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Young Conservatives Push for GOP Platform Change on Gay Marriage

Benson Kua/Wikimedia Commons

(Lansing-MPRN) A group of 20- and 30-something conservative activists is in Michigan to meet with state Republican leaders. The goal of Young Conservatives for Freedom to Marry wants the party to adopt a change in its platform at the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2016. It wants the GOP to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage. 

Nina Verghese is a Maryland-based public relations consultant who’s worked for the Ford Motor Company. She says the GOP position on same-sex marriage is an anachronism that’s costing the party support, especially among younger voters.

“It doesn’t recognize there’s a diverse amount of opinion on this issue, and that’s basically what we want them to recognize – there are people who support traditional marriage, but there are also people who support gay marriage.”

Verghese says she’d like the party platform to stick to economic issues, immigration, and foreign policy. Ed Lopez is a vice chair of the Republican Liberty Caucus. He says Republicans really have no choice on whether to change – just when it will happen.

“I think the party will change eventually,” he says. “So even if it doesn’t happen in this cycle, it will most likely happen in the next. I think that people understand that this is where Americans are moving, this is where young people are moving, and, eventually, young people become older people, so the base is changing.”

Lopez says a US Supreme Court’s expected ruling this coming summer on the same-sex marriage question also makes a platform position less necessary. A recent Gallup survey suggests most Republicans across the country still oppose same-sex marriage, but support among GOP voters is increasing at a rapid pace. Fifty-six percent of all voters support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to the same survey.

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