Despite the latest in repeated efforts to remove anti-marriage equality language from the New Hampshire Republican party platform, the state’s GOP party platform committee voted unanimously to ask delegates at their May 9 convention to make no changes to the platform at all.
They said making any changes to the platform would be too difficult to do via Zoom since COVID-19 precautions moved their convention online, according to a WMUR-9 TV report last night.
“This is driven largely by the logistical difficulty in conducting a full and transparent debate [during the CODID-19 pandemic], Platform Committee Chair Chris Ager wrote in an April 20 statement. “We received over 40 suggestions from 30 Republicans. Our intention is to carry-over these suggestions into the next cycle for review.”
Reports WMUR-9:
One proposal placed on hold would remove from the party platform its recognition of marriage as only being between one man and one woman.
Jim Morgan, a Derry town councilor, business executive and an openly gay married man, was sponsoring the proposal as the leader of the New Hampshire Log Cabin Republicans – the GOP’s largest pro-LGBT rights group.
Morgan said Monday that once it became clear that the convention could not be held in person, he, on behalf of the Log Cabin Republicans, suggested in a letter to party chair Stepanek that all proposed platform changes be put off until an in-person convention can be held and all proposals can be fully debated.
“The ideas suggested in addressing our platform require Republicans to be in an objective, open and focused frame of mind,” Morgan wrote in the letter. “This pandemic creates challenges that require the absolute unity of this party.”
As we reported last month, Morgan told WMUR that updating the platform was “important for us in New Hampshire because we’re losing ground to the Democrats and we need to bring more independents into the Republican mindset.
“Some of our policies are divisive,” Morgan said. “As I go around the state, I’m meeting more and more Republicans who say they have a son or a daughter or a niece of a nephew or an aunt or an uncle who are part of the LGBT community, and many of them feel it is time for the party to no longer judge you based on who you love.” …
A previous effort to make the change two years ago, led by then state GOP Chair Jennifer Horn, was unsuccessful.
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