This week’s bigot is no big surprise, but it helps to underscore the importance of the November election. Just a few weeks ago we gave the Hero of the Week to the committee that drafted the Democratic Party Platform. Sadly, the Republicans sank below expectations and easily won this week’s BWA. Much of the platform is standard right-wing talking points, protecting the wealthy, undermining the middle class, and avoiding equality and reality with shocking vigor. Two sections, however, are particularly loathsome.
On the matter of gay rights, the 2012 platform is even more aggressive than in 2008. This owes a great deal to the fact that Tony Perkins of the certified hate group the Family Research Council helped to draft the plank. It supports the adoption of a federal “one man one woman” amendment and explicity calls out for reversal of the strides forward made by the Obama administration, noting “its handling of immigration cases, in federal personnel benefits, in allowing a same-sex marriage at a military base, and in refusing to defend DOMA in the courts.” Professional self-loathing groups GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans weep and rend their garments while the party they irrationally support rages and rends our rights.
The platform stakes out a clear campaign in the War on Women as well. Despite the hypocritical outcry by party leaders when Rep. Todd Akin made his famous “legitimate rape” comments, the platform squares up pretty well with that Senate hopeful’s positions. It calls for a personhood amendment and the prohibition of all abortions regardless of circumstance, no exceptions. The Romneybot can dither and deceive all he wants, but when he accepts the nomination next week he’ll be the standard bearer of a party that demands that women be stripped of rights to reproductive choice. The plank includes:
Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.
This odious language is not just the party’s position; it has direct bearing on some key races as well. The connection to Akin’s effort to unseat Claire McCaskill (D – MO) is obvious. Akin also voted for a stalled House bill with similar intent; his colleague in the House, Rep. Paul Ryan, also voted for that bill. Whatever the official Romney – Ryan talking points may be, the VP hopeful’s position is clearly anti-woman. This year’s language is very similar to planks included since 2000. The anti-choice section from that year was written by Tommy Thompson, the man who hopes to be the next Senator from Wisconsin. He’s running against true progressive (and out lesbian) Tammy Baldwin. It’s clear that Thompson, Akin, and Ryan must be stopped.
GOP hacks talk a good game about jobs and the economy, but their elected officials have done less than nothing to solve those problems. In the meantime, the official position of the party and its leaders is to roll back rights, oppress minorities, and protect the privileged. The choice in November just keeps getting clearer…