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Republican officials who wanted to remove former Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady for his statements in support of same-sex marriage have been unseated from their party positions.

Republicans across Illinois held elections for each of the 18 state central committee member positions this week, replacing all but one of the seven officials who signed a letter last year urging a vote to dismiss Brady as chairman. The seventh official who signed the letter, incumbent Mark Shaw of the 10th Congressional District, was re-elected to a four-year term.

In January 2013, Brady began verbalizing support of support of same-sex marriage in public, a view that runs counter to the party’s platform that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Committee members who approved of Brady’s removal said that he not only violated the platform, but also made the comments without privately informing them first.

In turn, Brady suggested that the Republican party was “on wrong side of history.”

Brady resigned from his chairman’s post last May, citing his wife’s battle with cancer and the desire to spend more time with his family after four years as chairman and two as a Republican National Committee member. He was succeeded by current chairman Jack Dorgan of Rosemont last June.

The party’s shift in ideology has come as Republicans both in Illinois and nationally are working to expand their views with the hope that they can attract women and minority voters in November.

In all, only seven of 18 incumbent committeemen were re-elected to new four-year terms.

“There were some people that have moved on that were great, and then there were others that were absolutely destructive and were not good for the party and they’re gone,” said Brady, who is no longer a member of the committee. “All in all, it was a good night, (bringing in) a lot of new blood.”

Several of the new Republican officials have already stated that they feel social issues should take a back seat to get-out-the-vote efforts before elections in November, including a serious challenge to Gov. Pat Quinn by Republican Bruce Rauner.

Newly elected 8th District committeeman Ryan Higgins of Schaumburg said, “there’s room to disagree on those issues. In my role at the state party level, I don’t want my opinion to be known.”  Higgins, who ran unsuccessfully for state representative in 2010, said he supported civil union legislation on several newspaper questionnaires at the time.

“The leaders we selected today will help guide our party forward, hold Gov. Quinn accountable for his failures, and elect Republicans up and down the ticket,” Illinois Republican chairman Jack Dorgan said in a statement.