North Dakota GOP Under Fire for Wildly Bigoted Anti-LGBT Statements in Platform

The North Dakota Republican Party approved its platform (via mail-in voting months ago) on a 621-139 vote. Those votes represent 95% of the party’s delegates.

Looks like they finally got around to actually reading it this week…

That’s because the 36-page document includes the following statements about LGBTQ people, which apparently went relatively unnoticed until now:

• SOGI [Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination] bills grant protection to voyeurs who wish to prey on members of the opposite sex.
• Research has shown that causes of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) compulsions are primarily developmental and not genetic as in color and gender.
• SOGI laws empower those practicing LGBT behaviors to assume positions of mentorships of minors often over objections of parents, influencing their emotions and thereby recruiting for their lifestyles.
• Many LGBT practices are unhealthy and dangerous, sometimes endangering or shortening life and sometimes infecting society at large.

Did all those people vote for the platform without even reading it? Without raising any concerns? What does that say about the party itself?

Those statements display such a disgusting, bigoted, wildly false view of LGBTQ people that even Republicans are backing away from it:

North Dakota GOP Executive Director Corby Kemmer said the party regrets any offense caused by the rhetoric, which the state’s only openly gay legislator says promotes harmful lies and bigotry.

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Kemmer said in a statement Wednesday night that party officials would look at amending the language of the resolution.

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Three Republican state senators from Grand Forks joined together to condemn the anti-LGBT resolution, saying that few elected Republicans pay any attention to the party-approved platform and instead listen to their constituents.

Sens. Ray Holmberg, Curt Kreun and Scott Meyer said in a letter late Wednesday they stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community and will continue trying to change the party from within.

Republican U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong said in a tweet “we need to do a lot better” in reference to the “hateful and divisive rhetoric” in the resolution.

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U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-ND, said he was disappointed by the language in the resolution, adding that Republicans “should be in favor of ideas, not opposed to certain people.” Sen. John Hoeven, R-ND, said the rhetoric in the resolution “did not live up to that standard and should not be included in the Party’s official documents.”

Even the governor weighed in:

Those are all nice statements… yet they’re completely at odds with how Republicans vote, and what the GOP stands for at a national level. This was in the GOP platform because this is what Republicans believe. They’re bigots. They’re not afraid to say so when they’re talking to each other, which is what this document represents. The only thing they hate is being called out for their bigotry.

Maybe the most expected comment came from Party Chairman Rick Berg:

Berg said the party is “definitely not” anti-LGBT, but he would not comment any further about the specific language of the resolution.

Right… Republicans aren’t anti-LGBTQ. They just think LGBTQ people choose those identities and orientations in order to recruit kids to their predatory lifestyles. But how dare you call that hateful?!

Remember that the national GOP’s platform is hardly any better. They avoid the most extreme language, but they continue to say “Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society” and that “we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage.” As if gay people have somehow ruined marriage for everyone.

This is what the GOP stands for, and we know that because their base believes it, their representatives legislate accordingly, and their activist judicial nominees rule that way. It’s despicable. It’s also why people who still call themselves Republicans should have to answer for their party’s bigotry at all times. While Democrats were hardly any better a few election cycles ago, they’re leaps and bounds better on these issues today. They sure as hell don’t include bigoted statements like these on any description of their values.

By the way, this isn’t in the news reports about this platform, but the same document with these anti-LGBTQ statements also includes lines promoting abstinence-only sex education, Creationism, and religion.

• … the posting of the Ten Commandments during any public meeting or activity.
• The best protection for men and women from sexually-transmitted disease is to abstain from sexual activity until marriage.
• There is scientific evidence and opinion for and against the theory of evolution…
• The role of the church in society is essential…

Yes, the anti-LGBTQ content is awful. But so is everything else.

(Image via Facebook)