In a draft of the party platform that will be ratified at next week’s Republican National Convention, the GOP signaled a major shift in its position on gay marriage and dropped its call for a constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to heterosexual couples, CNN reported. Instead the draft platform says that the issue should be left to the states to determine, according to CNN.
November’s election is the first national election since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in its 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges.
A desire for a constitutional amendment that defined marriage nationwide as between a man and a woman has been part of the Republican Party platform since 2004, CNN said. This year’s version however, while still voicing opposition to the Supreme Court decision, says states should determine their marriage laws.
“We urge (the decision’s) reversal whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states,” the draft says, according to CNN.
The new language is more in line with the posturing of the GOP’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump on the issue. After the Obergefell decision, Trump did not call for a constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, as some of the other Republican primary candidates at the time advocated. In January he said that he “would strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Obergefell, but that that he wished “it was done by the states.”
