Big Tent

[Trigger warning for institutional homophobia.]

Over the weekend, the AP reported that the Montana Republican Party adopted an official platform earlier this year that "keeps a long-held position in support of making homosexual acts illegal, a policy adopted after the Montana Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1997." Yes, that's right—in the year two thousand and fucking ten, the Montana GOP wants to criminalize being gay/bi.

The fact that it's still the official party policy more than 12 years later, despite a tidal shift in public attitudes since then and the party's own pledge of support for individual freedoms, has exasperated some GOP members.

"I looked at that and said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" state Sen. John Brueggeman, R-Polson, said last week. "Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn't be in the Republican Party."

...Brueggeman suspects that the vast majority of the party believes, as he does, that the Republican party should remove statement. It's against every conservative principle for limited government and issues like this exemplify how a political party can interfere with the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents.

"I just hope it's something that's so sensitive that people don't want to touch it," he said. "Even if there wasn't a Supreme Court decision, does anyone really believe that it should be illegal?"

Has Republican John Brueggeman actually ever met any other Republicans? Did dude Rip Van Winkle the Bush years, when the Republican Party wanted to amend the US constitution to codify anti-gay bigotry into the document established to "secure the Blessings of Liberty" for this nation's residents? Does he understand that "I believe people should be legally allowed to be gay, but be denied comprehensive equal rights, like the right of marriage and the right to serve openly in the US military" is a fundamentally horseshit position?

Montana Human Rights Network organizer Kim Abbott said the GOP platform statement does not represent the attitudes of most Montanans, and it shows that the party is out of touch with the prevalent view of the people they are supposed to represent.

Indeed. The actual wording of the plank is: "Homosexual acts: We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal."

Either the GOP thinks that there are no gay people in Montana (in which case, the legislation is unnecessary!), or they are talking about "the people of Montana" and gay/lesbian/bisexual people are mutually exclusive groups, which is dehumanizing and marginalizing language of the sort one finds in the playbooks of eliminationist fucknecks.

You can contact the Montana Republican Party here.

[H/T to Shaker Brunocerous.]