Not content with having selected clueless media celebrity demagogue Donald Trump as their presidential nominee, the US Republican Party seeks to add insult to injury when it comes to their manifesto, or, as it is called within US politics, "party platform.' It isn't pleasant reading. InEsquire(13.07.2016), Jack Holmes summarises what is currently anathema to the ailing "Grand Old Party," whose emblem is a stylised elephant. Yes, you guessed it, these pachydermal puritans don't like marriage equality, transgender child health and safety when it comes to toilet use, state legislative prohibitions against 'reparative therapy' attacks on vulnerable LGBT minors or democratic and pluralist constraints on untrammelled religious practice (or 'religious liberty') as they call it- which provides conservative Christian-owned businesses with discriminatory 'special rights' when it comes to refusing to provide services to those they judge anathema. But we're not the only targets. Granted, the Republican Party has favoured total prohibition of abortion since the eighties and the Reagan era. However, it now also opposes medicinal cannabis, and at a time when successful referenda activity has decriminalised recreational and medicinal cannabis provision across the United States. It also supported Trump's anti-Mexican border wall fantasy, opposes unmarried cohabitation, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, deletion of Grey Wolves, Prairie Chickens and Sage Grouses from the US Endangered Species Act, and handing federally owned national parks back to individual states. Coal is supposed to be a 'clean' fuel, which should anger many environmentalists, and "pornography" is a public health crisis! About the only positive thing the platform did was stand up to Donald Trump's protectionist stance against the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. As to why the platform is so doctrinaire when it comes to LGBT rights, that's because one of the individuals involved in drafting it was US Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, who played a primary role in inserting the anti-LGBT platform language. As one can see from Holmes article, the platform is already attracting considerable attention within the US media, albeit mostly derisive. In TIME, Log Cabin LGBT Republican James Richardson expressed his anger at the platform's antigay rigidity. When the Republicans lost their last US federal election in 2012, diversity of representation was one of the core premises advanced to explain President Obama's second term. It seems that the Republican Party is determined to ignore even its own advisory sources when it comes to electoral politics. In recent news, Trump has selected Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his vice-presidential running mate. In 2015, Pence was responsible for passage of a disastrous state "religious liberty" law that legitimised discrimination against lesbians and gay men if the service provider belonged an antigay religious sect. There was a resultant serious backlash against Indiana from LGBT-supportive corporate or business interests and Pence hurriedly signed amendments to mitigate antigay discrimination. Pence also has problems with marriage equality, LGBT-inclusive hate crimes prevention and passing employment antidiscrimination measures such as ENDA. Apart from the benighted and backward Deep South, it seems one would be well advised to beware falling elephants during this US federal election. Or, given that the Republican Party seems deliberately determined to alienate most mainstream liberal Americans, should that be flailing elephants? Recommended: Jack Holmes: "A Handy List of the All the Things the Republican Party is against in 2016" Esquire: 12.07.2016:http://www. esquire.com/news-politics/ news/a46621/republican-party- platform-2016/ James Richardson: "As a Gay Republican, I cannot defend the GOP Platform" TIME: 13.07.2016:http://time.com/ 4405018/gop-platform-lgbt- issues/ William Drabold: "Here's What Mike Pence has said about LGBT issues over the years" TIME: 15.07.2016:http://time.com/ 4406337/mike-pence-gay-rights- lgbt-religious-freedom/ Will Dreher: "Eight shocking amendments made to the draft Republican Party manifesto" New Statesman: 15.07.2016:http://www. newstatesman.com/world/north- america/2016/07/8-shocking- amendments-made-draft- republican-party-manifesto Craig Young - 18th July 2016