CLEVELAND, OHIO — For Washington, D.C. delegate Rachel Hoff, the first openly gay person to serve on the Republican National Convention’s platform committee, last week’s meetings to set the GOP agenda were frustrating.
Hoff became emotional when she begged her party to “include me and those like me” and to change the party’s hard-line stance on “traditional marriage.” Even after her impassioned plea, her colleagues rejected her attempt to amend the platform to become more accepting of same-sex marriage.
Though that decision was disheartening, she told ThinkProgress that it was not representative of what she sees at the Republican Party’s changing attitudes toward LGBT inclusion. On Thursday night, the final one of the Republican National Convention, Hoff sat cheering and laughing at the back of the Quicken Loans Arena with the D.C. delegation — a group’s that’s more than one-third gay.
Throughout the week of festivities in Cleveland, Hoff said she spoke with countless other delegates who redeemed her feelings about her party and made her realize how “out-of-step” the platform committee is with the country as a whole and even the Republican Party.
“Outside of the platform committee, our party is ready to move on,” Hoff said.
To some, the Republican Party is still unwelcoming to LGBT voices. The official platform, finalized this week, defines marriage as between a man and a woman, rejects what it calls the Obama administration’s redefinition of sex discrimination laws to include transgender individuals, and says parents of LGBT children should be allowed to force their children into conversion therapy. Committee members even rejected an attempt to include language condemning foreign terrorist attacks against the LGBT community.
“I think we’ve got to catch up, not just on marriage but on a full spectrum of issues effecting the LGBT community,” Hoff said.
One of those issues that disturbs her the most is the platform’s mention of “therapy” for LGBT children. “It’s terrible,” she said. “It’s hurtful. That is one thing that makes LGBT kids kill themselves, and the fact that we would have any reference to it is dangerous.”
Although the GOP put forward what some are calling the most socially conservative platform ever, Hoff said her conversations with delegates and other party members at the RNC have made her feel more positive about the future of the GOP on LGBT rights.
“A huge number of people have come up and thanked me for being their voice in the room,” she said. “It’s especially touching when it’s fellow LGBT Republicans. Most of the people are just people who want to see our party either fully support pro-LGBT policies or move on from anti-LGBT policies.”
Outside D.C.’s delegation, various other LGBT delegates made statements about their identity when openly gay Silicon Valley entrepreneur Peter Thiel spoke Thursday. As he declared that he is “proud to be gay,” a group of LGBT delegates from California assembled together directly in front of the stage.
Thiel was not the only RNC speaker to address the LGBT community. As Hoff noted, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich all made vague mentions of the community during their remarks. And after Donald Trump discussed the Orlando shooting, an attack on the country’s LGBTQ community, he thanked the audience for their supportive applause. “As a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering,” he said.
Hoff said she is not yet comfortable with the thought of a President Trump advocating on behalf of the LGBT community. “His rhetoric has been better than other Republicans, which I’ll admit is a low bar,” she said, adding that there is nothing in his record to convince her that “he would exercise any real leadership on this issue.”
Though the Democratic Party has, in its official capacity, been supportive of gay rights since the 1980s, Hoff said she does not view the GOP as that far behind.
“There’s a perception that we’re really far behind the left, but you will remember that Barack Obama did not support marriage equality until 2008,” she said. “Plenty of Republicans, national Republican leaders, came out for marriage equality before Hillary Clinton. And so I would encourage some memory of recent history in terms of the rhetoric that’s directed toward the Republican Party on this issue.”
Other gay delegates were less optimistic about the party. Christian Berle, one of D.C.’s seven gay delegates, told the New York Times that he asks himself every day why he remains in the Republican Party.
“The party is becoming more and more narrow and more and more spiteful,” he said.
Hoff said she is also frequently asked why she doesn’t just leave the GOP, but she said that the only way to “achieve real progress on this issue” is to make it a “bipartisan effort.”
“If the Republicans don’t come along and evolve on this issue, then we’ll never truly achieve the kind of acceptance, equality, and progress for the LGBT community that we want,” she said.
Already, Hoff is looking to 2020, when she says the party will get another opportunity to rewrite its platform.
“It will only be more clear four years from now how much the platform is out of step with the country, obviously, and the Republican Party,” she said.