(Fort Wayne) News-Sentinel
Are Indiana Republicans bending on their principles?
Part of the current state Republican Party platform states:
“We believe in strong families. We believe that strong families, based on marriage between a man and a woman, are the foundation of society. We also recognize that some families are much more diverse and we support the blended families, grandparents, guardians and loving adults who successfully raise and nurture children to reach their full potential every day.”
But the draft of the platform proposed has the paragraph above rewritten as follows:
“We believe in strong families. We believe that strong families are the foundation of society and that such families bring forth citizens capable of self-government, as well as properly-motivated public servants so essential for a successful republic. We support traditional families with a mother and father, blended families, grandparents, guardians, single parents and all loving adults who successfully raise and nurture children to reach their full potential every day.”
The difference between the two? The removal of the reference to marriage between a man and woman. In fact, no reference to marriage at all. Why the change?
State GOP Chairman Kyle Hupfer called the new draft a “compromise” and “inclusive,” according to The Associated Press. “Our goal was to try not to offend anyone.”
The Indiana Republican Party approves a platform every two years. The Indiana GOP’s 2018 platform, according to the party’s website, “was drafted with guidance from more than 800 Hoosiers who attended platform hearings and submitted their thoughts via email.”
An initial draft reflected feedback from hearings in Greenwood, South Bend and Jeffersonville, written testimony submitted electronically and “long-held core beliefs of the Republican Party.”
Perhaps state Republicans should be more concerned with standing up for those core beliefs on which our society was formed and has flourished rather than worrying about whether they offend those who don’t like them. In spite of the legalization of same-sex marriage, the Indiana Republican Party should stick to its fundamental commitment to its base, which still believes that a mom is a woman, a dad is a man and that the two parents should be married.
Indiana Republicans would do well to recall the national GOP platform approved in 2016, which states: “Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values.”
