California GOP opposes national party’s anti-same-sex marriage platform

The California Republican Party has sparked a battle with the national GOP by proposing to remove the national party’s opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion from its state political platform.

Supporters say removing these two items will help align the California GOP platform with the values of California voters’ values while helping Republican candidates win statewide elections. However, opponents say removing the items would betray the party’s conservative values and contradict the anti-abortion and anti-gay stances of the GOP presidential candidates.

Related:

Republicans are using trans kids to try to trick people into voting against abortion

Americans want reproductive rights, and Republicans are throwing trans kids under the bus to try to change their minds.

The 2020 — that is, current — national Republican platform continued the party’s opposition to same-sex marriage (even though the U.S. Supreme Court legalized it in 2015). The platform opposes the expansion of civil rights to include sexual orientation and gender identity and also supports former President Donald Trump’s transgender military ban, conversion therapy, and the right for businesses to discriminate against same-sex couples.

Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024

Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter.

Daily

Weekly

Good News

California’s Republican party wants to change this somewhat. In July, a state GOP committee approved the removal of platform language that says “it is important to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman,” The Los Angeles Times reported.

The committee also approved the removal of a section mentioning the party’s opposition to a federally protected right to abortion. Instead, the proposed language would just support “adoption as an alternative to abortion.”

The California GOP says these changes will help reflect the values of the state’s voters. Approximately 59% of California Republican voters oppose the removal of federal protections for abortion access; over 75% of all California voters oppose it as well. A June 2023 Gallup poll showed national support for same-sex marriage at 71%.

The state GOP will vote on whether to accept the revised state platform at a meeting this autumn.

Charles Moran, a Los Angeles County GOP delegate who is also president of the transphobic conservative LGBTQ + group the Log Cabin Republicans, says that removing these sections will “give our California Republican candidates a fighting chance.”

“We need a party platform that empowers our candidates, not one that serves as an albatross around their neck,” Moran told the aforementioned publication, noting that voters have generally rejected hardline anti-gay and anti-abortion measures, even in conservative states.

However, Jon Fleischman, a former state GOP executive director, called the proposal divisive, “extremely controversial,” and “a big middle finger” to all of the Republican presidential candidates that oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ civil rights.

“This… will take a convention that is supposed to be about unifying the party and instead it ends up becoming a big feud,” Fleischman said. “It’s the last thing the party needs.”

Most of the Republican presidential candidates — like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, venture capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — claim to be anti-abortion but also oppose a federal abortion ban, preferring to leave the issue to individual states. Others — like Sen. Tim Scott (SC), former Trump administration official Nikki Haley, and former Rep. Will Hurd (TX) — said they’d sign a federal ban on any abortion that occur 15 weeks into a pregnancy.