month anniversary of the massacre at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, House Republicans are holding a hearing on the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), which would protect discrimination by individuals with a “religious belief or moral conviction that marriage should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

Democrats had to stage a sit-in to get a vote on gun control but this is a priority, apparently.

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