Republican Views And Beliefs

Welcome to RepublicanViews.org! Thanks for checking out our website. Our mission is to inform our readers about the current views and beliefs of the Republican Party on all the important issues. We believe in neutral and third person reporting on all the Republican views. You can trust that our reporting is not biased or slanted toward either side. We simply report on the Republican Party’s position on all the major issues of the day.  We have articles about the Republican beliefs on every major issue from abortion, to gay marriage, to immigration, to homeland security.

Republican Views On The Issues

Check out the rest of our articles on all of the following issues.  We report in a neutral and unbiased way on the Republican stance on the following issues:

Republican Views On The Issues

Gay Marriage

Republicans as a whole have been against gay marriage for a long time.  Recently on a Sunday talk show, the Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner said “Listen, I believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” Boehner said. “All right. It’s what I grew up with. It’s what I believe. It’s what my church teaches me. And I can’t imagine that position would ever change.”  Boehner’s quote is clear example of the Republican’s strong stance against gay marriage.

And it is not just in words that the Republicans are against gay marriage.  They vote against gay marriage as well.  In 1996 the Defense of Marriage Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.  The law restricts federal marriage benefits and inter-state marriage recognition to only opposite-sex marriages in the United States.  The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate.  Every Republican Senator and all but one Republican Congressman voted for DOMA (nine Republicans didn’t vote).  Based on their voting record it is clear that the Republican party is strongly against gay marriage.

While the Republicans have been strongly against gay marriage, DOMA was back in 1996 and many people’s views have changed or evolved since then.  A number of Republican politicians are coming out in favor of gay marriage.  One example is Senator Rob Portman.  The Ohio Republican recently went on national television and said that he supports gay marriage.  Senator Portman said that having a gay son influenced his views and helped him think about the issue from a new perspective.  You can read more about Republican views on gay marriage here.

Welfare

Republicans generally prefer for welfare and charity works to be performed at the local level by charities, churches, and community organizations.  To promote such organizations the Republicans support their exemption from taxes and non-tax deductible donations to these organizations.  This type of thinking stems from the Republican’s overall view of the role of government in society.  Instead of having the government be the provider of things like welfare and charity, the Republicans would prefer that private organizations handle these responsibilities. These private organizations include families, churches, charities, and community organizations.

One of the most famous votes on welfare was the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.  The bill put time limits on welfare assistance, put in place stricter conditions for food stamp eligibility, and introduced some recipient work requirements.  It’s aim was to change welfare from a way of life to a smaller assistance to help people move towards being fully able to provide for themselves.  The bill received Republican support in both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.  This welfare reform bill was a compromise between Republicans and Democrats.  The bill was a bit more conservative than President Clinton would have liked, but after vetoing two earlier welfare reform bills it would have been too politically risky to veto a third.

How will the Republicans vote on welfare going forward?  This remains to be seen.  The Republicans talk a lot about cutting back on welfare and food stamps, but the country still has a lot of welfare in it.  In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports that 15% of the country, or 47.3 million people, receive food stamp benefits.  Republicans have a lot of work to do if they want to cut back on the welfare benefits in America.  It will be interesting to see what the Republicans do about welfare the next time that they control both the House, the Senate, and the White House. For more information check out our article about Republican views on welfare.

Abortion

Republicans are generally known as the pro-life party and are strongly against abortion in most cases.  The degree of their abortion views is of course different from individual to individual, and some Republicans are pro-choice, but generally, the Republicans are regarded as pro-life and against abortion.

Looking at the last three Republican Presidents or candidates for the Presidency helps shed light on the Republican Party’s views on abortion.  Former President George W. Bush opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother’s life.  Senator John McCain is pro-life, and Mitt Romney has gone from pro-choice to pro-life over the years.  The Republican Party, as evident by their recent leaders, are generally pro-choice and not in favor of abortion under most circumstances.  The basic argument of the pro-life Republicans is that life begins at conception (or sometime early in pregnancy) and that every unborn child has the fundamental right to life.

In 1973 the US Supreme Court’s decision Roe V. Wade established the abortion right “must be considered against important state interests in regulation.”  Roe established that states were prohibited from banning abortion early in pregnancy, but were allowed to impose increasing restrictions or outright bans later in pregnancy.  More recently the Republican Governor of North Dakota signed a law that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.  According to the Huffington Post “The law… is the latest among a raft of measures passed in North Dakota this session that are meant to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks.”  The abortion laws have not changed nationally in a long time but they are frequently being changed at the state level.  You can read more about Republican views on abortion here.

Health Care

The Republican party has been on the defensive over the last few years in regards to the health care issue.  The Democrats have criticized the Republicans for not having an alternative and not presenting their own health care plan.  The Republicans in the House have voted to repeal Obamacare multiple times.  And the Republicans counter the Democrats’ claims by saying that they do have plans, but that the media doesn’t cover them.  Regardless, the Republicans have been on the defensive on health care since being defeated in the health care debate of the last few years.

When it comes to the votes the numbers are telling.  Zero House Republicans voted for Obamacare and neither did any Senate Republicans.  As far as the Medicare vote of 1965 goes, 70 Republicans in the House voted for it and 13 Republicans in the Senate voted for it too.  It is interesting to compare and contrast the Medicare vote of 1965 with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) vote of 2010.  Visit our health care article for more information about the Republican views on health care.

Republican Views On All The Issues