The Clark County, Nevada Republican
Party has voted to remove language from its platform defining
marriage as “between a man and a woman.”
The change was overwhelmingly approved
Saturday, the Las
Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Another change is the addition of
“sexual orientation” to a nondiscrimination clause.
“We're supposed to be a party that
believes in the right to make personal decisions,” Nick Phillips,
the party's political director told the paper.
Phillips said that some opponents of
the change feared “churches will get sued if they don't marry
gays.”
“That's where most of the anti-gay
marriage sentiment was coming from,” he said.
Last month, Nevada officials announced
they would not defend the state's marriage ban in a lawsuit
challenging its constitutionality, a move which greatly increases the
odds that an appeals court will strike down the ban.