A Republican group that supports GOP
candidates who back marriage equality is campaigning for a change to
the party's national platform on the issue.
According
to POLITICO, the American Unity Fund is reaching out to a number
of Republican National Committee (RNC) members on the issue.
“We are working to ensure that each
and every delegate is empowered to vote their conscience and truly
craft an inclusive Republican Party platform,” Jerri Ann Henry, who
heads the group's convention campaign, told the outlet. “We need
to be inclusive.”
In 2012, Republicans meeting in Tampa
ratified a platform which supported a federal constitutional
amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual union and chided judges
who struck down state marriage bans that excluded gay couples,
calling the rulings “an assault on the foundations of our society.”
The American Unity Fund has the backing
of billionaire investors Paul Singer, Dan Loeb, Seth Klarman and
Cliff Asness.
Singer, who is straight but has a gay
son who married his husband in Massachusetts, the first state to
legalize such unions, is considered among the most important
Republican donors nationwide. In 2012, The New York Times
reported that he had given nearly $10 million of his own money toward
efforts to legalize marriage equality in several states.
“Atmospherically and tonally, it's
part of the landscape of so-called harshness,” he told the Times
in 2012 about the effort to move the party on the issue.
Ed Martin, president of the social
conservative Eagle Forum, told POLITICO that evangelicals opposed to
marriage equality are “prepared for the fight. It's hand-to-hand
combat.”
He added that the fight might be
difficult, because “the Paul Singers of the world are spending
millions.”