Republicans have nothing to offer gay Americans claims HRC

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America’s leading gay rights group has accused the Republicans of not having a positive word to say about LGBT people.

Human Rights Campaign’s Associate Counsel Brian Moulton said that the Republican Platform at this week’s National Convention includes:

“Calling us unfit for military service, opposing legal recognition for our relationships and our families, supporting faith-based organisations that would deny us jobs and services using federal dollars, and attacking judges who acknowledge our equality under the law.”

He said that there is “no question about where the Republican Platform stands – there isn’t a positive word about GLBT people to be found.”

Yesterday the Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBT group, endorsed Senator John McCain for President, despite his opposition to same-sex marriage and gay adoption.

HRC said that the Republican Platform, which the Republican National Convention formally passed on Monday, includes calls for renewal of the ‘E-Verify’ employee verification system, which can create workplace difficulties for transgender employees when it reveals potential inconsistencies between identity documents and workplace appearance.

“It opposes the grant of asylum to individuals “on the basis of lifestyle or other non-political factors,” encouraging immigration officials to send LGBT people back to hostile nations, an act often tantamount to a death sentence.

“It praises the “timelessness” of military values, including “the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service,” thus calling for a return to the time when gay, lesbian, and bisexual people could not even serve their country as so many do today, in silence.”

HRC said that the Republicans want “the continuation of failed abstinence-only-until-marriage sexuality education programmes, which exclude and even demonise GLBT people.”

Abstinence-only sex education programmes have become a campaign issue after the Republican’s Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin announced her unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

“I’d say we have a pretty definitive understanding of where Sarah Palin stands on issue of equality for our community,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

“Sarah Palin is against recognising our relationships, against domestic partner benefits, and against hate crimes laws.

“She championed that her second top priority in office would be preserving an anti-gay definition of marriage.

“The more we find out about her record, the more frightening her record becomes.

“John McCain claims to be a maverick who breaks with his party, but on matters of LGBT equality, he’s shown that he’s anything but,” Mr Solmonese continued.

“He actively campaigned for a constitutional amendment that would have banned marriage and domestic partnerships for same-sex couples in his home state of Arizona.

“He is now supporting an amendment to strip marriage equality from California couples and has said that he would vote for a federal marriage amendment if laws already banning marriage equality were to be struck down by federal courts.”

The Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama, does not support gay marriage.

“We have to do more to support and strengthen LGBT families,” he said in a letter to the Family Equality Council last month.

“Because equality in relationship, family, and adoption rights is not some abstract principle; it’s about whether millions of LGBT Americans can finally live lives marked by dignity and freedom.”

Senator Obama listed more funding for after-school programmes, the abolition of the federal ban on same-sex marriage, an end to discrimination against LGBT families and “equal treatment in our family and adoption laws” as goals for his administration.

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