Let me make my position clear!
I'm all for discussions of alternative approaches that successfully reach out to -- and appeal to -- the LGBTQ community.
What I am not in favor of is backtracking. And as Rob pointed out earlier, the LRC language on marriage, adoption, etc. in 2 of the 3 "alternate" platforms is completely deleted, and in the other one, is watered down so it largely mirrors the Democratic Party's platform proposals.
That ain't progress.
Further, the LRC has done nothing -- literally nothing -- to reach out to the Outright board to get feedback on this. Please rest assured that the degree of criticism from Outright members varied widely from very gentle efforts to prod them in the right direction to the more outspoken criticism witnessed on this list (and elsewhere).
The long story short is that if you want me, Rob, Ruth, et al to bring LGBTQ voters on board the Libertarian Party, we need a platform that is unambiguous in its support for equality under the law. The LRC platforms -- in all their incarnations -- don't do that.
And despite the fact I'm only 31, I'm WAY too old to fight a new gay-rights battle internal to the LP. If the LP decides to do a Hillary on LGBTQ rights, my efforts are much more profitably spent trying to change the Democratic or Republican parties than getting the LP to recommit to its historic mission as it flames out and crashes to earth as a result of a GOP-lite position on social issues.
I suspect I'm not alone in this position -- if you haven't noticed, a lot of die-hard Libertarians who were very effective at outreach and growing the party the last 12 months have become rather quiet (and exasperated). Push 'em out through this sort of thing, and the LRC will win its temporary victory to get the platform it wants -- and the LP will go out of business due to sheer irrelevance on the issues that are important to a host of Americans.
Americans who lean Libertarian don't want a "sorta-free" party with lower taxes and a slower-growing Homeland Security apparatus and a diminished set of military bases abroad and a kinda-sorta-wouldn't-it-be-nice-if-the-gays-just-shut-up-for-a-change platform. You'd think the fantastic electoral numbers we got in 2006 against both Republicans and Democrats -- coupled with the complete lack of party growing the LRC's primary architects have done -- would underscore that point.
I'm not really sure it has.
Cheers,
Brian