LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Want a sneak preview of what life would be like should Dominionist-ridden Republicans totally take over? Look no further than the Oklahoma GOP. Here's what Left2Right has to say about this platform:

The Oklahoma party calls for state and federal legislation to prohibit same-sex marriages and domestic partnerships, and also a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman. I'm not sure if this is to leave states the room to adopt civil unions, or just carelessness — the party thanks "the members of the Platform Committee who gave two long Saturdays to produce this document" — but I'd prefer to think it's the former. (And yes, it could be carelessness: in short order the platform supports and opposes the same Taxpayer Bill of Rights for the state.)

They do like constitutional amendments, that's for sure. Apparently the great document is radically deficient, though the party would rescind the state's previous call for a new constitutional convention. It needs a balanced budget amendment, an amendment to protect "innocent human life" (they approve of capital punishment), another giving the president the line-item veto, still another imposing Congressional term limits, and a balanced federal budget amendment.

And more generally the party seems confused or thoughtless on the links between what's the right policy and who should decide: that's what really struck me, far beyond Nader's impulse that they are voicing the ugly right-wing agenda that President Bush can't publicly avow. Take schooling. The party rejects all national curricula, aptitude testing, and "education standards," but also (in the meantime?) has some ideas about how to teach federally mandated AIDS education. The party declares,

Locally elected school boards should have the authority to determine and implement all public school curricula, policies and procedures for their districts.

Hurrah localism! But with nary a blush, the platform promptly adds,

The traditional family unit, consisting of a (husband) man, (wife) woman and child(ren), is the foundation of our social structure. The Oklahoma Department of Education should uphold and teach this definition of family at all levels of public education.

So much for the authority of those locally elected school boards. The platform dances the same odd two-step again:

Where evolution is taught, intelligent design must be taught as well.

But then, right away:

Local school boards should maintain the right to choose curriculum and textbooks without state limitations.

You will forgive Oklahoma's staunch localists for not trusting the state GOP. So too the boards will apparently all have to go along with this:

The Ten Commandments should be posted in all public schools as a means of moral guidance....