Did not watch the speech, but if I'm interpreting the transcript correctly, it sounds like he is telling the RNC that their attempts to pass laws restricting LGBTQ rights are a distraction from more important problems in business and technology, not that LGBTQ rights are not important. It seems like a critique of the current platform and a suggestion that Trump would focus his energy elsewhere, on an actual "great debate."

Maybe I missed something, though!

I think that's how it's meant to be interpreted. That they should focus on core issues (economics, jobs, security, equality, fairness, etc.) and not pander to a small interest group in order to raise money using an out-of-sync, losing cause.

I think Repubs should see Trump as somewhat a liberator of Repubs from the tyranny of their previous ideology.

Whether he wins or loses, he's freed them from the shackles of social conservatism which would ultimately make the party less relevant, over time. I mean, that was a dead end.

Your perspective is also how I interpreted Peter Thiel's speech, a focusing of GOP attention on economic issues, but sadly I think it's the GOP that has higher stakes in sexual cultural issues as get-out-to-vote mechanisms, and that's the segment that Ted Cruz appealed to. And I think that vote is so important that Peter Thiel's call to refocus GOP attention cannot be GOP strategy.

The Christian base has been an important pillar to GOP power. The GOP used to / still treats Christians as first-class citizens, whereas the Democrats treated Christians with a secular attitude ("your religion is no more important than any other religion, and secular concerns should always be higher priority above christian concerns"). In individual states, such as Texas, the GOP is more brazen about including the unqualified God as an important pillar of their party platform.

And the only high-consensus Christian issues since George Bush Jr. have been entirely about sexual issues, the top two being abortion and homosexuality. George Bush set a tone for the GOP party, and he sent a message to Christians that they would be #1 in the GOP, when he discussed a constitutional amendment restricting the definition of marriage. In that year all candidate from both parties discussed their favorite bible verses, and presented evidence of their small town church credentials.

Peter Thiel might want economic and domestic policy to be the focus of the GOP party, but the GOP is not going to win without Christian energy. They will need to show that the top Christian consensus issues (entirely about sexuality) are going to receive the first-class attention that is worthy of the only true religion. That assurance, true or not, is what Ted Cruz brought to the table.

What he meant is virtually irrelevant; the crowd understood it -- as one would expect -- as LGBT rights being a distraction from important things (such as, I suppose, the fight against LGBT rights).

More directly pertinent to HN, I think, is Thiel's lament that America was once "high-tech everywhere." How many investments, I wonder, has Thiel made outside the Bay Area?

You should really quote another line down in the transcript:

"I don't pretend to agree with every plank in our party's platform. But fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline"

The US vs Soviet Union conflict was about the future of humanity and the planet itself.

Would the world be free, democratic and capitalistic OR under totalitarian oppression OR a radioactive unpopulated wasteland?

I agree that the bathroom issue is not entirely unimportant, but does anyone seriously claim it is of similar dignity? Or that there aren't more important issues in 2016?

Moreover, the nation was able to debate (and protest) segregation while, at the same time, go to the moon and build the foundations for the computer revolution (among other things.)

We can worry about bathrooms AND be builders.

>Thirdly, the only people raising this debate are Republicans in right-wing areas.

No. The recent attention started when Democrats in the Charlotte city council passed a law that "would allow transgender residents to use either a men’s or women’s bathroom, depending on the gender with which they identify."

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/ar...

The attention really started when the state of North Carolina's (Republican! led) legislature voted for weaker local governance and overrode the cities legislation (among other things).

This is, of course, the same legislature that's so pro-freedom that they've actively suppressed local (city/county) run broadband services where companies like Time Warner wouldn't go.

If you treat the "freedom" in "pro-freedom" as meaning "profit margins", everything works out.

Did you intend to divide the country into two areas, right wing and Silicon Valley?

No - I'm pointing out Thiel is framing this as the "great debate", but nobody in the place he actually lives is debating it.

I'm not sure his speech was intended to only cover the place where he lives.

Classic false dichotomy fallacy. You can go to moon AND at the same time have a debate about bathroom (which is essential btw)