Reform Party of Arizona
Social Issues and Civil Rights Platform for National Candidates

The Executive Committee and at least 70% of the entire State Committee of the RPA have provisionally approved this document for publication. It is proposed for formal approval at the next Reform Party of Arizona State Convention. This platform applies to candidates seeking to represent Arizona in the United States Senate and House of Representatives. In recognition of the distinctly different constitutional roles played by national and state/local elected officials, a separate platform will be developed for state and local candidates.

Please address all questions, comments, and suggestions to: weyrich_comp@yahoo.com.

Preamble

We shall address social, moral, and civil rights issues so as to promote freedom tempered by responsibility while seeking justice for all our citizens. We recognize such policies emanate from and must reflect and revitalize our national character and the individual heart.

Drug War

While the use of illicit drugs for recreational purposes is destructive to our people, the present war on drugs is also destructive of our Constitutional liberties. We call for the control of illicit drugs to be returned to the states under the same terms as outlined in the Twenty-first Amendment, and for scrupulous adherence to the Bill of Rights when fighting crimes involving drugs.

Assimilation/Cultural Identity

The Reform Party supports passage of a constitutional amendment designating English as the Official Language of the United States.

Gun Rights

We, the RPA, wholeheartedly support the Second Amendment rights as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and as endowed by our Creator. We hold this to be an individual's right. No law is legitimate that restricts this right. In keeping with this belief, we, the RPA will call for repeal of all Federal Gun legislation and nullification of all state laws that are not in accordance with an individual's Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Affirmative Action

We must end the backsliding toward hyphenated-Americanism by abolishing quotas and set-asides and abandoning the futile politics of victims and villains. Instead of patronizing minorities by presuming that they cannot succeed without government assistance, we must work together to bridge our racial divide and rediscover what brings us all together as one nation and one people. As a Party, we will work to eliminate all forms of discrimination in federal agencies, including reverse discrimination, and push for passage of a colorblind civil rights bill that ensures equal justice for all and special privilege for none.

Marriage

The Reform Party of the United States strongly supports the traditional family as built upon the marital union of one man and one woman. We shall only support local, state, and federal legislation which serves to preserve the sanctity of that institution while simultaneously opposing all attempts to undermine it with false claims of "individual choice."

Privacy Rights

The Government of the United States of America will not abide by or make any laws that will deprive any citizen of his or her rights to privacy. No agency, whether it be our government, the United Nations, or other nations, shall have any authority to abuse these rights. These rights include living on our own land without interference, to worship at the church/mosque/synagogue of our choice, to rear our children with love and understanding, to work where and how we wish, to have guns to protect ourselves and our loved ones according to our second amendment rights, to freedom of speech and press and all the freedoms guaranteed to us under the Constitution of the United States.

Secret Evidence/Terrorism

A people cannot be considered free if they fear their own government. As control of the law enforcement apparatus has been slowly transferred to our federal government and the threat looms of transfer to unelected transnational overseers, fear of our own government will naturally rise. Additionally, as unconstitutional regulatory agencies are armed and military branches are granted competing enforcement powers, the incentives to arrest, harass, seize the property of, and even murder our fellow citizens rises and our Bill of Rights is shredded in the name of law and order.

The Reform Party takes a strong stand against the rise of state police powers and laws that allow for the people to be penalized in fines and property seizures without due process of law. We stand against the use of secret evidence in the attaining of search warrants or as cause for detaining citizens. We support the right of all our citizens to face our accusers and to know the evidence against them in a court of law. Finally, we hold dear that our citizens should be secure in the knowledge that no agency shall be allowed to monitor our citizens' communications, associations, or examine personal effects without due process of law and public disclosure of that process.

Religious Expression

No society can survive in the absence of moral governance. In recognizing America's historic faith and commitment to freedom for religious expression, the RPA firmly supports the necessary restoration of religious expression to the public square.

Gender Roles in the Military

Whereas the role of military service is to protect this nation under conditions of the gravest extreme, the RPA opposes social experimentation in the military, and in particular, opposes mixed gender or mixed sexual orientation within training or fighting units.

Parental Primacy

The RPA unequivocally supports the return of the unalienable natural rights of every family to decide how to discipline their children, what their children are allowed to do, and who their children are allowed to associate with. Parents shall decide where and how their children will be educated, and if their children will be in public, private, or religious education. Parents have the right to withdraw their children from sexual education classes, if they feel that the program is not in the best interest of the child, such as the teaching of alternative lifestyles that violate their religious or family values.

Parents have the right to be notified if their child asks for an abortion, or for contraceptives. There should never be any type of sexual examination on school time, or at any other time without the parent's consent, except at a physician's office or hospital under court order when there is probable cause of abuse.

No family should ever be threatened with the taking of their child if they do not conform to government rules and regulations. The Government of the United States of America should never interfere with how a family decides to rear their children, and in cases of real child abuse, authority should revert to the county where the child lives, and only under due process of law.

Every Child should be allowed to have prayer at school, during recess, lunch or after school on school property. They should be allowed to have religious classes, on their own time. "We the People" pay for these schools.

Hate/Thought Crime

The RPA is unalterably opposed to all so-called "hate crime" laws whether they be federal, state, county, or municipal. The elusive element of "hate" as a significant factor in the commission of a particular crime is something that can best be determined by divine judgement in the afterlife, not by man.

Death Penalty

Federal power to impose the death penalty should be limited to treason and the applicable provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Constitution defines what constitutes treason, and the RPA calls for vigorous prosecution of treasonous acts.

Cloning/Genetic Manipulation

The mapping of the human genome at the dawn of this new century is a tremendous achievement that will propel us towards real cures for many diseases that baffle our medical community today. It has allowed us to learn how to read a complex code laid before us by our Creator. However, we must be mindful of our obligations to use this technology wisely and with great reverence and using the highest moral standards. The RPA calls for the following minimum guidelines to be codified into law regarding the further research and development of this technology:
  1. Outlaw the cloning of human beings and of other mammals, fowl, fish, and reptiles.
  2. Outlaw the manipulation of the human genome to eliminate undesirable traits, to enhance existing abilities or traits, or to create new abilities or traits.
  3. Require that all human genetic material used in research or in the production of medications be given without coercion and without duress, deception, or relief of criminal responsibility.
  4. We oppose the coerced collection and use of genetic information as a factor in hiring, the issuance of life or health insurance, housing, or access to public places.
  5. Outlaw the use of fetal tissue for genetic or other research, but permit the use of placenta tissues collected following the natural birth of a child.

Adoption

Three of the greatest tragedies that affect both our nation and individual families are the slaughter of unwanted children in the womb, the pain of those families who are unable to have children of their own, and the way we treat unwanted children who are allowed to be born. Too many of our children are stuck in an overburdened foster care system designed to prevent the emotional attachments necessary for children to develop into healthy adults. Too many prospective parents are frustrated by adoption laws that seem to care too little about love and too much about money.

The RPA shall support laws that make it easier for a qualified mother and father to open their hearts and homes to children unwanted by their birth parents.

With the interests of the child foremost in our thoughts, we shall seek to protect the parental rights of both biological parents. We shall seek to lower the barriers to a stable, traditional family life we know to be in the best interests of all children.

Pro-Life

We affirm the principle espoused in the Declaration of Independence, that all persons are all endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among them is the right to life. We recognize that personhood begins before birth, but hold that the life of the mother and fetus are of equal value in the sight of their Creator and equally entitled to the protection of the due process of law.

However, we are at a loss to find in the Constitution federal authority to protect individuals that extends to before birth (see for example the Fourteenth Amendment), and therefore support the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the return of the responsibility for protecting unborn persons to the states.

We support due process and oppose vigilantism, secure in the belief that divine justice will ultimately prevail.