N.H. GOP votes to criminalize abortion, eliminate marriage equality and outlaw Sharia law
Tea Party activists were in firm control of the New Hampshire GOP convention yesterday, adding language to the party platform criminalizing abortion, condemning marriage equality and calling for legislation to outlaw Sharia law.
Delegates strengthened the anti-choice plank in the platform that had expressed support for “the unborn child’s fundamental right to life and implement all possible legal protections.”
The revised language explicitly declares abortion is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, committing the party to protect “the pre-born child’s fundamental right to life and personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment, and implement all possible Constitutional protections.”
(Incidentally, this language aligns the party with the position expressed by 2nd District congressional candidate Marilinda Garcia. On her 2012 campaign website, Garcia also pointed to “Fourteenth Amendment’s protections” for the unborn child’s “fundamental right to life.”)
By a 241-124 vote, the delegates defeated an amendment proposed by former state Rep. Tammy Simmons (R-Manchester) that would have eliminated the platform’s definition of marriage “as the legal union between one man and one woman.”
Simmons speech in favor of Amendment 43 was described as “a strong, reasonable, well-formed Libertarian - Conservative argument,” by one attendee. “Simmons’s eloquence was clearly wasted on these neanderthals,” complained Rep. Steve Vaillancourt (R-Manchester).
The delegates then approved an amendment condemning marriage equality: “Recognize marriage as the legal and sacred union between one man and one woman as ordained by God, encouraged by the State, traditional to humankind, and the core of the Family.”
The language is “straight out of the playbook of the 19th century Know Nothing Party,” noted Vaillancourt. The vote “clearly showed that two out of three Republicans believe in turning the clock back; in hoping to force gay people back into the closet,” he wrote.
Delegates also approved language committing the party to “take any and all actions possible to protect against the implementation of any part of Sharia law in NH, including legislation outlawing Sharia law.”
“Who would have known that Republicans have become such religious scholars as to single out Sharia law for special condemnation?” Vaillancourt asked. “No wonder Americans are hated by such large segments of the Islamic world; a gratuitous slap from the NH GOP certainly will add to that.”
“As I say, it was a sad, sad, sad, sad day for sanity in the state party and the body politic,” concluded Vaillancourt.