Despite platform change, Republicans remain divided on same-sex marriage

Some Republicans have celebrated the change as overdue, but other party faithful at the Republican National Convention doubt it will steer the GOP in a different direction. Democrats and LGBTQ groups say they are unimpressed by the rhetorical shift.

Charles T. Moran, president of Log Cabin Republicans, a conservative LGBTQ group, lauded the GOP for removing “outdated and out-of-step language opposing marriage equality, an issue the vast majority of the country and a majority of Republican voters support,” and for making “clear to voters that the Republican Party welcomes all.”

But among Republicans overall, support for same-sex marriage is on the decline, according to recent polling.

Although more than two-thirds of Americans in a June Gallup poll said that same-sex marriages should remain legally recognized, “with the same rights as traditional marriages,” only 46 percent of Republicans agree — down from 49 percent in 2023 and 55 percent, the all-time high, in 2022 and 2021. The percentage of Republicans describing same-sex relations as “morally acceptable” has declined from 56 percent to 40 percent over that period.

States and the federal government cannot ban same-sex marriages so long as Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, remains settled law.

But in the past several years, Republican-led states have moved aggressively to curb other rights for LGBTQ people, banning or restricting gender transition treatment for minors and dictating which bathrooms trans people can use in public buildings. GOP-run states have debated or advanced bills that would curtail forms of public expression, such as drag performances, and in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) banned cities from displaying rainbow lights on bridges to celebrate Pride Month.

Multiple delegates at this week’s convention told The Washington Post that they believe the GOP needs to appeal to a broader swath of voters to win in November. But some said they still personally oppose same-sex marriage.

Rob Linebarger, a Washington state delegate, said, “I think we should be promoting traditional family … in the biblical sense.”

“You have a man and a woman, and they have kids. If that doesn’t work for [certain people] … do your own thing. But you don’t need to be recognized for it. Just go live your life. Be free,” he added.

Linebarger said he didn’t think the changes to the platform were necessarily intended to bring more voters into the fold, despite widespread public support for same-sex marriage.

“I think it’s more about energizing the base to get those that are in favor of the traditional family” to vote, he said. “ … But we’re fair to everybody. We accept everybody.”

Washington state delegate Matt Bumala, chair of the Clark County Republican Party, agreed with Linebarger’s sentiments on acceptance, saying, “I think it’s okay to say what your values are and what you believe in, what you stand for. And that’s different than saying we want to legislate and make it illegal.”

“I think declaring what you stand for principle-wise is important, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to take someone’s individual freedoms and rights away,” he continued.

Kris Warner, the GOP candidate for West Virginia’s secretary of state who is serving as a delegate for the state at the convention, said the changes to the platform on same-sex marriage were “absolutely” an effort to engage with a different part of the electorate.

“I think that most of [my] delegation would expect a marriage to be between a man and a woman,” Warner said. “ … I don’t know that [the changes to the platform are] about same-sex marriage being legal, but I think we’ve got to broaden the horizon to win the November general election.”

Still, Warner acknowledged that the party platform — shrunk from about 60 pages in its 2016 form to a more digestible 16-page document this year — is not necessarily being read by voters outside the convention arena.

“You walk out on the street outside here and you’re not going to find many people that are paying attention to the language being used,” said Warner, who has participated in Republican conventions as a delegate since 2004. “I think it’s a guiding instrument more than it’s a messaging instrument.”

Democrats and nonpartisan LGBTQ groups are working to counter any suggestions that the new platform’s language signals that the GOP will be inclusive and equitable toward the LGBTQ community. Although Republicans removed explicit opposition to same-sex marriage in the new platform, they doubled down on policies targeting transgender people. In the new document, the party pledges to continue efforts to “keep men out of women’s sports, ban taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop taxpayer-funded schools from promoting gender transition.”

The new platform “advances the scale of [Republicans’] policies and plans that hurt LGBTQ+ Americans,” Sam Paisley, interim communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “Trump’s MAGA allies in state legislatures have introduced more than 1,000 anti-LGBTQ+ bills over the last two years, and these attacks are only growing.”

Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, a nonpartisan LGBTQ rights group, said in a statement that the GOP “knows that their resistance to marriage equality is wildly out of touch with the country. But no election-year messaging can change where MAGA is on equality.”

Wolf cited the GOP’s embrace of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) — a main stage convention speaker who once referred to LGBTQ people as “filth” — and Trump’s decision to pick Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) to be his running mate, given Vance’s track record of “anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policy positions.” That track record, HRC has pointed out, includes comments suggesting Democrats are “grooming” children and opposition to the Equality Act, which would amend anti-discrimination laws to include gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes.

Wolf also said that Project 2025, a conservative think tank’s blueprint for a second Trump term, “disparages same-sex marriages.” Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025, which was assembled by people with deep ties to him.