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LGBT Republicans Celebrate GOP Platform’s Historic Shift on Same-Sex Marriage

  • Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
  • Published Jul 19, 2024
LGBT Republicans Celebrate GOP Platform’s Historic Shift on Same-Sex Marriage

The president of the nation’s leading LGBT Republican organization is celebrating the party’s new platform, which no longer opposes same-sex marriage. Every GOP platform from 1992 through 2016 included language opposing same-sex marriage -- always in unequivocal terms. (The party did not release a platform during the pandemic year 2020.) 

The 2000 platform, for example, said Republicans “support the traditional definition of ‘marriage’ as the legal union of one man and one woman, and we believe that federal judges and bureaucrats should not force states to recognize other living arrangements as marriages.” 

The 2016 platform criticized the Supreme Court for legalizing same-sex marriage. It said that traditional 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.” 

But this year, under direct guidance from Republican nominee Donald Trump and his team, the platform committee removed the platform’s opposition to same-sex marriage, making it neutral on the issue. Trump supports same-sex marriage. 

Delegates approved the new platform this week. 

On social media, Charles T. Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, celebrated the news. The Log Cabin Republicans is the nation’s largest GOP organization dedicated to LGBT causes. 

“It’s official! The national GOP platform has been stripped of all anti-LGBT language! Inclusion won! Thank you @realDonaldTrump!” Moran wrote. 

The Log Cabin Republicans, in a statement, called the new platform “historic.”

“Log Cabin Republicans have been working for decades to help build a more inclusive GOP and update the platform’s outdated and out-of-step language,” the statement said. “... Today, that hard work has finally come to fruition.”

Such a turn would have been unthinkable during previous elections. 

In 2004, Republican President George W. Bush won the support of Christian conservatives on his way to re-election after he embraced a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In 2008, GOP nominee John McCain said he opposed gay marriage and supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney also said he opposed same-sex marriage, drawing a contrast with President Obama.   

To be fair, the 2024 platform does address one LGBT issue: transgenderism. But on other LGBT issues, it’s silent. 

“We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls,” the 2024 platform says. 

This week, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican, applauded the new platform and said it could help attract new voters. 

“The Republican as it exists today, at this convention, is not opposed to gay marriage,” he said. 

Ramaswamy also touted the platform’s watered-down language on abortion, telling Megyn Kelly, “It is not a federal issue” and that Trump “opposes a federal ban on abortion.” The new platform removed the word “unborn” and said abortion is an issue for the states. It opposes late-term abortion but is silent on the morality of early-term abortions, which constitute the overwhelming majority of abortions. 

“The actual Republican public policy platform is quite appealing to most Americans,” Ramaswamy said.

Denny Burk, director of the Center for Gospel and Culture at Boyce College in Louisville, Ky., said the 2024 election is a “watershed moment” for social conservatives. 

“Social conservatism has been marginalized within the GOP,” Burk said. “Their influence on the party will be negligible for the foreseeable future.”

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Christians must not be silent on issues the Bible clearly addresses. 

“Regardless of the political parties’ unwillingness to stand firm for what is true, Christians must hold fast to God’s design for the sake of the Gospel and the flourishing of our neighbors,” Leatherwood told Baptist Press. “Speaking truth -- as given to us in Scripture -- into the public square is needed now as much as ever.”

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Anna Moneymaker/Staff

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.