GOP Moniker One Letter Short; HOP (Homophobe Only Party) More Fitting

The GOP Should officially change their acronym to HOP. It's not the Grand Old Party; it's the Homophobe Only Party.

How so? Let us count the ways:

Fifty-one of 55 US Democratic senators support gay marriage; Republicans? Just 2 of 45.

In Illinois, just one of 19 HOP state senators, Jason Barickman, voted for marriage equ...ality for gay Illinoisans. It took 33 of 40 Democratic senators to pass this historic legislation which now moves to the Illinois House for final passage.

The national Republican Party Platform opposes full civil rights, including marriage equality for gays. It goes beyond supporting state bans on gay marriage and the national Defense of Marriage Act. It calls for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Ugh!

When Illinois state HOP Chairman Pat Brady called for support of gay marriage, the Illinois HOP stalwarts scheduled a Central Committee Meeting to dump him as chairman for his apostasy. Newly minted state senator Jim Oberweis, leader of the aborted coup, stated, “You cannot have the chair of an organization publicly going out and lobbying in opposition to the organization’s stated goals". Opposing gay civil rights is a goal you will only find in the HOP.

Now for the piece de resistance of HOP craziness on gay civil rights: Illinois District 42 representative Jeanne Ives. She "stepped in it" when speaking freely on a Catholic radio station in February, stating: "Same sex marriages are completely disordered". "They're trying to redefine society." "They're trying to weasel their way into acceptability so that they can then start to push their agenda down into the schools, because this gives them some sort of legitimacy... And we can't allow that to happen."

What we can't allow to happen is let the Jeanne Ives of the HOP set the agenda of preventing Illinois and America from joining Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden), and parts of Brazil, Mexico, and 9 states and the District of Columbia in the US, which allow same-sex couples to marry

It's gonna take more than Jason Barickman, Pat Brady and a couple of US senators from replacing the H with the G in the Homophobe Only Party.