Platforms diverge on the topic of same-sex marriage

Given the context of North Carolina’s recent vote to uphold traditional marriage in the state, the Republican and Democratic conventions are slowly building their respective platforms and taking completely divergent paths on this topic.

The 2012 Democratic platform will include support for same-sex marriage, as a reported earlier this month from Bloomberg:

Democrats unanimously voted today to endorse same-sex marriage in their party’s platform, the first time a major political party has supported the issue in its statement of policies.

Today’s action at the platform committee meeting in Detroit sends the document for ratification by delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, said in May that he supports same-sex marriage. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney doesn’t.

A drafting committee included the same-sex marriage provision in the platform last month. Platform committee members raised no objections.

Reports are now indicating that the 2012 Republican platform will include language which “strongly upholds” the concept of traditional marriage in opposition to same-sax marriage. Report on this from Buzzfeed:

The Republican Party platform will strongly oppose the Obama administration’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that bars recognition of same-sex couples’ marriages, in court and will support “a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” according to the draft platform language approved by subcommittees today.

The language must still be adopted by the full committee on Tuesday and then by the convention delegates in Tampa next week. According to the draft documents obtained by BuzzFeed from two subcommittees, the Restoring Constitutional Government subcommittee and the Health, Education and Crime subcommittee, the platform will take those two positions, as well as “support[ing] campaigns underway in several other states” to amend their constitutions to recognize only marriages between one man and one woman.

As BuzzFeed first reported, the platform also includes language about “respect and dignity,” which a gay Republican group, the Log Cabin Republicans, cast as an olive branch.

But social conservatives ended the day claiming victory.

Not much of a surprise here given President Obama’s “evolution” on the subject that the Democrats would finally build it into the party platform. Also not a shocker that the Republicans will do the opposite given the large faction of social conservatives within the ranks and party base.