The Platform Committee reportedly decided to remove a plank that called for the repeal of homosexual marriage ahead of Saturday’s Iowa Republican Party Convention. That decision had some fuel poured on the fire after an email was sent out regarding it from a member of the platform committee.
The email predicted homosexual marriage would be a “heated topic” at this Saturday’s state convention.
“The platform committee decided to strike repealing (homosexual) marriage from our document because it does not help our cause,” the email said. “Quite frankly, whether you agree or not, Jesus Christ was not a Republican or a Democrat. Apple pie, the Bible, the American flag, the Disciples and the bald eagle do not belong together. Having a platform plank for the sole purpose of ‘the Bible tells us so’ is incredibly unintelligent.”
The email also said if that is the case, then the GOP needs to include approval of selling daughters into slavery (Exodus 21:7).
“After that, we ought to include that we believe if our legislators work over the weekend and into a Sunday, that we need to hang them on the front lawn of the Capitol because of the right God gave us in Exodus 35:2,” the email said. “Lastly, let’s make sure we include that no college or high school should play football within the state of Iowa because touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean as described in Leviticus 11. Seriously folks, you can’t make this shit up.”
The email mentions that the only homosexual legislator in the Iowa House is a Republican. It added the percentage of Americans who approve of homosexual marriage is at 71 percent — at an all-time high.
“Do we seriously want to push away voters because for his plank in a document that is supposed to bring more people in,” it asked. “I know most of us aren’t elected officials, and most of us don’t have day-to-day experience with elected officials, but we need to start thinking like them. Even if someone agrees with 99 percent of our platform, they can be turned off from voting Republican by the gay marriage plank. Seriously folks, we lose elections because of this view. Make the right decision when the amendment comes to the floor and vote it down.”
The 2022 Republican Party of Iowa platform stated:
“We believe that traditional, two-parent (one male (XY) and one female (XX)), marriage-based families are the foundation to a stable, enduring, and healthy civilization. We encourage the repeal of any laws allowing any marriage that is not between one natural man and one natural woman.”
That plank is not included in the draft for 2024.
A spokesperson from The FAMiLY Leader provided the following statement:
“Neither culture nor government can alter the definition of marriage, an institution established from Creation and designed by God to be between one man and one woman. And no society benefits from defying God’s design for human flourishing.
“Rather, as we have seen, the unraveling of marriage has led to even greater gender confusion, erosion of the family, sexual license and abuse, and direct harm to our children and grandchildren. In short, legalizing same-sex marriage has had disastrous results.
“The FAMiLY Leader will continue to stand as a voice calling our culture to return to God, His principles and His design for marriage.”
Steve Scheffler, who heads up the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition, called removing the plank a “terrible idea.”
“If the Republican Party doesn’t stand for life and marriage, I don’t know what it stands for,” Scheffler said.
While things in the platform such as the Convention of States or the carbon capture pipeline offer room for “good people to agree to disagree,” Scheffler said failing to stand for life and marriage is a slippery slope and for every one or two people the Republican Party may gain for abandoning that position it will lose 10 more out the back door.
“If you can’t stand for something as fundamental as that — there’s big problems,” he added. “Look at what they did to the Odgaards. I think that’s just the beginning. If Democrats get a complete trifecta in D.C., I guarantee we’re coming to where if a church doesn’t bend over for that woke ideology, they will shut you down in a minute. I guarantee you. That’s what it’s going to be coming to.”
Scheffler pledged to do “whatever he can” to put some “sanity” back in the platform. He also said Republicans must do a better job of paying attention to who gets elected to the Platform Committee.
Apparently you CAN “make this s*** up” as the author quotes Old Testament and conflates it with Christianity. That’s “incredibly unintelligent.”
I guess the same illogic which supported removing the marriage plank from the platform led to the removal of the Second Amendment plank from the platform.
Conservative Republican delegates had better be prepared to review the future platforms and have corrective platform plank petitions ready to be signed and submitted to the platform committee.