GOP Platform Website

The Republican Party is apparently requesting voter input on the GOP Platform 2008 website.

Over the past few months, I have told several local non-religious Republicans that I can't support the party, including one of the delegates to the state convention. He runs a small coffee cart in the building where I work and is a prototypical hard-working small businessman. He is also frustrated by the dominance of the religious conservatives in the party, so I told him where I stood in hopes that it would give him some moral support to more forcefully advocate his own views at the Party convention.

Local writer Ari Armstrong has noted that the Colorado Republicans know that they are being hurt badly by their support of religious causes. It may not make a perceivable difference in 2008, but I think it's important for them to know that there is a group of voters whom they are alienating precisely because the party is mixing religion and politics. If the Republicans think that courting the religionists has only an upside without a downside, then they'll keep doing it. But if they start recognizing that there is a downside, then it might spark more badly-needed internal discussion.

Hence, I decided to log on to the GOP Platform site and leave comments under the sections for "Abortion", "Religious Liberty", "Same Sex Marriage", and "Other" including a couple of links to Ayn Rand's essays on government and rights from the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights website.

I don't expect any specific or immediate response from them. But as usual, you never know when the right idea might reach the right mind. Here are a couple of represenative comments:

The Republican Party must promote the strict separation of church and state. I used to support the Republican Party because I believe in individual rights, free markets, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms.

However, the Republican Party alliance with the religious right on "social issues" like stem cell research, abortion and gay marriage has turned off many former supporters such as myself.

Americans have a right to practice their religion as a purely private matter, and I defend everyone's right to do so.

But the government should not force one group's religious views on everyone. Hence, I no longer have a home in any political party. To paraphrase a quote from Ronald Reagan, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me."

(This should not be taken as any kind of endorsement of Barack Obama - I find his policies loathsome and anti-American.)

Paul Hsieh, MD
Sedalia, CO

And

The Republican Party must promote the strict separation of church and state. I used to support the Republican Party because I believe in individual rights, free markets, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms.

However, the Republican Party alliance with the religious right on "social issues" like abortion and gay marriage has turned off many former supporters such as myself.

The proper function of the government is to protect individual rights, as philosopher Ayn Rand notes:

"Man's Rights"
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights

"The Nature of Government"
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_the_nature_of_government

The government should not force one group's religious views on everyone. Hence, I no longer have a home in any political party. To paraphrase a quote from Ronald Reagan, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me."

(Crossposted from NoodleFood.)