GOP Draft Platform: A Time Warp Back To 1956
With the Republican party convention starting on Monday, July 18, the draft platform has been reported and it’s like the GOP exist in 1956; not 2016 and features a number of constitutional issues.
Of course, being the religious right conservative party in the US; Republicans want to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision to allow same sex couples to marry. It gets worse; they also want to allow parents to force their LGBT children into “conversion therapy“; to force the gayness out, like being gay is a choice. Finally, the Republicans want bible study to be part of public school education, albeit an elective class.
I don’t follow any religion and identify as agnostic so I believe all of the above to be outrageous. Religion has no place in schools; however, if individuals decide to pursue religious studies extracurricularly, that’s their choice. In my view, this is in breach of the first amendment; which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
If the Christian bible is to be taught under the guise of a historical document; then all other religious texts should be taught as well. This is why I say that teaching kids about the bible is unconstitutional. It’s not freedom of religion when only Christian beliefs are being pushed with the Quran is being ignored. The fact remains that not all Americans are Christian, so why should Christianity be forced upon our kids?
Being agnostic, I get bashed over the head with “America was founded as a Christian nation”. So I have researched it and although some of the founding fathers had Christian beliefs; the constitution was not based upon any religion. It wasn’t until the 19th century that Christianity started to exert it’s dominance. CNN has a rather interesting article on the question of “Was America founded as a Christian nation?“.
I don’t believe it’s wise for Republicans to push the anti-gay platform as the majority of Americans support same sex marriage. And propagating the idea that being gay is a choice and therapy can drive the gay out of people is ludicrous. By that reckoning, therapy can also drive being heterosexual out of people.
We continue with the anti-gay rhetoric; the platform says that a traditional male and female household is healthier for children and aims to stop same sex couples from adopting. This of course has zero basis in reality, a UCLA study suggests that being raised by same sex couples makes no difference whatsoever.
Now we come to the big one; PORNOGRAPHY is a “public health crisis”. I didn’t know this; but 25% of all web requests are to porn websites, some of which I am responsible for; I’m married, not dead :)
Not a single mention of gun reform and/or regulation; something that kills over 30,000 Americans every year. But porn, which as far as I know has caused nothing more than a slight wrist strain, is EVIL!
There are also plans to abolish the national park system and hand them back to the states where they are located, which is easier said than done as they span multiple states. Which reading between the lines means that these federal lands will be sold off for profit and to hell with the wildlife, plants and geology.
It seems like the Republicans want to go back to the 1950s with this sort of platform. But this is not the world we live in right now, the US is much more progressive than the GOP want to believe it would seem.
The issue is that there is a two party system in the US; the Republicans (the regressive party) and the Democrats (the no change party). When we need a truly progressive party, a party that represents Generation Y, otherwise know as Millennials. The under 40s are the people who will take the country into the future with progressive, inclusive ideas, which ironically is headed up by a 74 year old white man!
Finally, the GOP website says “Paychecks should not be wasted on poorly run government programs” under a list of what it means to be Republican. Then, by that reckoning, we should close down the house and senate as they have done NOTHING for the people in the past four years. I would describe both the senate and house as poorly run, let’s defund these useless idiots on both sides of the political divide.