Excerpts from the 2012 Republican Platform
Constitutional Government
In a free society, the primary role of government is to protect the God-given, inalienable, inherent rights of its citizens, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
A serious threat to our country’s constitutional order, perhaps even more dangerous than presidential malfeasance, is an activist judiciary, in which some judges usurp the powers reserved to other branches of government.
We condemn the current Administration’s continued assaults on State governments in matters ranging from voter ID laws to immigration, from healthcare programs to land use decisions.
We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or any other scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.
We applaud legislation to require photo identification for voting and to prevent election fraud, particularly with regard to registration and absentee ballots. We support State laws that require proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration
We support changing the way that the decennial census is conducted, so that citizens are distinguished from lawfully present aliens and illegal aliens.
Marriage
Congressional Republicans took the lead in enacting the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of States and the federal government not to recognize same-sex relationships licensed in other jurisdictions.
We reaffirm our support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Religious Freedom
Liberal elites try to drive religious beliefs – and religious believers – out of the public square.
The most offensive instance of this war on religion has been the current Administration’s attempt to compel faith-related institutions, as well as believing individuals, to contravene their deeply held religious, moral, or ethical beliefs regarding health services, traditional marriage, or abortion.
An unprecedented aggression repudiated by a unanimous Supreme Court in its Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC decision.
We support the public display of the Ten Commandments.
We affirm the right of students to engage in prayer at public school events in public schools and to have equal access to public schools and other public facilities to accommodate religious freedom in the public square.
Second Amendment
We uphold the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.
We support the fundamental right to self-defense wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal right to be.
Pro-Life
We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.
We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage.
Energy
The Republican Party is committed to domestic energy independence.
We will end the EPA’s war on coal and encourage the increased safe development in all regions of the nation’s coal resources, the jobs it produces, and the affordable, reliable energy that it provides for America. Further, we oppose any and all cap and trade legislation.
Judicial Supremacy
Judicial activism which includes reliance on foreign law or unratified treaties undermines American law. The sole solution, apart from impeachment, is the appointment of constitutionalist jurists, who will interpret the law as it was originally intended rather than make it.
We oppose U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court. There must be no use of foreign law by U.S. courts in interpreting our Constitution and laws.
Audit the Fed
A free society demands that the sun shine on all elements of government. The first step to increasing transparency and accountability is through an annual audit of the Federal Reserve’s activities.
Illegal Aliens
In an age of terrorism, drug cartels, human trafficking, and criminal gangs, the presence of millions of unidentified persons in this country poses grave risks to the safety and the sovereignty of the United States.
We oppose any form of amnesty for those who, by intentionally violating the law, disadvantage those who have obeyed it. Granting amnesty only rewards and encourages more law breaking.
We insist upon enforcement at the workplace through verification systems so that jobs can be available to all legal workers. Use of the E-verify program – must be made mandatory nationwide.
State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked. The pending Department of Justice lawsuits against Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah must be dismissed immediately. The double-layered fencing on the border that was enacted by Congress in 2006, but never completed, must finally be built. In order to restore the rule of law, federal funding should be denied to sanctuary cities that violate federal law and endanger their own citizens, and federal funding should be denied to universities that provide instate tuition rates to illegal aliens, in open defiance of federal law.
We oppose statehood for the District of Columbia.
Welfare
The lack of family formation not only leads to more government costs, but also to more government control over the lives of its citizens in all aspects.
We believe that marriage, the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the national standard, a goal to stand for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage.
The Republican-led welfare reforms enacted in 1996 marked a revolution in government’s approach to poverty. Welfare should be a hand up, not a hand out. Work requirements, though modest, were at the heart of this success.
For the sake of low-income families as well as the taxpayers, the federal government’s entire system of public assistance should be reformed to ensure that it promotes work. Each year, this system dispenses nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer funds across a maze of approximately 80 programs that are neither coordinated nor effective in solving poverty and lifting up families.
We support the prohibition of gambling over the Internet.
ObamaCare
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – ObamaCare – was never really about healthcare, it was about power, the expansion of government control over one sixth of our economy. A Republican President will sign its repeal. The current Administration has promoted the notion of abortion as healthcare. We, however, affirm the dignity of women by protecting the sanctity of human life.
Government must promote Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Accounts.
Education
Since 1965 the federal government has spent $2 trillion on elementary and secondary education with no substantial improvement in academic achievement or high school graduation rates.
We support options for learning, including home schooling and local innovations like single-sex classes.
We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with abstinence education which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and respected standard of behavior.
Military Superiority
We are the party of peace through strength. Professing American exceptionalism – the conviction that our country holds a unique place and role in human history.
American military superiority has been the cornerstone of a strategy that seeks to deter aggression or defeat those who threaten our national security interests.
United Nations Treaties
The Senate shall reject agreements whose long-range impact on the American family is ominous or unclear. These include the U.N. Convention on Women’s Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty as well as the various declarations from the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development. We have deep reservations about the Law of the Sea Treaty and congratulate Senate Republicans for blocking its ratification.
We strongly reject the U.N. Agenda 21 as erosive of American sovereignty, and we oppose any form of U.N. Global Tax.
Trade
Some governments have used a variety of unfair means to limit American access to their markets while stealing our designs, patents, brands, know-how, and technology – the “intellectual property” that drives innovation. The chief offender is China, which has built up its economy in part by piggybacking onto Western technology advances, manipulates its currency to the disadvantage of American exporters, excludes American products from government purchases, subsidizes Chinese companies to give them a commercial advantage, and invents regulations and standards designed to keep out foreign competition. The current administration’s way of dealing with all these violations of world trade standards has been a virtual surrender.
A Republican President will insist on full parity in trade with China and stand ready to impose countervailing duties if China fails to amend its currency policies. Commercial discrimination will be met in kind. Counterfeit goods will be aggressively kept out of the country. Punitive measures will be imposed on foreign firms that misappropriate American technology and intellectual property.
We envision a “Reagan Economic Zone,” in which free trade will truly
be fair trade for all concerned.
Unions
We will restore the rule of law to labor law by blocking “card check.”
We support the right of States to enact Right-to-Work laws and encourage them to do so to promote greater economic liberty. Ultimately, we support the enactment of a National Right-to-Work law to promote worker freedom and to promote greater economic liberty. We will aggressively enforce the recent decision by the Supreme Court barring the use of union dues for political purposes without the consent of the worker.
A Republican President will protect the rights of conscience of public employees by proposing legislation to bar mandatory dues for political purposes.
Military Policies
We reject the use of the military as a platform for social experimentation and will not accept attempts to undermine military priorities and mission readiness.
We oppose the reinstatement of the draft whether directly or through compulsory national service.
We support military women’s exemption from direct ground combat units and infantry battalions. We affirm the cultural values that encourage selfless service and superiority in battle, and we oppose anything which might divide or weaken team cohesion, including intra-military special interest demonstrations. We will support an objective and open-minded review of the current Administration’s management of military personnel policies and will correct problems with appropriate administrative, legal, or legislative action.
We support rights of conscience and religious freedom for military chaplains and people of faith. A Republican Commander in Chief will protect religious independence of military chaplains and will not tolerate attempts to ban Bibles or religious symbols from military facilities. We will enforce and defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the Armed Forces as well as in the civilian world.
Monroe Doctrine
We will resist foreign influence in our hemisphere.
Israel
We support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders.
Democrat Platform
Omission of God
In 2008, the Democrat Platform stated:
We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of the working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.
In 2012, the Democrat Platform deleted the words “God-given.” The paragraph was changed by the Platform Committee to read as follows:
We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth, the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.
A motion (requiring a 2/3 majority) was presented to the full Democratic National Convention on September 4 to restore “God” to the Platform. The chair called for a voice vote three times and the Ayes and Nays sounded equally divided each time. The chair then read from the teleprompter that the motion had passed. All TV viewers saw and heard the evidence that at least half the Delegates to the Democratic National Convention voted to exclude “God” or God-given rights from their National Platform.
Taxpayer-Funded Abortion
The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. Abortion is an intensely personal decision between a woman, her family, her doctor, and her clergy; there is no place for politicians or government to get in the way.
Same-Sex Marriage
We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples.
We oppose discriminatory federal and state constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny equal protection of the laws to committed same-sex couples who seek the same respect and responsibilities as other married couples. We support the full repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act.
Labor Day Reminds Us of Need for Jobs
The businesses that support and lobby for so-called free trade are always trying to wrap themselves in Ronald Reagan. But that’s false because Reagan would not have allowed America to be cheated coming and going by foreign countries.
Of course, Reagan was for international trade, but he did not see it or use it as a stepping-stone to global governance, accepting cheating by foreign countries, rules set by panels of countries that hate and envy us, or any vision of globalism. Reagan looked upon foreign trade as a component of American economic and military superiority, and as a vehicle to bring down the Soviet Union, otherwise known as the “evil empire.”
Reagan stood for the United States maintaining a strong industrial base not only because that translates into good jobs for Americans and an expansion of the middle class. Reagan came from the generation who understood that America’s World War II victory was based on our tremendous manufacturing industry that overnight turned from producing automobiles into military weapons and tractors into tanks.
Reagan signed a Buy America policy for federal highway and transit projects. No way would he have approved building a Keystone XL oil pipeline with steel pipe imported from a Russian-owned mill or a San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge assembled from steel sections made in China.
Reagan imposed tariffs on motorcycles to protect Harley-Davidson and on electronic products from Japan. Like Alexander Hamilton and Republican party policy for many decades, Reagan understood that a strong manufacturing base is a major element of America’s greatness, military superiority, and prosperity.
It’s impossible to believe that Reagan would have knuckled under to impertinent edicts of a bunch of anti-American countries in Geneva called the World Trade Organization, which is demanding that we repeal our COOL law (Country Of Origin Labeling).
You can bet that Reagan would never have kowtowed to Communist China stealing our intellectual property and building a vast industry of making illegal replicas of American products based on ignoring our patents. Reagan never would have tolerated Communist China requiring U.S. companies to give China their patents and manufacturing secrets in order to build a plant in China.
Obama’s Jobs Czar, GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, is now urging American companies to welcome Chinese investments. That would be another route to losing control of American innovation and patents to Chinese state-owned enterprises.
Reagan never would have deceived the American people by pretending that our foreign competitors are cutting their tariffs when in fact they simply replace tariffs with a Value Added Tax of comparable amount. Reagan would not have dishonestly called the present system “free trade” when Communist China is cheating us in so many ways because they use trade to build up their military as rapidly as they can with our money.
Mitt Romney understands the threat from Communist China better than any of his Republican competitors and certainly far better than President Obama. Romney said, “I don’t want a trade war, but I don’t want trade surrender either. I will begin on Day One by designating China as the currency manipulator it is.”
Years ago, Ronald Reagan admonished the Japanese about their currency manipulation. He told the Japanese that if they didn’t revalue their yen, the United States would take unilateral action to reduce Japanese imports.
Again and again, we are told that times have changed, that it’s okay that the American economy is shifting from manufacturing to a service economy. But that means we are not making things; we are just reselling stuff that other countries make, and that doesn’t produce good jobs or a strong economy. The Republican Party Platform recognizes the dishonesty of so-called free trade.
We cheer the Republican platform for restoring our demand for American “military superiority.” Manufacturing is an essential component of that goal.
The 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida was the 16th Republican National Convention attended by Phyllis Schlafly. She played a role in every one starting in 1952 in Chicago, and was a Delegate or Alternate in 14 of the 16 Conventions, the first half of those Conventions as a Delegate from Illinois and the more recent ones as a Delegate from Missouri. She was the Illinois Delegate on the Platform Committee in 1984 in Dallas when the strong language about pro-life was added, which has remained the same ever since. She was the Missouri Delegate on the Platform Committee in 2012. Phyllis was president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women from 1960 to 1964, and First Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Women from 1964 trough 1967.
