This is funny, especially since I was a Republican for 14 years.
Yesterday I was e-mailed the new Oklahoma Republican Party Platform. I scanned the first five pages or so, taking in their statements on the "family," which included their attacks on homosexuals. Then I filed it away and went on with my day.
When Michael came home, he said, "Did you see we made the Republican Party Platform?" Excitedly I ran to look again.
And, sure enough, there on page 29:
We commend state Representatives Wright, Blackwell, Christian, Coody, Duncan, Enns, Faught, Johnson, Kern, Key, Liebmann, Moore, Murphey, Osborn, Ownbey, Reynolds, Ritze, Sanders, Terrill, and Thomsen for opposing inclusion in the House Journal, the introduction of an openly homosexual minister’s male “fiancé”.
Well, this is exciting! A few reflections:
1) They really took time to discuss this in their platform committee?
2) You know, most of the GOP, including the House leadership, voted for the prayer. So, now we've got them fighting each other over this silliness.
3) Winning the language battle is an essential part of winning these political battles. For a generation the Right has been successful at winning the language battle with even liberals using the charged terms of the Right (hopefully unwittingly). I'm constantly trying to get people to correct their terminology. For instance, I'm not a supporter of "gay marriage." I don't want to get "gay married," I want to get married. Therefore, I am a supporter of marriage equality. See how that works? Anyway, though they used the term "homosexual," which gay people just do not use to self-describe, they, surprising described me as a minister, when I would have thought they would not have acknowledged my ordination in the Christian church. And they used the term "fiance," even if it was in quotes. In a round-about way, their own platform now acknowledges that homosexuals have fiances.
4) A reminder that introductions do not enter into the House Journal, as the Speaker has explained. Therefore, they were not voting on whether to include my introduction or not, but on the prayer itself. And, since I did not say "fiance" in my spoken remarks but the term first appeared in the Oklahoman the following day, that is NOT what the 20 were voting on, even though they have repeatedly said that it is.