The Nevada Republican Party has dropped
its opposition to gay marriage and abortion.
The change in its official position
came Saturday at the state party's annual convention, the Las
Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Earlier this month, the Clark County
GOP voted to remove language from its platform defining marriage as
“between a man and a woman.”
Convention-goers on Saturday agreed to
a proposed platform void of the social issues.
“The issue was how can we back out of
people's personal lives,” said Dave Hockaday, a member of the
platform committee. “We need to focus on issues where we can have
an impact.”
Gregory T. Angelo, national executive
director of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, predicted the
move would “lead to massive Republican wins at the ballot box this
fall.”
“Once again, our local Log Cabin
Republicans members have made a critical difference pushing the GOP
toward the right side of history by going where others fear to tread
– or cannot tread because of their party affiliation,” Angelo
said in a statement. “The Republican Party is at a crossroads: in
a year where the Massachusetts GOP rolled back the clock and added
divisive social issues to its platform, the state Republican Party
responsible for nominating Sharron Angle in 2010 seems to have
finally learned to focus on the issues that truly matter to voters,
which will lead to massive Republican wins at the ballot box this
fall.”