Thirteen of America’s top religious right social conservatives this week sent Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus an official letter warning if the GOP moderates on same-sex marriage or refuse to actively defend “traditional marriage,” they will take all their followers and form a third party.
The RNC is holding their quarterly meeting in Los Angeles this week.
Leaders from the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Eagle Forum, and the Traditional Values Coalition, among others, signed the warning.
Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, via an email writes:
Together with 12 other conservative organizations, FRC made it quite clear what the RNC stood to lose by running left-of-center on issues like life and marriage. “We respectfully warn GOP leadership that an abandonment of its principles will necessarily result in the abandonment of our constituents to their support.”
In a letter representing tens of millions of supporters, we warned that it would be a “historic mistake” to “dismantle this coalition by marginalizing social conservatives.” The Republican Party has flourished, our groups’ write, “because it is truly a reflection–not of Washington, D.C.–but of the values of Americans across this great country.” And while the Republican platform (which FRC Action helped draft) is strongly and unapologetically pro-marriage, those values “have not prevented [the involvement of homosexuals] through GOProud or Log Cabin Republicans.” “It’s one thing to say the Party is open to all. It’s quite another to suggest that the Party should retreat in midstream from their own platform.”
As the RNC debates its future at meetings in Los Angeles this week, we called on the Committee to pass a resolution reiterating the GOP’s support for the party platform that was overwhelmingly adopted in Tampa last year. In the meantime, instead of trying to appease millennials, Republicans should try educating them on why marriage matters.
Perkins concludes:
Until the RNC and the other national Republican organizations grow a backbone and start defending core principles, don’t give them a dime of your hard-earned money.
NBC reports:
The signatories to this week’s letter were:
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Gary Bauer, President, American Values
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Paul Caprio, Director, Family-Pac Federal
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Marjorie Dannenfelser, President, Susan B. Anthony List
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Dr. James Dobson, President and Founder, Family Talk Action
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Andrea Lafferty, President, Traditional Values Coalition
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Tom Minnery, Executive Director, CitizenLink
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William J. Murray, Chairman, Religious Freedom Coalition
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Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
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Sandy Rios, VP of Government Affairs, Family-Pac Federal
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Austin Ruse, President, Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
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Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
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Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, Founder, Traditional Values Coalition
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Tim Wildmon, President, American Family Association
Michigan RNC committeeman Dave Agema reportedly pushed through an RNC panel this week a resolution demanding the RNC reaffirm its support of “traditional marriage.”
“Agema, whose position gives him a voice in the development of party policy, has stressed the need for the GOP to maintain conservative principles,” MLive reported yesterday. “The MIRS subscription newsletter reports that an RNC panel this week unanimously approved an Agema resolution highlighting the differences between the Republican and Democratic parties, including the position that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
Agema has been under fire for posting to Facebook a lie-filled screed that claims gays are responsible for half the murders in urban areas, half of suicides are by gay people, gays live lives decades shorter than straights, and concludes homosexuals are “filthy.”
But Agema’s “activism” doesn’t stop there.
He announced he believes schools will make children gay, and parents won’t be able to stop them because it would be considered a “hate crime.”
Last month, Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and Gary Bauer all made the same threat separately. And in April of last year, FRC laid the seeds of this third party idea.
If the GOP abandoned support of “traditional marriage,” FRCÂ vice president Tom McClusky said, “you would see a third party.”