Where the Political Parties Stand on Social Issues in 2024

This week, the Democratic Party will formally adopt their platform at the Democratic National Convention. Last month, delegates for the Republican Party did the same at their convention. The platform is a document that outlines the statement of principles and policies the party has decided to support.

Why should Christians care about a document that few non-politicians will ever read? Because of the influence the two major party platforms have on public policy. While the platform isn’t binding on the presidential nominee or any other politicians, political scientists have found that over the past 30 years, lawmakers in Congress tend to vote in line with their party platform: 89 percent of the time for Republicans and 79 percent of the time for Democrats. For this reason, we should be aware of what’s proposed in these documents and how they may affect the welfare of our nation (Jer. 29:7).

This article outlines the positions taken by the two major political parties on several social issues, as outlined in their most recent platforms. While the Democrat platform is largely similar to the one from 2020, the Republican platform has been extensively overhauled. For this reason, significant changes between the Republican’s previous platform (2012/2016) and the current one have been highlighted.

The positions of the presidential candidates and their running mates are also noted on two salient issues—abortion and LGBT+ policies.

Finally, since both the Republican and Democratic parties have officially adopted a pro-choice position, the platforms of the only two consistently pro-life parties—the American Solidarity Party and the Constitution Party—are also included for comparison.

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Harris and Walz on Abortion

Kamala Harris, the vice president, has been a vehement supporter of abortion throughout her political career.

While she was the California attorney general, Harris attempted to force pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion by “proudly” cosponsoring the Reproductive FACT Act.

Then, during her time in the U.S. Senate, Harris cosponsored 14 pieces of legislation that would expand and protect abortion rights, including the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2017 (which prohibits governmental restrictions on abortion before viability). She also voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (a bill that would establish a new criminal offense for performing or attempting to perform an abortion if the fetus is 20 weeks or more) and against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (a bill that establishes requirements for the degree of care a health-care practitioner must provide in the case of a child born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion).

As Ryan Anderson has pointed out, Harris “wants to force pro-lifers to violate our consciences.” He notes that while in the Senate, she also “supported legislation that threatened religious liberty, particularly in the context of abortion,” such as the Do No Harm Act, a bill that would “narrow the Religious Freedom Restoration Act so as to withhold religious-liberty protections against abortion mandates.” Anderson also notes Harris was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act, which, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, could have forced “taxpayers to fund elective abortions” and forced “doctors and hospitals to perform abortions even if it’s against their conscience or beliefs.”

Harris continued to promote abortion while in the White House. In an amicus brief for a federal court case, the Ethics and Public Policy Center documented some ways the Biden-Harris administration promoted abortion: turning Title X into an abortion counseling and referral mandate, turning taxpayer dollars into abortion funds, turning hospital emergency rooms and VA hospitals into abortion clinics, turning the U.S. Postal Service into a delivery service for abortion drugs, turning pharmacies into abortion drug dispensaries, turning HIPAA’s privacy protections into a shield against laws regulating abortion, and turning workplace pregnancy accommodations into an abortion mandate.

Harris’s running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, has also taken significant action to promote abortion. For instance, in January 2023, he signed a bill enshrining the right to abortion into Minnesota state law, making it the first state to codify such protections after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. He later signed legislation aimed at shielding abortion providers and patients traveling to Minnesota from legal action by other states with more restrictive laws.

Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota has also repealed restrictions like the 24-hour waiting period for abortions, passed laws to protect Minnesota health-care providers and patients from abortion-related prosecution in other states, and ensured local authorities cannot regulate individual decisions about abortion or reproductive health care.

Harris and Walz on LGBT+ Issues

Harris has established herself as a prominent advocate for LGBT+ issues. Throughout her political career, she has framed LGBT+ rights as fundamental freedoms that need protection. For instance, as California attorney general, she refused to defend Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages.

While in the Senate, she consistently backed pro-LGBT+ legislation, such as the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation in places of public accommodation.

In the Biden-Harris administration, Harris has supported several executive actions, such as ordering federal agencies to protect LGBT+ people from discrimination in housing, health care, and credit lending; reopening the military to transgender service members; expanding access to gender transitioning in federal programs and prisons; and promoting the use of gender markers on federal identification documents to reflect trans identities.

The LGBT+ activist group Human Rights Campaign says the Biden-Harris administration is “the most pro-LGBTQ+ administration in history.”

Similarly, Walz has established himself as a promoter of LGBT+ rights and issues. In 1999, as a high school teacher, he advised the school’s first gay-straight alliance. During his time in Congress, he supported the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and was an early supporter of the Respect for Marriage Act.

As governor, he has used executive action to further protect LGBT+ rights. In 2023, he issued an executive order directing state agencies to safeguard access to “gender-affirming care” for transgender people in Minnesota, including those from other states.

He has also signed several significant pieces of LGBT+ legislation. In 2023, he signed a “trans refuge” bill into law, protecting transgender people and their families from legal repercussions when traveling to Minnesota for “gender-affirming care.” He enacted a statewide ban on conversion therapy for LGBT+ children and adults and signed the PRO Act, which indirectly supports LGBT+ access to abortion.

Democratic Party Platform on Social Issues

The following information is taken from the draft version of the 2024 Democratic Party Platform. It’s expected to be officially approved during the Democratic convention.

Abortion

The language in the 2024 platform is considerably vaguer than in 2020. For example, in 2020 the party said, “Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health-care services, including safe and legal abortion. We oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to women’s reproductive health and rights.”

The new section in 2024 on “Reproductive Freedom” spends more time condemning the action of the Trump administration and saying what the Biden administration has done than clarifying goals for the near future.

• Protecting access to abortion, including creating a new path for pharmacies to dispense FDA-approved medication abortion
• Defending access to abortion in court
• Expanding reproductive health care for service members, veterans, and their family members
• Defending access to emergency medical care, including clarifying that federal law on emergency care preempts state abortion bans
• Challenging threats to prosecute people who help women travel to a different state for abortion care
• Safeguarding patients’ and providers’ privacy related to reproductive health care
• Ensuring access to accurate information and legal resources about reproductive rights
• Passing national legislation to make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again
• Strengthening access to contraception
• Protecting a woman’s right to access IVF (in vitro fertilization)
• Repealing the Hyde Amendment
• Supporting access to FDA-approved medication abortion
• Appointing leaders at the FDA who respect science and judges who uphold fundamental freedoms related to reproductive rights
• Expanding access to birth control, including approving the first over-the-counter daily oral contraceptive
• Making a broader range of contraceptives available to women at no cost through their health insurance
• Boosting access to free and low-cost services through the Title X family planning program
• Expanding access to birth control for service members through the VA
• Opposing efforts by Trump and his allies to ban medication abortion nationwide
• Expanding IVF access for service members, veterans, and federal employees

Criminal Justice Reform

• Pardoning people convicted federally for using or possessing marijuana
• Rescheduling marijuana at the federal level
• Implementing a comprehensive strategic plan to improve the criminal justice system (more than 100 actions)
• Investing in job training, addiction recovery, and reentry services
• Expanding access to Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals
• Addressing the school-to-prison pipeline by revising discipline guidelines
• Incentivizing states to develop community-based alternatives to prison for young people
• Reestablishing the Justice Department’s Office for Access to Justice
• Expunging federal marijuana-only convictions
• Expanding the use of drug courts and interventions for people with substance use disorders
• Creating an Accelerating Justice System Reform grant program
• Expanding access to public defenders
• Increasing funding for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division
• Hiring 50 new assistant U.S. attorneys
• Investing in after-school programs, community centers, and summer jobs for youth
• Automatically sealing and expunging juvenile records
• Ending state-level use of private prisons and detention centers
• Restricting practices like solitary confinement, chokeholds, and restraints on pregnant inmates
• Guaranteeing access to medical care in prison
• Eliminating profiteering from diversion, bail, electronic monitoring, commissaries, and reentry programs
• Supporting rehabilitation and education programs for inmates, including college programs
• Boosting access to transitional housing, mental health, and substance use treatment for returning citizens
• Limiting reincarceration for federal offenders to only serious violations of supervised release
• Expanding “ban the box” initiatives to help returning citizens find work
• Protecting voting rights for returning citizens
• Protecting returning citizens’ rights to public services like Pell Grants and nutrition assistance

Drugs and Drug Abuse

• Strengthening prevention efforts for opioid addiction
• Investing in treatment for opioid addiction
• Expanding recovery support services for those struggling with addiction
• Increasing the number of medical providers who can initiate treatment for opioid addiction from 129,000 to 2 million
• Making historic investments in the State Opioid Response program to help states deliver free treatment services
• Making naloxone (an overdose-prevention drug) available over the counter at grocery stores and pharmacies
• Increasing access to naloxone at federal facilities
• Ending the requirement for length of addiction before entering treatment
• Continuing investments in life-saving medication and care for Americans struggling with addiction
• Combating drug trafficking
• Expanding the use of drug courts, interventions, and diversion for people with substance use disorders
• Pardoning people convicted federally for using or possessing marijuana
• Taking steps to reschedule marijuana so it’s no longer classified as more dangerous than fentanyl or methamphetamine
• Working to expunge federal marijuana-only convictions
• Cracking down on fentanyl trafficking, including increased border seizures and international cooperation
• Deploying more cutting-edge inspection machines to detect fentanyl at ports of entry
• Leveraging federal resources to stop tech platforms from being used for criminal conduct, including sales of dangerous drugs like fentanyl
• Expanding access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder
• Addressing the disproportionate effect of infectious diseases related to drug use, including HIV and Hepatitis C

Education

• Providing free, universal preschool for 4-year-olds
• Investing $130 billion to help school districts reopen, rebuild, and catch up after the pandemic
• Providing an additional $2 billion to high-need, Title I schools
• Helping districts hire 14,000 more counselors and social workers
• Increasing investments in full-service community schools
• Supporting approaches to help students learn: reducing chronic absenteeism, providing intensive tutoring, and extending school days and years
• Opposing private-school vouchers
• Increasing accountability for charter schools
• Prioritizing education in STEM fields
• Making trade school and community college free for every American
• Expanding job training partnerships connecting high schools, local businesses, and labor unions
• Investing in registered apprenticeships
• Canceling $167 billion in student loans for nearly 5 million borrowers
• Implementing the SAVE plan for affordable student-loan repayment
• Increasing Pell Grants and expanding them to 7 million more students
• Doubling the maximum Pell Grant award by 2029
• Investing $16 billion in historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)
• Working to subsidize tuition at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) for families earning less than $125,000 a year
• Canceling student loan debts for more than 942,000 public servants, including teachers
• Proposing to give public school teachers a raise
• Recruiting more new teachers, with options for some to start training in high school
• Helping school-support staff advance in their careers
• Investing in partnerships with HBCUs, MSIs, and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) to diversify the teacher pipeline

Human Trafficking

• Seeking congressional authorization to increase penalties for human smugglers and traffickers

LGBT+ rights

• Passing and signing the Respect for Marriage Act
• Reversing the ban on transgender service members
• Ending the ban on blood donation by gay men
• Signing an executive order extending federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBT+ people
• Signing executive orders strengthening civil rights protections in housing, employment, health care, education, and the justice system
• Pardoning service members court-martialed and dishonorably discharged for being LGBT+
• Commitment to pass the Equality Act
• Prohibiting employment discrimination in the federal government, including contractors
• Making federally funded seniors’ programs LGBT+ inclusive
• Protecting LGBT+ children in adoption and foster care systems
• Banning discrimination in health care based on gender identity and sexual orientation
• Protecting transgender Americans’ access to health care and coverage, including gender-affirming care
• Implementing a national strategy to end the HIV epidemic
• Expanding mental health and suicide prevention services for LGBT+ people
• Combating the practice of “conversion therapy”
• Investing in LGBT+ youth mental health through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
• Fighting book bans that censor LGBT+ content
• Signing an executive order to guarantee educational environments free from sex discrimination
• Signing an executive order to address discriminatory legislative attacks against LGBT+ children and families
• Establishing the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse
• Launching the LGBTQI+ Community Safety Partnership
• Taking an all-of-department approach at the Justice Department to protect LGBT+ rights
• Prioritizing the investigation of hate crimes against trans and nonbinary people
• Ending violence against transgender Americans, especially black transgender women

Poverty

• Expanding the Child Tax Credit, made available to all low-income children
• Restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit
• Raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour
• Supporting paid leave
• Improving health care
• Increasing investment in public schools and affordable housing
• Supporting families to reduce the need for foster care
• Expanding public transit
• Improving access to affordable banking for low-income families
• Increasing investment in Community Development Financial Institutions
• Making the New Markets Tax Credit permanent
• Rejecting proposals to cut programs that vulnerable Americans rely on

Racial Equality

• Signing executive orders to increase access to federal contracting, capital, and lending programs for small disadvantaged businesses
• Expanding the Child Tax Credit
• Improving SNAP (food assistance program)
• Launching a summer food benefits program
• Setting a goal of 15 percent of federal contracts going to small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs)
• Doubling SBA loans to black-owned and Latino-owned businesses
• Eliminating the ban on SBA lending to people on probation or parole
• Banning “the box” on SBA loan forms
• Making the Minority Business Development Agency a permanent part of the Department of Commerce
• Increasing investment in Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs)
• Launching the Economic Opportunity Coalition
• Doubling funding for CDFIs
• Expanding and making permanent the New Markets Tax Credit
• Providing financial assistance to farmers who’ve faced discrimination
• Creating a task force to address bias in home appraisals
• Implementing down payment assistance for first-generation homeowners
• Proposing mortgage relief tax credit for first-time homebuyers
• Investing in infrastructure through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
• Increasing funding for Title I and community schools
• Investing in school counselors and mental-health providers
• Boosting school attendance and expanding tutoring and summer programs
• Passing gun safety legislation
• Appointing a federal coordinator to address book bans and classroom politicization
• Investing in recruiting and training teachers from diverse communities
• Canceling student loan debt and easing repayment terms
• Increasing the maximum Pell Grant
• Expanding access to free community college
• Subsidizing tuition for low-income students at HBCUs, TCUs, and other minority-serving institutions
• Implementing the Justice40 Initiative
• Replacing lead pipes nationwide
• Accelerating Superfund cleanups
• Expanding the Affordable Care Act
• Lowering prescription drug costs, including insulin price caps
• Expanding Medicaid coverage
• Addressing the maternal mortality crisis
• Ending the HIV epidemic
• Supporting a congressional study on reparations

Religious Freedom

The section on religious liberty primarily focuses on the previous actions of the Biden-Harris administration. The following are future proposals and actions:

• Combating hate crimes and white nationalist terrorism
• Prioritizing the investigation of hate crimes against trans and nonbinary people
• Continuing to increase security at houses of worship
• Protecting the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion for everyone
• Maintaining the separation of church and state
• Advocating for religious freedom across the world
• Honoring both religious freedom and other civil rights

Violence Against Women

• Reauthorizing and strengthening the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)
• Securing the highest-ever funding level for VAWA implementation
• Distributing record funding for local prosecutors, law enforcement, and survivor advocates
• Expanding support for native survivors and strengthening protections for tribal communities
• Improving prevention and services for survivors of sexual assault through the Fairness for Rape Kit Backlog Survivors Act
• Expanding housing protections for domestic violence survivors
• Increasing services and support for survivors, including survivors of technology-facilitated abuse
• Launching the first-ever National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence
• Providing immediate crisis intervention, health supports, and emergency services for survivors through the American Rescue Plan
• Expanding funding for campus sexual assault prevention
• Restoring and strengthening protections under Title IX for campus safety
• Signing legislation to narrow the “boyfriend loophole” to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers
• Signing new protections to support survivors and address sexual assault and sexual harassment in the workplace
• Signing an executive order on sexual assault and domestic violence in the military, transferring key decision-making authority from commanders to independent military prosecutors
• Continuing to strengthen VAWA
• Keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers
• Expanding housing and legal services for survivors
• Working with schools to implement and enforce Title IX
• Eliminating the rape kit backlog
• Strengthening legal protections for and support of survivors of deepfake image–based sexual abuse

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Trump and Vance on Abortion

Since leaving office, former president Donald Trump has repeatedly said he believes states should decide for themselves whether abortion should be legal. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, told NBC News on August 8, “As President Trump said, he wants ‘everybody to vote’ on the issue, reiterating his long-held position of supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion.”

Trump is currently a resident of the state of Florida. When asked how he would vote on Florida’s ballot initiative that would establish a constitutional right to abortion before fetal viability, Trump declined to answer. However, he did say abortion isn’t a “big factor anymore.” Last year, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a six-week ban on abortion, Trump said, “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

In his debate with Biden, Trump said he wouldn’t block access to the abortion pill (the abortion pill now accounts for about 54 percent of all abortions). Leavitt also noted in a statement in early August that Trump wouldn’t prevent access to the abortion pill.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, was once a staunch pro-life candidate. His Senate campaign website included an “End Abortion” heading, under which Vance praised the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and stated, “I am 100 percent pro-life, and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured.”

“Eliminating abortion is first and foremost about protecting the unborn,” his website said, “but it’s also about making our society more pro-child and pro-family.”

But following the announcement that he’d be Trump’s running mate, Vance scrubbed any reference to being pro-life from his website. He has since adopted Trump’s position.

“My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward,” Vance told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “Alabama’s going to make a different decision from California. That is a reasonable thing. And that’s how I think we build some bridges and have some respect for one another.”

Trump and Vance on LGBT+ Issues

Trump has repeatedly expressed his support for many gay rights issues.

In 2022, he hosted a gathering of the conservative LGBT+ organization Log Cabin Republicans at Mar-a-Lago, where he declared, “We’re fighting for the gay community, and we are . . . fighting hard.” His wife recently hosted another fundraiser with that group. He also had previously said in an interview with 60 Minutes that he was “fine” with same-sex marriage.

As POLITICO notes, “The gay community . . . credited him for his initiatives to combat the criminalization of homosexuality, his work pushing for public health initiatives to combat the HIV epidemic, and for appointing the first openly gay Cabinet member, (Richard) Grenell, as director of national intelligence.”

However, Trump has been critical of transgender issues, especially those related to children. He has said that on “day one” of his new administration he would reverse Biden’s expansion of Title IX that prohibits federally funded schools from preventing transgender students from using bathrooms, locker rooms, and pronouns that align with their gender identities.

According to Forbes, he has also said he’d block doctors who provide gender-affirming care from Medicare and Medicaid, forbid federal agencies from actions to “promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age,” and task the Justice Department with investigating the medical industry to see if they “deliberately covered up horrific long-term side effects of sex transitions in order to get rich.”

While in Congress, Vance introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which sought to ban the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors. Vance also unsuccessfully introduced the Passport Sanity Act the same year, which sought to prohibit the use of nonbinary markers, such as an “X” instead of an“’F” or “M,” in U.S. passport documents.

Vance said he’d vote no on the Respect for Marriage Act (a bill that codifies the right to marriage for same-sex couples) if he were in office because “the religious liberty piece of this is very bad.”

Republican Party Platform on Social Issues

Abortion

The only opposition to abortion included in the 2024 platform is to “late-term abortion.” (Although there’s no technical definition of what constitutes “late-term,” it typically refers to the 21st to 24th week of gestation, which is late in the second trimester. This is roughly 12 to 15 weeks after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.)

This is a notable downgrade from the 2016/2020 platform, which included a broad and robust range of support for pro-life issues. For example, the previous platform supported the sanctity of human life and affirmed that the “unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.” It opposed infanticide and called on Congress to pass a federal Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks, the “point at which current medical research shows that unborn babies can feel excruciating pain during abortions.” All that language has been removed.

The previous platform opposed taxpayer funding of abortion, called for a permanent ban on federal funding and subsidies for abortion and health-care plans that include abortion coverage, and opposed the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations like Planned Parenthood so long as they “provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare.” It also supported the right of parents to consent to medical treatment for their minor children and urged the enactment of legislation that would require the parents’ consent for their daughter to be transported across state lines for an abortion. All such language has been removed in the new platform.

The previous platform opposed the FDA’s approval of Mifeprex, the abortifacient formerly known as RU-486, stating this drug “threatens women’s health, as does the agency’s endorsement of over-the-counter sales of powerful contraceptives without a physician’s recommendation.” That language has been removed since both Trump and Vance have expressed support for the abortion pill (see more above).

The new platform supports state-level decision making on abortion laws following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The previous platform supported many federal provisions, including codifying the Hyde Amendment and its application across the government and cutting federal and state funding for entities that endanger women’s health by performing abortions in a manner inconsistent with federal or state law. That language was removed, as was opposition to the nonconsensual withholding of care or treatment from people with disabilities, including newborns, the elderly, and the infirm. It also supported a federal ban on sex-selection abortions and abortions based on disabilities.

Additionally, the prior platform supported state and federal efforts “against the cruelest forms of abortion, especially dismemberment abortion procedures, in which unborn babies are literally torn apart limb from limb.”

The platform previously supported a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth. The new platform merely states, “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights”—without specifying whether the party believes this should apply to the unborn.

Human Cloning and Embryonic/Fetal Research

The new platform makes no mention of cloning or medical research on human subjects.

The previous platform supported a ban on human cloning for research or reproduction and a ban on the creation of, or experimentation on, human embryos for research, It supported Congress’s ban on the FDA approval of research involving three-parent embryos. It also supported a congressional ban on any sale of fetal body parts and called on Congress to ban the practice of misleading women on so-called fetal harvesting consent forms. The platform opposed embryonic stem-cell research and federal funding of such research.

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

The new platform makes no mention of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The previous platform opposed euthanasia and assisted suicide and supported a restoration of a ban from the Drug Enforcement Administration on the use of controlled substances for physician-assisted suicide. It opposed health-care providers being permitted to “unilaterally withhold services because a patient’s life is deemed not worth living” and urged all states and Congress to make it a crime to acquire, transfer, or sell fetal tissues from elective abortions for research.

Support for Mothers

The new platform states it supports “mothers and policies that advance Prenatal Care.” The previous platform also supported our “moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women who face an unplanned pregnancy” and legislation that requires financial responsibility for the child to be “equally borne by both the mother and father upon conception until the child reaches adulthood.”

Additionally, it supported funding for ultrasounds and adoption assistance and commended states protecting women and girls through laws requiring informed consent, parental consent, waiting periods, and clinic regulation. It condemned the Supreme Court’s “activist decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt striking down commonsense Texas laws providing for basic health and safety standards in abortion clinics.”

Criminal Justice Reform

All mention of criminal justice reform has been stricken from the 2024 platform.

The previous platforms supported establishing a bipartisan presidential commission to purge the code and the body of regulations of old “crimes”; adding mens rea elements in the definition of any new crimes to protect Americans who, in violating a law, act unknowingly or without criminal intent; Congress codifying the Common Law’s Rule of Lenity, which requires courts to interpret unclear statutes in favor of a defendant; mandatory prison time for all assaults involving serious injury to law enforcement officers; protecting the rights of victims and their families by allowing them to be told all relevant information about their case, to be present for its trial, to be assured a voice in sentencing and parole hearings, to be given access to social and legal services, and to benefit from the Crime Victims Fund; protecting prisoners against cruel or degrading treatment by other inmates; and having states offer opportunities for literacy and vocational education to prepare prisoners for release to the community.

Discrimination and Racial Issues

The new platform states Republicans will “enforce our Civil Rights Laws to stop schools from discriminating on the basis of Race” and “pursue Civil Rights cases against Schools that discriminate.” It also includes a section clarifying that “Republicans condemn antisemitism, and support revoking Visas of Foreign Nationals who support terrorism and jihadism. (They) will hold accountable those who perpetrate violence against Jewish people.”

The previous platform opposed “bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, and religious intolerance,” as well as “discrimination based on race, sex, religion, creed, disability, or national origin.” It supported statutes to end such discrimination. It added, “As the Party of Abraham Lincoln, we must continue to foster solutions to America’s difficult challenges when it comes to race relations today.”

Drugs and Drug Abuse

The previous platform supported a measure by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that would ensure no physician would be penalized for limiting opioid prescriptions. It also supported the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which addresses the opioid epidemic from both the demand and supply sides of the problem. The new platform makes no mention of the opioid crisis.

Education

The new platform states that “Republicans will restore Parental Rights in Education,” whereas the previous version more broadly supported a constitutional amendment to protect parental rights “from interference by states, the federal government, or international bodies such as the United Nations.”

The new notes, “Republicans will reinstate the 1776 Commission, promote Fair and Patriotic Civics Education, and veto efforts to nationalize Civics Education. We will support schools that teach America’s Founding Principles and Western Civilization.”

The party also proposes to “close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. and send it back to the States, where it belongs, and let the States run our educational system as it should be run.” Additionally, it supports the “restoration of Classic Liberal Arts Education.”

The previous platforms supported states that oppose including gender identity and sexual orientation under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The new version states, “We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”

Along with these changes, numerous other planks related to education were removed: support for school choice for all students; opposing the imposition of national educational standards and assessments; supporting state legislatures offering the Bible in a literature curriculum as an elective in America’s high schools; supporting background checks for all personnel who interact with school children; supporting options for learning, including home-schooling, career and technical education, private or parochial schools, magnet schools, charter schools, online learning, and early college high schools; supporting replacing “family planning” programs for teens with sexual risk avoidance education that sets abstinence until marriage as the responsible and respected standard of behavior; and supporting the prompt investigation by civil authorities and prosecution in a courtroom of sexual assault claims, rather than having them adjudicated in the “faculty lounge” of colleges. Those convicted of sexual assault should be punished to the full extent of the law. They had opposed school-based clinics that provide referral or counseling for abortion and contraception and believed that “federal funds should not be used in mandatory or universal mental health, psychiatric, or socio-emotional screening programs.”

Human Trafficking

The new platform states that Republicans will use Title 42 to end the child trafficking crisis by “returning all trafficked children to their families in their Home Countries immediately.”

The previous platform included support for using the full force of the law against those who engage in commercial sexual exploitation and forced or bonded labor of men, women, or children; involuntary domestic servitude; trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal; and the illegal recruitment and use of child soldiers. Additionally, it called for increased diplomatic efforts and accountability for foreign governments to prosecute traffickers; called for the need to stop slave labor by “taking steps to prevent overseas labor contractors who exploit foreign workers from supporting military bases abroad or exporting goods to the United States”; and called for working at home and abroad to “ensure that trafficking victims are identified among migrants, refugees, and our own citizens so they receive the rehabilitative care needed to heal and thrive.”

Marriage and Family Issues

The new platform states, “Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, the blessings of childhood, the foundational role of families, and supports working parents. We will end policies that punish families.”

A most notable change is the removal of language that supports traditional marriage and family based on one man and one woman. The previous platform stated, “Every child deserves a married mom and dad, and our laws and government regulations should actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society.”

The previous platform also supported the removal of marriage penalties from the tax code and public assistance programs, supported restructuring the tax code to increase adoptions and support families who adopt, and supported states’ and community groups’ attempts to help young adults who are aging out of the foster care system to become independent.

Pornography

The new platform makes no mention of pornography.

The previous platform supported states fighting against pornography and pledged a commitment to children’s safety and well-being, as well as “energetic prosecution” of child pornography, which is “closely linked to human trafficking.”

Poverty

The new platform makes no mention of poverty.

The previous platform supported the evaluation of poverty programs based on whether they actually reduce poverty and increase the personal independence of its participants; supported work requirements for poverty programs; and supported greater state and local responsibility for, and control over, public assistance programs.

Religious Liberty

The new platform says Republicans will protect the “Right not only to Worship according to the dictates of Conscience, but also to act in accordance with those Beliefs, not just in places of Worship, but in everyday life” and adds that “to protect Religious Liberty, Republicans support a new Federal Task Force on Fighting Anti-Christian Bias that will investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.” Additionally, it states that “Republicans will champion the First Amendment Right to Pray and Read the Bible in school, and stand up to those who violate the Religious Freedoms of American students.”

In contrast, the previous platform had an extensive detailed list of recommendations, including opposition to any efforts to tax religious organizations; support for the First Amendment Defense Act; support for every state to pass similar legislation to the First Amendment Defense Act; and support for the freedom of Americans to act in accordance with their religious beliefs, not only in their houses of worship but also in their everyday lives.

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American Solidarity Party Platform

Below are the principles and positions of the American Solidarity Party as outlined in their 2024 platform.

Life Issues

Principle: “The American Solidarity Party believes in the intrinsic dignity of the human person from conception until natural death. We have an unwavering commitment to defend life and advocate for the legal protection of the most vulnerable members of society. We seek to ensure that all people have access to everything they need not simply to live, but to thrive.”

Party positions:

• Recognizes that the inalienable right to life, from conception until natural death, must be formally acknowledged by all levels of government—this must include a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that clarifies equal protection of the laws applies from the moment of conception, as well as laws that prohibit or restrict abortion at the state and federal level
• Insists as an interim measure that federal, state, and local governments end taxpayer funding of organizations that provide, promote, or facilitate abortions and of health-care plans that include abortion coverage
• Opposes any procedures that cause the intentional destruction of human embryos, including IVF
• Calls for all levels of government to meet the needs of vulnerable women and children, promote a culture of life, and directly address the maternal mortality rate of U.S. women by funding crisis pregnancy centers and other organizations that provide prenatal care and maternal support
• Calls for the abolition of capital punishment
• Supports the prohibition of assisted suicide and euthanasia
• Supports universal publicly funded mortuary costs

Marriage and Family

Principle: “The American Solidarity Party believes that the natural family, founded on the marriage of one man and one woman, is the fundamental unit and basis of every human society. Family breakdown is a key contributor to widespread social problems in this country. In order to promote stable families, it is in the interest of the state to support marriage recognized as the exclusive union of one man and one woman for life. At the same time, we recognize that the state must support the needs of all people—especially children, as well as the elderly and disabled— regardless of household structure.”

Party positions:

• Calls for the repeal of tax and welfare policies that penalize men and women for marriage or encourage divorce, especially for those on public assistance
• Calls for the repeal of laws and reversal of decisions that define marriage as anything other than the exclusive union of one man and one woman for life, including those that allow for polygamy, no-fault divorce, or same-sex marriage
• Calls for the law to make it easier for household members, with or without a romantic relationship, to be included in health-care plans and ease the burdens of transferring assets and ownership of property
• Calls for pro-family policies such as direct cash payments to families in proportion to the number of children they have and a cash subsidy paid to stay-at-home caregivers
• Supports the same benefits for extended families and households based on the number of elderly and disabled persons they care for as primary caregivers
• Calls for governments to fund the expansion of shelters for victims of domestic violence and neglect and for shelters to be resourced to accommodate the rapid and secure transport of victims away from their abusers and to provide them the full spectrum of services they need to reclaim their lives
• Opposes the commodification of children and the reproductive process; therefore, gestational surrogacy, egg donation, and sperm banks should be prohibited
• Calls for state and local governments to increase material support for adoptive and foster families and to streamline adoption laws for couples in traditional marriages
• Calls for improved state and local laws surrounding foster care to help reunite children with their biological parents where there are no safety concerns
• Encourages states to adopt laws to make it easier for an adoptive child to be reunited with his or her biological family as an adult
• Opposes all attempts to take children away from their biological parents where there are no concerns regarding abuse or negligence or to pressure mothers to place their children for adoption due to life circumstances
• Calls for governments to commit public funding for organizations that promote stable, healthy marriages and the flourishing of children, including services provided by religious institutions with religious values
• Supports pro-natal policies that empower families to welcome children into the world by mitigating economic and social barriers, for example through “baby bonuses” and favorable tax treatment for expenses incurred by growing families such as housing, transportation, and childcare

Education

Principle: “The American Solidarity Party believes that education is a right vital to the formation of the human person and the good of society. We advocate for affordable, diverse, and well-rounded educational options.”

Party positions:

• Acknowledges that responsibility for the education of children resides primarily in the family; supports direct payments to families to allow them to choose between home-schooling their children or sending them to public or private schools so as to best provide for their future, with special funding available for families with children who have disabilities
• Calls for the repeal of any state “Blaine Amendments” that bar funding to religious schools
• Supports community public schools that are local, human-scaled, well-integrated into neighborhoods, and accountable to parents and local governments; states that curricula should be set by teachers in conjunction with parents within the parameters set by local authorities and not overly standardized
• Rejects all policies on the part of public schools that permit the concealment of information on the health and social development of minor children from their parents
• Supports states creating and/or modifying alternative certification programs so men and women with degrees in specific subjects, including the sciences, languages other than English, and mathematics, are encouraged and enabled to become teachers
• Encourages states to adopt a pay scale based on teacher experience, continued professional development, and evaluation of the teacher’s in-class teaching
• Encourages states to create programs where teachers are incentivized to work in low-income and rural school districts
• Calls for school systems to end their overdependence on technology
• Acknowledges that standardized testing shouldn’t be the most significant factor in measuring the success of students and schools
• Supports states allowing local school systems to trial noncurricular subjects, including classes on civic virtue, arts, and various trades, in order to move away from an educational focus on “tested” subjects
• Maintains that sex-education classes, when offered, should be required to include accurate information on fertility, prenatal development, the risks of hormonal contraceptives, and the scientific evidence that abortion takes a human life
• Advocates spending priorities for both local school districts and public higher education systems that prioritize teachers and classroom instruction and “resist budgetary bloat” in administration and facilities
• Supports greater access to higher education for all, especially those most economically disadvantaged
• Calls for all levels of government to support public higher education at a level that removes economic barriers
• Calls for institutions of higher learning to share in the financial risk associated with all student loans
• Calls for student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy and for partial or total forgiveness of student debt funded through the taxation of university endowments
• Recognizes that for-profit higher learning institutions need to be closely regulated to prevent predatory lending practices and that institutions of higher education should be required to advertise information to students regarding earnings potential and job placements for each sponsored degree or certification program

Criminal Justice, Pornography, and Human Trafficking

Principle: “The American Solidarity Party believes that maintaining public peace and order is a fundamental responsibility entrusted to all levels of government. We also acknowledge that in many cases our justice system is both harsh and ineffective. Despite having the largest incarcerated population in the world, we have failed to make communities safe or address economic and racial disparities in arrests, convictions, and sentencing. We support reforms to simultaneously ensure public safety, secure individual justice, and reduce the excessively punitive nature of the system.”

Party positions:

• Calls for governments to address the causes of criminality, such as the breakdown of social institutions, structural prejudices, and deprivation
• Opposes the privatization of law enforcement and penal institutions
• Acknowledges that, as public servants, law enforcement officers should be supported and held to the highest standards of professionalism
• Supports strict accountability for the use of lethal force
• Supports measures that will increase transparency and trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, including the use of body cameras, civilian review boards, and the expansion of community policing
• Calls for an increase in state-level funding for our public defender system and an end to cash bail, court fees, and programs that allow records to be expunged in exchange for paying higher fees
• Supports the overturning of mandatory minimum sentencing requirements and three-strike laws, especially for nonviolent criminals
• Maintains that the government must take special care to ensure everyone across racial, ethnic, and other community lines receives fair treatment under the law, such as by limiting the discretionary powers of judges and prosecutors in criminal charges and in sentencing, and recognizes that prisons are designed for dangerous criminals
• Opposes imprisonment due to mental illness, homelessness, or poverty
• Recognizes that our prison system should be focused on rehabilitating lawbreakers and supporting community reform and corrective justice, leading to swift restoration in lieu of prison; also recognizes that dangerous criminals still possess human dignity
• Supports increased funding of programs meant to prepare prisoners for life outside the prison; calls for an end to the use of prisoners as slave labor, who should instead be remunerated at the standard minimum wage for work performed
• Recognizes that placing biological males in women’s prisons threatens the safety, rights, and dignity of female prisoners
• Acknowledges that recreational drug use is a social harm but that drug-law enforcement should focus on preventing distribution and production rather than on punishing users
• Supports using funds currently expended on the “war on drugs” to be redirected toward prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation
• Opposes forms of drug legalization that promote the development of recreational drugs as a corporate industry
• Believes pornography and prostitution are grave social ills deeply intertwined with human trafficking, sexual assault, and child abuse
• Maintains that laws against prostitution should focus on removing those participating from the cycle of exploitation and mandating penalties primarily on those who buy sex or arrange for its purchase
• Supports laws that criminalize the production and sale of pornography and deny categorically that pornography is protected speech
• Calls for governments to aggressively combat human trafficking

Religious Liberty

Principle: “The American Solidarity Party recognizes that a person can have no higher authority than God, an authority which imposes duties on each person. Especially in our pluralistic society, we must take special care to respect those duties as much as possible, and provide protections for religiously-affiliated institutions and persons living out their sincerely-held beliefs.”

• Acknowledges the right of people of all faiths to practice their religion without intimidation and opposes secularism that seeks to remove religion from the public sphere
• Maintains commitment to the “free exercise of religion” guaranteed by the First Amendment, which should not be limited to “freedom of worship” that merely exists in private and within a house of worship, because faith is a public expression
• Calls for governments to enact and retain laws that protect religious institutions, businesses, and private individuals from civil or criminal liability for choosing to follow their faith in matters regarding life, health care, morality, sexuality, and marriage
• Maintains that governments must safeguard conscience protections for employers and charities in health, education, and welfare that don’t wish to participate in activities that contradict their sincerely held conviction; religiously affiliated institutions such as colleges, adoption agencies, and hospitals must not be coerced to compromise on principles central to their beliefs
• Believes that the First Amendment prohibition against an establishment of religion doesn’t require the eradication of religious symbols from community events and property; as long as no one is compelled to endorse or participate in an activity, communities inherently have the right to celebrate religious events and express religious values without artificial distinctions that force religious believers to check their faith at the door to the public square

Anti-Discrimination and Racial Justice

Principle: “The American Solidarity Party believes that some citizens, including racial minorities, women, and the disabled, face unique historical and current challenges which can be addressed by anti-poverty programs and by re-examining our cultural biases which oppose the Biblical call to human fraternity.”

Party positions:

• Acknowledges the persistence of discrimination based on religion, race, ethnicity, disability, and sex; supports laws favoring equal access to the polls, the courts, housing, and education; states that the image of God is present in all peoples; and maintains that policy must aim toward the human flourishing and common good of all, regardless of personal characteristics
• Calls for policies that eliminate and overcome the artificial barriers erected to disenfranchise, degrade, and disinherit minority racial communities from the freedom, prosperity, and dignity promised by the American Dream
• States that injustices of the past must be healed through a kind of reparations specifically designed to secure long-denied ownership of our common prosperity
• Supports infrastructure reinvestment prioritized for historically marginalized communities
• Calls for subsidies for indigenous land restoration projects and a moratorium on indigenous relocation

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Constitution Party

Here are the general principles of the Constitution Party, followed by their positions, as outlined in their 2024 party platform.

The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of Almighty God, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to a political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” (from George Washington’s Farewell Address)

The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore the American system of law and justice to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its constitutional boundaries.

The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical principles of governance, administered by representatives who are constitutionally elected by the citizens. In such a Republic all Life, Liberty and Property must be protected as unalienable rights from our Creator.

We support the restoration of the US Constitution according to the intentions of the Founders in drafting a document, guided by the hand of Providence, that strictly limits the lawmaking and enforcement powers of the federal government. We also sustain the Bill of Rights which has served as the strongest bulwark against usurpation of the Constitution’s limitations by activist judges. We further support all of the principles of liberty embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

We affirm:

• That each individual is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are the rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness;
• That the freedom to own, use, exchange, control, protect, and freely dispose of property is a natural, necessary and inseparable extension of the individual’s unalienable rights;
• That the legitimate function of government is to secure these rights through the preservation of domestic tranquility, the maintenance of a strong national defense, and the promotion of equal justice for all;
• That history makes clear that left unchecked, it is the nature of government to usurp the liberty of its citizens and eventually become a major violator of the people’s rights;
• That it is the right of the people and their respective states to resist the unconstitutional acts of tyrannical government;
• That it is essential to bind government with the chains of the Constitution and carefully divide and jealousy limit government powers to those assigned by the consent of the governed

The Constitution of the United States provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” We support the original intent of this language. Therefore, we call on all those who love liberty and value their inherent rights to join with us in the pursuit of these goals and in the restoration of these founding principles.

Sanctity of Life

• Affirms the God-given legal personhood of all human beings from fertilization to natural death, without exception
• States that no level of civil government may legalize or fund the taking of life without justification and that legalizing the termination of innocent life of the born or unborn, whether by abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, or suicide, is a direct violation of their unalienable right to life.
• Opposes the distribution and use of all abortifacients
• Opposes the use of third-party assisted reproduction that harms pre-born persons created in the process, involves surrogacy, or involves egg or sperm from donors other than the spouse
• Opposes all funding, statutes, and regulations authorizing biomedical research involving human embryos for cloning and human enhancement
• Vows to appoint to the judiciary, and to other positions of judicial and executive authority, qualified individuals who publicly acknowledge and commit themselves to the legal personhood of all human beings
• Encourages federal, state, and local government officials to protect the sanctity of the life of the pre-born through legislation, executive action, and judicial enforcement of the law of the land
• Opposes the use of tax-payer funds at any level of government to support any local, state, federal, or foreign government entity, or any other private organization or quasi-government entity, foreign or domestic, which advocates, encourages, or participates in the practice of abortion
• Contends that all state laws that allow the destruction of innocent human life, born or unborn are an illegitimate usurpation of authority
• Affirm both the authority and duty of Congress to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in all cases involving the personhood of all human beings in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 2
• Condemns the misuse of federal laws against pro-life advocates and strongly urges the repeal of statutes like the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act as an unconstitutional expansion of federal power into areas reserved to the states or people by the Tenth Amendment

Character and Moral Conduct

• Maintains that members and nominated candidates representing the Constitution Party and its state affiliates “recognize the importance of demonstrating good character in their own lives”

Crime

• Favors the right of states and localities to execute criminals convicted of capital crimes and to require restitution for the criminals’ victims
• Supports trial by jury on request for all accused of crimes, petty to capital, and maintains that the jury shall be fully informed of its right to nullify the law
• Opposes defendants being charged and tried by both state and federal jurisdictions under different laws for the same alleged criminal act
• Opposed to all “hate crime” legislation at all levels of government and to enhanced penalties for so-called hate crimes
• Opposes special protection or prosecution for certain classes of people or types of employment in that all persons, made in the image of God, deserve equal protection with equal prosecution for crimes committed against the innocent victims of crime

Drug Abuse

• Upholds the right of states and localities to restrict access to drugs and to enforce such restrictions
• Supports legislation to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States from foreign sources

Education

• Supports the unimpeded right of parents to provide for the education of their children in the manner they deem best, including home, private, or religious
• Opposes compulsory attendance laws
• Asserts that all education has conflicting interpretations and values and thus no level of government or majority rule should have a monopoly on control or funding of education through taxation
• Asserts that all forms of education should compete freely for adherents and be funded exclusively by those who use those services or support them with contributions
• Supports a total exemption from school property taxes for those who choose to either homeschool or use private schools
• Calls for a revocation of the powers of public schools to force students to attend only its schools
• Calls for an elimination of the federal Department of Education
• Supports repeal of all current federal legislation related to education
• Opposes all new federal laws subsidizing or federal regulation of education
• Opposes the No Child Left Behind Act and Race to the Top and calls for their repeal by Congress
• Opposes governments authorizing or defining marriage or family relations “contrary to what God has instituted”

Family

• Opposes any judicial ruling or amending the U.S. Constitution or any state constitution to redefine marriage with any definition other than the biblical standard
• Calls for an end to all taxation and economic formulas that discourage marriage, incentivize cohabitation and child bearing outside of marriage, or authorize or provide government funding for policies and programs that further erode the jurisdiction of the family or parental rights
• Rejects the notion that “homosexuals, transgenders or those who are sexually deviant” are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirms the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior
• Opposes all efforts to impose a new sexual legal order through any courts or legislatures and stands against “sexual orientation” and “hate crime” statutes
• Opposes government funding of “partner” benefits for unmarried individuals
• Oppose any legal recognition of homosexual or civil unions
• Opposes allowing organizations or government to require changes to official records to reflect, or force anyone to accept, a person’s claim to be of a gender differing from his or her birth
• Opposes any use of taxpayer funds to facilitate attempts at biological sex change or penalizing parents for refusing to go along with a biological sex change by a minor child
• Opposes allowing biological males to compete in female sports or to have access to bathrooms, locker rooms, or prison facilities that don’t conform to their biological sex, no matter what degree of biological sex transformation or hormonal therapy they’ve undergone
• Recognizes that parents have the fundamental right and responsibility to nurture, educate, and discipline their children
• Opposes the assumption of any of these responsibilities by any governmental agency without the express delegation of the parents or legal due process
• Affirms the value of the father and the mother in the home and opposes efforts to legalize the adoption of children by homosexual singles or couples

Gambling

• Opposes government sponsorship, involvement in, or promotion of gambling such as lotteries and casinos, or subsidization of Native American casinos

Pornography, Obscenity, and Sexually Oriented Businesses

• Calls on our local, state, and federal governments to uphold our First Amendment right to free speech by vigorously enforcing all laws against obscenity
• Calls on all levels of government to protect and promote that which is truly free speech while vigorously defending and enforcing laws that protect us from the proliferation of the pornography and sexually oriented business industries, because they’re proven to be toxic to community standards, to lower property values, and to increase crime
• Believes the government plays a vital role in protecting all citizens, particularly our most vulnerable (women and children), from exploitation

Religious Freedom

• Calls on all branches of government to cease their attacks on the religious liberties of the people and the states, regardless of the forum in which these liberties are exercised
• Asserts that any form of taxation on churches and other religious organizations is a direct and dangerous step toward state control of the church; such intrusion is prohibited by the Constitution and must be halted
• Asserts that private organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America can determine their own membership, volunteers, and employment based on their oaths and creeds