You need to separate the party from different factions in the party. The party's core beliefs and values are contained within their platform.

Both parties have a lot of "members" that prefer the party over the alternative, but do not always embrace its platform.

Interestingly, if you look at the history of Protestantism, the reformation was all about an individual relationship with God vs a "corporate" relationship through the Church. Protestants did not believe the Church can excommunicate someone from God the way Catholics do, nor did they embrace the Divine Right of Kings.

Later this led to Deism and the idea of a non-defined Creator who endowed humans with unalienable rights. Our country declared these unalienable rights as its core values, even as it took hundreds of years after that to come close to realizing that goal.

The Republican party was formed to oppose the spread of slavery. And since its inception has pushed for equal rights. About the only major issue where the Republican party struggled with equal rights was gay marriage. Not because they struggled with gay couples having equal rights, but rather gay couples being 'married' (a term they defined as one man married to one woman). Many supported civil unions as government recognized contractual relationships with the same rights as marriage...