Speaking with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was asked to put social conservatives at ease in regards to the GOP’s next step on the subject of gay marriage — especially in light of Priebus’ attempts in 2012 to make his party more inclusive.
“I want to talk to you about this way forward for the GOP. I mean, look, you know — and you and I have talked about this before,” Brody began. “But when you use that word ‘intolerant’ — you know, we have to be more ‘tolerant,’ you know, in what the RNC put out, I mean even Evangelicals start to grab the Excedrin bottles when they hear ‘tolerance’ because they think, oh no the GOP’s changing and the whole gay marriage thing. Why don’t you address this and put Evangelicals at ease a little bit. Or can you put them at ease?”
Priebus, who has faced considerable pushback for his efforts to rebrand the GOP, replied that the party’s core principles remain the same, but that those principles need to be based in “grace, love and respect.”
First of all, I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘tolerance.’ I’m sort of — I don’t really care for that word myself. I don’t have a problem with it, I just think it has another meaning that — politically that can go the other direction. I happen to believe that our principles are sound. I do believe, and I still will tell you that our party believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. Our party believes that life begins at conception. […] But what I have said, which I don’t think should be controversy at all, and I would think that Christians and pastors and everyone in between should agree, that our principles have to be draped in the concepts of grace, love and respect.
Watch the exchange in the video below.
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