Oklahoma GOP Head: RNC Chair 'Must Resign' For LGBTQ Support
By: Roger Sollenberger (The Daily Beast)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The head of the Oklahoma Republican Party on Tuesday called on Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign after she expressed the party's commitment to the LGBTQ+ community at a gala earlier this month.
In a 1,100-word fundraising email headed "RNC Chair MUST Change Course or RESIGN," OKGOP chair John Bennett said McDaniel "must resign" if "she cannot or will not stand for who we say we are."
"The OKGOP will not cooperate with this decision and, as your Chairman, I assure the Oklahoma Republican Party that I will continue to stand up for our Republican Party Values and our principles," Bennett wrote in the email. He added that religious freedom is "flat-out incompatible with the pillars of the LGBT movement."
"Let's clear the way of those who are either too incompetent or too selfish to actually defend liberty and our Judeo-Christian founding," Bennett wrote, then asked for donations to his organization.
McDaniel crossed conservative Christians when she announced the creation of an "RNC Pride Coalition" at the annual Spirit of Lincoln dinner put on by Log Cabin Republicans—a group of conservative LGBTQ party members. The event, held Nov. 9 at Donald Trump's Mar a Lago club, feted Melania Trump and Ric Grenell, Trump's former acting head of national intelligence and the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history.
"Conservatives in Log Cabin don't just share our vision for a free, secure and prosperous America. They enrich it by adding unique perspectives to our party and recruiting even more diverse candidates and supporters to join our cause," McDaniel said at the gala, according to Fox News.
McDaniel's announcement of the pride coalition prompted criticism from conservatives, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) who objected to McDaniel's attempt at inclusion.
But not only did Bennett go a step further than his colleagues by calling for McDaniel's resignation if she didn't retract her statements, but he also did so the morning after she clarified her position.
His email cites the official GOP platform, which, more than six years after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, still defines "natural marriage" as between "a man and a woman." (The current platform, which will extend through at least 2024, is identical to the platform from 2016—the year after the landmark SCOTUS ruling—which the party left unchanged last summer amid chaotic and contentious negotiations ahead of the national convention.)
Bennett also blasted a handful of Log Cabin policies in the email, including its call for "a nationwide ban on conversion therapy for anyone under the age of 18."
A right-wing hawk who once called Islam "a cancer in our nation which needs to be cut out," Bennett was himself the subject of calls for resignation from members of his own party in August after he compared vaccine mandates to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. In response, he doubled down and used the controversy to raise money.
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Being gay and a republican seems like an oxymoron yet here we are in 2021 and people are still afraid of gay people getting married and well, just being gay.
Pray the gay away does not work.
Seems rather silly to me to dismiss Log Cabin Republicans in an age where the Republican Party is foundering due to the crazies in the party.
And Large Marge can go shit a brick! What happens in Oklahoma is none of her goddamned business. She needs to go back investigating Jewish lasers
I really just become speechless anymore. Here the head of the party is trying to be inclusive and people yell and scream that they are the wrong type of people and not wanted...
This is what you get when 21% of the voters drive the party. Welcome to populist puritism.
gee, too bad the rightwing extremists that decide the results of their upcoming primaries won't be able to produce a candidate acceptable to independents in the election.
Progressive Dems are doing the exact same thing. Perhaps not to the same degree, but they are doing it.
Where did the Dems do that?
The spending bills inter party "debates" and Manchin and Sinema are DINOs bullshit is the most recent. I don't particularly always agree with the reasoning those two do what they do, but they are Democrats, the same as Cheney is a Republican. The AZ Progressive group that helped get Sinema elected said they are considering finding someone to primary her. Good luck winning her district with a more liberal candidate.
AOC and company often talk about "primarying" those they feel aren't liberal enough. It's the same script (though not to the same degree) as the populists on the right.
We can go even further with the blatant hierocracy of the liberal cancel culture attacking anyone they perceive doesn't follow amorphous shadowy PC rules. Doxing, gang posting and articles of just crazy bullshit. An example of the latter, I ran across an article last week stating that Marvel fans were pissed off that the new Hawkeye series is anti-Semitic because it takes place during the 6 days running up to Christmas. I see this stuff across my news feeds all the time.
Again it's not to the same degree that the far right does it, but it does happen and is more often ignored than not.
That has NOTHING to do with deciding "the results of their upcoming primaries won't be able to produce a candidate acceptable to independents in the election.'
Try harder.
Okay. Keep your head buried in the sand and see how well 2022 & 2024 turn out for Dems. It's all about party purity now.
The Democratic Party in Arkansas is broken. They can't field a candidate for governor or either of the senate seats. The 4 congressional districts are just as bad
You couldn't support your own claim so you deflect. Sad.
They didn't
According to reactionary extremists "religious freedom" means the right to oppress gay people. With their stance on abortion, it also means oppression of women.
it wouldn't stop with those 2 groups of americans...
You're right, of course. It wouldn't.
Hooray for the American Taliban!
Hah, big surprise, a lot in the GOP STILL cannot get over the idea that gay people should have the same rights as everyone else. I swear, i will never understand their obsession with other people's sex lives.
It's because they don't have one or only as a spectator. Jerry Falwell comes to mind.
Well then Bennett should call for Trump to remove himself from the running in 2024. The much-publicized story about Trump sending an 'Envoy Ambassador' to Kosovo tend to ignore the FACT that Ric Grenell is as gay as a Christmas tree.
The GOP will NOT tolerate tolerance.
That's why Republicans treasure their huge walk-in closets.
In America - freedom for all those that agree with me, are not gay, of the female persuasion, or non-Christian. The mantra of the so called "right".
A pastor and former Marine who hates the elderly, women, Muslims, and anyone who didn't support Trump's Stop the Steal campaign. source
How proud the folks in Oklahoma must be to have this guy and his judgmental ass-hattery representing them.