Forums / Discussion / General

83% of millennials support gay marriage, as well as 40% of Republicans. [Gallup]

Back in 2013, 51% of Americans said sexuality cannot be changed, [Pew Research] and in 2014 63% agreed. [YouGov] It's likely the number is just higher now.

In 2014, 63% of people said same-sex couples should be able to adopt children. [Gallup] As with related issues, it's reasonable to think that support has just gone up.

I bring up these three specific things because the GOP apparently hasn't gotten the message – U.S. citizens in general want this stuff, and in the case of gay marriage, it wouldn't hurt to tone down the rhetoric a bit.

The new Republican party platform added planks recently which reaffirms their commitment to getting rid of gay marriage, even by constitutional amendment. It said that parents should be allowed to decide any therapy for their child, at the urging of the leader of the anti-LGBT group Family Research Council, basically supporting conversion therapy. It also said children best go to parents who are in a "natural marriage", to reduce the chances of them being addicted to drugs or otherwise hurt. (While the science on that seems to be up for debate at the moment, adding such an amendment effectively is saying that they support efforts to block children from being adopted by same-sex couples.)

Some links:

The New Civil Rights Movement – "GOP Passes 'Most Anti-LGBT Platform' in History, Log Cabin Republicans Shocked"

Log Cabin Republicans – A Message on the GOP Platform from Log Cabin Republicans President Gregory T. Angelo

Occupy Democrats – The Republican Party Has Released Their Platform For The 2016 Convention, And It Is INSANE

Washington Post – GOP moves closer to the base, and away from the broader public, in party platform

If you check out the links (and please do check out at least one of them, or find one for yourself – I left out a few details and other questionable sections), there are a lot of things which you might draw issue with, but I pointed out the three which are the most illogical in terms of keeping the party alive.

Why the heck would you make yourself go further right as the public was going further left?

What could possibly be going through their collective minds to think that was a good idea especially when they're currently on the losing side of the presidential race (Clinton is currently about 4 points ahead on average) to make their beliefs officially go further away from the public?

Most confusingly, why would they do that when millennials overwhelmingly disagree with them, and they're the biggest generation yet? [Pew Research]

They're practically nailing their own coffin, from my perspective.

What do you think? Think this was strategic? Think this was as idiotic as it seems to be to me? Am I missing something?

In the past they've survived on the votes of the older generations, who tend to be more bigoted. Because of this they're stuck between a rock and a hard place; if they move left they risk losing their primary voting base, if they move right they lose millennials. They've chosen what, to them, seems like the safe choice and locked in the vote for the far-right by pandering to anti-LGBTQ people, conservative Christians, and xenophobes on a platform of fear.

But the reality is the party itself is now so far right that they've effectively barred moderates from being a part of it. As a result they're appealing to a niche group that is rapidly dying out. If they don't change their tune they're going to end up as just another right-wing third party.

Yeah I've noticed more and more that the actual Republican Party is going to die or reform in some way in the near future. I've never liked the Republican Party ever since I was little and even in recent months as I begin to sympathize more and more with the ideas of neo-conservatives, become more centrist and such I still despise most of what the Republican Party stands for.

That's because as others have said the Republican Party still tries to get all its votes from old people and the South. Most of the neo-conservatives and alt-righters I meet (excluding the /pol/ brand which is admittedly a huge vocal portion of them) are actually kind of socially libertarian and tend to be more libertarian than Republican when comparing with American parties. Most of them are completely for gay rights (one of their big pundits, Milo, being gay himself) and I've met plenty that even agree with the T of LGBT.

This is why Trump won so easily. Aside from him being a manipulative, political genius, he appeals to more moderate crowds despite a few of his extreme opinions because most of his actual platforms are more centrist than Republican which is why the Party hates them, yet their pundits claim it's because _he's__ the extreme one and lots of people eat it up.

TL;DR: Republican Party is going to die if it doesn't appeal to these people soon. They are smart politically in that they're going for the always reliable old vote but in the long-term this will fail them. Hell it already is in the short-term as Trump destroyed all their preferred candidates and they have to bend over accordingly. And Trump is losing moderate votes to Clinton because he has to take in a lot of the Republican Platform like the fact that he while being the best for gays from the Repub nominees this cycle still touts that he will undo the Supreme Court ruling for gay marriage.

It should be noted that I grew up in a state that is arguably the reddest after Alaska, and grew up listening conservative radio programs. I'm not a Republican largly because if you are someone who believes intelligent design should not be taught in schools as a vaild alternative to mainstream scientific ideas, think that climate scientists are not all conspiring to lie about the world getting warmer, and believes that LGBT people should have equal marriage (and other) rights as non-LGBT people, you really have a hard time fitting in.

Delegates at the convention are the ones who vote on the party platform, which hasn't happened yet. This committee of establishment officials only puts together the draft. They're also still trying to unbind delegates from voting for Trump in the first convention vote, but we know that's not going to pan out. Another one of the propositions that moderates managed to push through for a vote is a motion to include gay rights language in the platform.

& what's being interpreted as gay conversion therapy endorsement says that "parents should be free to make medical decisions about their children without interference". Liberals immediately spun this into gay conversion therapy because a prominent conversion therapy perpetrator lobbied for it, but there is no specific mention. It applies to vaccines just as much as it does therapy, or keeping your kid on life support while the hospital wants to pull the plug because you're just taking up space. It affirms a parent's right to make decisions for their children during a time when the Democrat platform seeks to remove it. This is a serious issue that is actually effecting people right now.

{ Israel was placed on life support after suffering a severe asthma attack at his California home in April. The toddler’s situation took a turn for the worse when he was transferred from a Sacramento hospital to a Kaiser area hospital on April 12. Less than 24 hours after the hospital admitted Israel, the staff said Israel was “brain dead”; and, against his parent’s wishes, doctors planned to withdraw his life support, according to Life Legal Defense Foundation.

However, several medical experts, including a neurologist and a pediatric specialist, examined Israel and agreed that he does not meet the criteria for brain death, Life Legal said. An EEG also indicated that the toddler shows signs of brain activity, according to the group. }

He was eventually transferred to another hospital willing to treat him.

Without the right to make medical decisions for your own children without interference, a hospital can take you and your family off life support or refuse to treat them because they don't think it's worth it, they don't think you have a chance, no testing required, just professional medical opinion! That's why we currently have to drag hospitals to court to keep it from happening.

{ why would they do that when millennials overwhelmingly disagree with them, and they’re the biggest generation yet? }

With the most rock-bottom voter turnout we've seen from an age group in history. It was ~15% among 18-29 year olds in 2012.

& btw the science is overwhelmingly clear about the emotional, psychological, and physical well-being of children who are raised in complete families vs broken families, especially in regards to boys in fatherless families. Unmarried singles are more often than not rejected unless their situation is exceptional, the adoption process is extremely rigorous.

Even more so for international adoptions, some of which are famous for failing catastrophically despite the perfect family being picked. Other countries would stop allowing us to adopt children if there's chance they could go to an LGBT family, that's going to have to start as a US adoption standard first that maybe expands depending on how well LGBT rights go in other countries in the future. That's also why we need to be careful about our orphans that we're shipping over to foreign countries to be adopted. I wish people would just not ditch their kids :|

Delegates at the convention are the ones who vote on the party platform, which hasn’t happened yet. This committee of establishment officials only puts together the draft.

Okay, I will readily admit here that I failed to mention this. I knew, and even though I thought "hey yeah that's pertinent information I should say that" I forgot to add that.

Another one of the propositions that moderates managed to push through for a vote is a motion to include gay rights language in the platform.

Source? More information? Something?

& what’s being interpreted as gay conversion therapy endorsement says that “parents should be free to make medical decisions about their children without interference”. Liberals immediately spun this into gay conversion therapy because a prominent conversion therapy perpetrator lobbied for it, but there is no specific mention. It applies to vaccines just as much as it does therapy, or keeping your kid on life support while the hospital wants to pull the plug because you’re just taking up space.

And it's mentioned because it's the most disgusting result. The broad, sweeping statement that parents should be able to decide any treatment for children is a very concerning one, at the very least.

It's not directly mentioned, but it sure as hell is implied.

@ the whole issue about vaccines and life support

That's a lot more murky territory for me and going into a debate about that might be derailing the thread. Maybe make another if it's a serious, current issue.

But they should be criticized for making such a generalized statement. This kind of thing tends to happen when you fail to add nuance to your statements.

With the most rock-bottom voter turnout we’ve seen from an age group in history. It was ~15% among 18-29 year olds in 2012.

Those 18-29 year olds are only going to get older, and I think are going to pick up in voting frequency. This is my point: the issue of longevity. I don't think this will kill them in the here and now. I think the direction they're moving is going to kill them if they don't change course.

& btw the science is overwhelmingly clear about the emotional, psychological, and physical well-being of children who are raised in complete families vs broken families, especially in regards to boys in fatherless families.

Ah crap. Re-reading I can see how I messed up there.

I know the science is clear in families that are broken, missing a parent, etc. I was referring to the issue of children whose parents are the same sex.

Other countries would stop allowing us to adopt children if there’s chance they could go to an LGBT family, that’s going to have to start as a US adoption standard first that maybe expands depending on how well LGBT rights go in other countries in the future.

Now that brings up a much more difficult moral argument, as well as a need for more evidence. If we're going by simple math, in the long run, would fully allowing, all across the nation, same-sex couples to adopt children internationally, reduce the number of children adopted?

It feels really wrong going this direction, because we're talking about lives, quality of life, and children, and distilling it down to numbers. But it's the only direction I can think of that could possibly result in further discussion and thought.

Lets say, hypothetically, that some countries we adopt from cut us off from adopting. In this scenario, isn't it possible that the loss would be made up by people simply adopting from countries that didn't cut us off, or from our own country?

And if we can't say – well, it's really hard to make a moral judgment when we aren't sure if it'll go either way.

And even if it did, it still brings up the issue of if it's morally acceptable to deny people the ability to adopt children in the pursuit of keeping adoption open with countries whose morals would lead to that.

{ The broad, sweeping statement that parents should be able to decide any treatment for children is a very concerning one, at the very least. }

{ But they should be criticized for making such a generalized statement. }

What the fuck? They're your kids. You have full rights to their medical decisions, general or very specific or otherwise. If you have a problem with conversion therapy, work on getting it made illegal, don't take rights away from parents because you don't share their opinion on its usefulness. ffs.

{ Source? More information? Something? }

NYT buried exactly one sentence regarding it in the middle of their piece: { Moderate delegates pushing for gay rights language in the platform secured enough signatures on Tuesday to demand a vote on their proposals from all 2,475 delegates. } IRRELEVANT, PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MODERATE REPUBLICANS THAT DO ACTUALLY EXIST, cried the liberal media.

{ it still brings up the issue of if it’s morally acceptable to deny people the ability to adopt children in the pursuit of keeping adoption open with countries whose morals would lead to that. }

Is it moral to deny those orphans the opportunity to come to the USA? We adopt the most children internationally. We adopt the most children nationally, too.

I wasn't trying to get into a moral discussion over adoption, I don't personally like how we handle adoption in general globally. Just pointing out that there's a hell of a lot more to consider than just what orientation the adoptive parents are, which is why I said LGBT adoption is better off becoming legal nationally before allowing international adoptions to open. It's just easier to figure all this out on a smaller national scale, even though our national population is equal to ~half of the entire population of Europe, so kids who have already been dealt the shit cards in life don't end up getting tossed back and forth between countries/etc over orientation.

Was gonnna vote for them. then they had to go do this shit. This is a bigger fumble then a botched superbowl.

What the fuck? They’re your kids. You have full rights to their medical decisions, general or very specific or otherwise. If you have a problem with conversion therapy, work on getting it made illegal, don’t take rights away from parents because you don’t share their opinion on its usefulness. ffs.

Uhm… I'm a bit confused now, because full rights means full rights. As in, laws can't abridge it. That's the definition of a right, the laws aren't supposed to remove or limit it.

Maybe we aren't understanding each other due to the vagueness of the word right.

When I said "The broad, sweeping statement that parents should be able to decide any treatment for children is a very concerning one, at the very least.", I meant any treatment. That's what I was getting from the amendment, that you can't outlaw treatments that parents can give their children. That's why I criticized it.

I'm guessing we agree here more than we disagree, and it was a misunderstanding. I don't want literally any treatment to be legal, but out of those that are, parents can decide.

NYT buried exactly one sentence regarding it in the middle of their piece

Dammit.

I'm gonna admit I'm not in the best mental state for a debate. My mind skipped over the "for a vote" part. I'm a bit sick today.

I apologize for misunderstanding you.

Is it moral to deny those orphans the opportunity to come to the USA?

I really don't know. That's a question that'd take me a bit of time to figure out.

Elsewhere, I totally agree with you. It's a complicated question.