Draft of Texas Republican Party Platform Endorses Gay Conversion Therapy

[T-Rexx]

The Texas Republican Party Convention began today.

One of the tasks the delegates will address is the drafting of a new platform for the GOP in Texas. A copy of a draft version of the 2014 platform for the Texas Republican Party has been obtained by the San Antonio Express-News/Houston Chronicle. Among several other heinous things it says, it endorses gay conversion therapy.

Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable alternative lifestyle, in public policy, nor should family be redefined to include homosexual couples. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. Additionally, we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. We recognize the legitimacy and value of counseling which offers reparative therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy.

No, gay conversion therapy is not (yet) part of the Republican Party platform in Texas. It is being discussed as we speak. But it is remarkable that Republicans would propose for their platform such obvious quackery. The practice is considered harmful within the medical profession, and is actually banned for minors in California and New Jersey. Texas Republicans may just as well have advocated bleeding the gay out of homosexuals, or exorcism of gay demons.

You may recall that two Republican gay advocacy groups, the Log Cabin Republicans and Metroplex Republicans, were denied space at this Texas GOP Convention to make their case for a more tolerant Republican Party.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5454875.html

[frankfrank]

On their way to irrelevancy, they just can't help themselves.

And they need to become irrelevant and extinct.

[cityboy-stl]

No, gay conversion therapy is not (yet) part of the Republican Party platform in Texas. It is being discussed as we speak. But it is remarkable that Republicans would propose for their platform such obvious quackery. The practice is considered harmful within the medical profession, and is actually banned for minors in California and New Jersey. Texas Republicans may just as well have advocated bleeding the gay out of homosexuals, or exorcism of gay demons.

Quackery is pretty much stock-in-trade for the republican party isn't it? They don't believe in evolution. They don't believe in global warming. They basically don't believe in science, period. As far as bleeding or exorcism, I thought they already do that, or try to anyway.

[Kulindahr]

Several Republican leaders in the past six months have warned of the eventual results of the rigid stances of the party. Maybe the message didn't get to Texas?

[bike10]

Why stop there why not bring back the Inquisition to state of Texas?

[MoufOfKhaos]

Why stop there why not bring back the Inquisition to state of Texas?

I'm pretty sure they're heading that way.

[rareboy]

On their way to irrelevancy, they just can't help themselves.

And they need to become irrelevant and extinct.

Quoted for absolute truth.

[smokeshadow]

And, State Senator and gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis responded to those IDIOTS

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com...14/06/06/88723

[Kulindahr]

And, State Senator and gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis responded to those IDIOTS

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com...14/06/06/88723

Superb.

[Sausy]

I'm NO fan of that abortion rights zealot but the Texas GOP is as noxious as they come right now. If there is a hellish afterlife for the wicked who present themselves as defenders of the holy when they are the biggest sinners and hypocrites around I hope they roast along with those in other religions who use their faith to propagate hate and darkness.

[chrisrobin]

Several Republican leaders in the past six months have warned of the eventual results of the rigid stances of the party. Maybe the message didn't get to Texas?

Rigid Stances: I think I'm having a Larry Craig* flashback!

*Re: Minneapolis Airport men's room stall. "I'm not gay. I never have been gay. I love my wife."

[Just_Believe18]

Update: Gay Texan Republicans deciding to give in for fear of straight Texans treating them worse. So pathetic:

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gop-adva...-politics.html

It's like the abused wife: "Maybe if I stop blocking his punches, he won't beat me as long."

[rareboy]

What the Fuck is wrong with these knuckle draggers in Texas?

What happened to the Texas of Ann Richards?

I would despair for the state if I didn't take perverse satisfaction in knowing that it will be a purple state before the dunm fuck Repubs figure it out.

[Kulindahr]

Update: Gay Texan Republicans deciding to give in for fear of straight Texans treating them worse. So pathetic:

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gop-adva...-politics.html

It's like the abused wife: "Maybe if I stop blocking his punches, he won't beat me as long."

It's not really the same, because they're talking about the official statement of their party. They don't want to see any more extreme position get adopted by making people angry.

[Ninja108]

Sad to say but they can be as far right as they want for the forseable futurue without any consquences.

[T-Rexx]

Well, they DID it.

Texas Republicans have officially added support for gay "reparative therapy" to their party platform for 2014. The new platform was approved at their convention on Saturday.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-re...rapy-for-gays/

[The Texas GOP recognizes] "the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle."

[TX-Beau]

I'm NO fan of that abortion rights zealot but the Texas GOP is as noxious as they come right now. If there is a hellish afterlife for the wicked who present themselves as defenders of the holy when they are the biggest sinners and hypocrites around I hope they roast along with those in other religions who use their faith to propagate hate and darkness.

If you think that Wendy Davis is a Zealot - you know nothing about her, she looks far left only in comparison to the others - who by the way, sport a bunch of former Democrats, including Secession Perry who worked for Gore sometime in the late 80's.

[TX-Beau]

Update: Gay Texan Republicans deciding to give in for fear of straight Texans treating them worse. So pathetic:

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gop-adva...-politics.html

It's like the abused wife: "Maybe if I stop blocking his punches, he won't beat me as long."

What was pathetic was the Texas Cabbies who kept sending money to Bush who kept sending it back.

[TX-Beau]

Sad to say but they can be as far right as they want for the forseable futurue without any consquences.

Ann Richards got to power under the last of the Dem party control of the system, she had as little actual support as Perry has currently, and was disliked in about the same degree.

Now those Dems are Pubs in control of the system. You could turn Texas blue tomorrow if you could get rid of the gerrymandering and money politics, cronyism, and other features of Texas politics that - to be fair, the Pubs did not invent, and only inherited when the Dems switched sides. There probably hasn't been an actual populist election in Texas in my lifetime, and the Dems in Texas now the Pubs in Texas are both wholly owned subsidiaries of Exxon/Mobil.

Perry doesn't believe the shit he spews, neither does the Pub establishment, they are theater, distracting you from your Oil Company Overlords on the Railroad Commission. Texas probably would have stayed blue, if not for minimum wages and unions and other monsters that came from the left lagoon.

[TX-Beau]

Just a thought, IF Wendy Davis actually won (don't hold your breath) that would be the first time I've ever seen an election defy the party expectation. For a long time the Governor's race was decided in the Dem primary, and now it's decided (like most races) in the Pub primary - hell if she even get's close, that would scare the fuck out of Republicans.

[Ninja108]

If it's a close race, it will show trouble for Republicans in Texas down the line.

[Kulindahr]

If you think that Wendy Davis is a Zealot - you know nothing about her, she looks far left only in comparison to the others - who by the way, sport a bunch of former Democrats, including Secession Perry who worked for Gore sometime in the late 80's.

That was back when Al Gore still got an "A" rating from the NRA.

[Ninja108]

It's a whole different ballgame then back then. Any conservative Democrats in the South have joined the Republican party for the most part.

[Stardreamer]

Gay conservatives did come away with a rare victory at the convention: Winning the removal of decades-old language in the state party platform that states, "homosexuality tears at the fabric of society."

Well some good news out of it, one step forward, two steps back it seems. I was in a detailed discussion of this on an NPR forum and from what I can gather the actual language of the amendment is just calling to prevent any laws that would ban such therapy for 'consenting adults'. Since there is no such movement in Texas, or any other state that I'm aware of, I'm thinking this is really just throwing some red meat out in the platform to placate the bigots in the base. It doesn't really call for the party to actually do anything, helps keep some of the radicals on the reservation and the folks who are most upset by it aren't likely to vote Republican anyway.

[TX-Beau]

You're fooling yourself if you think this represents some kind of moderation, or sop to "the base." They won't put it in print, but the Texas 'pubs are encouraged to think you are a child molesting, perverted, predatory, minion of Satan out to destroy civilization - and no, that is not hyperbole.

I can't think why you would make excuses for these people. Perhaps you don't live with their ilk, let me enlighten you, you are a pervert, they will push hatred of you - because they have contempt for you, and if they can get away with it, they will criminalize you. Not because you are an actual threat, but because you are a pervert (yes they actually think that, the vast majority party bosses and peons alike) and you deserve nothing but contempt.

[TX-Beau]

The only use they will ever have for you is as a scapegoat to be sacrificed.

[Kulindahr]

Well some good news out of it, one step forward, two steps back it seems. I was in a detailed discussion of this on an NPR forum and from what I can gather the actual language of the amendment is just calling to prevent any laws that would ban such therapy for 'consenting adults'. Since there is no such movement in Texas, or any other state that I'm aware of, I'm thinking this is really just throwing some red meat out in the platform to placate the bigots in the base. It doesn't really call for the party to actually do anything, helps keep some of the radicals on the reservation and the folks who are most upset by it aren't likely to vote Republican anyway.

It's unclear in Texas just how many Republicans there are who aren't part of the "bigots in the base".

[Stardreamer]

Having read today some of the rest of the wording of this amendment I'm quite alarmed and saddened for the state of my birth. As I said the little part at the end about reparative therapy is really a meaningless gesture but the rest of it, spirits! Ban the teaching of evolution in schools, repudiate all federal gun laws, defund all climate change research, disband some federal bureaus (the article I read didn't name them but you can guess), repeal the Voting Rights Act, ban all laws against discrimination in business based on a persons religious beliefs, blanket condemnation of homosexuality and 'special rights', etc. The whole thing is a wish list of the nuttiest positions of the far right Tea Party.

From what I can gather from the BBC article I read, this thing was put together in a small committee and then rushed into an approval vote without the rest of the convention getting a chance to read it or fully know what was in it. They are trying to excuse it as a non-binding statement of principles.

[T-Rexx]

The San Francisco Chronicle asked Rick Perry about the Texas' GOP's gay reparative therapy platform.

The paper says that the governor responded that "whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that." He said: "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/perry...-homosexuality

So, homosexuality is like alcoholism. Just resist it and marry a woman, guys.

[T-Rexx]

Having read today some of the rest of the wording of this amendment I'm quite alarmed and saddened for the state of my birth. As I said the little part at the end about reparative therapy is really a meaningless gesture but the rest of it, spirits! Ban the teaching of evolution in schools, repudiate all federal gun laws, defund all climate change research, disband some federal bureaus (the article I read didn't name them but you can guess), repeal the Voting Rights Act, ban all laws against discrimination in business based on a persons religious beliefs, blanket condemnation of homosexuality and 'special rights', etc. The whole thing is a wish list of the nuttiest positions of the far right Tea Party.

Yes.

The extent to which the GOP has moved to the right in Texas is just stunning.

From what I can gather from the BBC article I read, this thing was put together in a small committee and then rushed into an approval vote without the rest of the convention getting a chance to read it or fully know what was in it. They are trying to excuse it as a non-binding statement of principles.

No, they knew exactly what they were doing.

In fact, rather than repudiate this stupidity, they are agitating to bring the Texas GOP platform to the entire nation.

[Kulindahr]

The San Francisco Chronicle asked Rick Perry about the Texas' GOP's gay reparative therapy platform.



So, homosexuality is like alcoholism. Just resist it and marry a woman, guys.

It's a very common comparison. By it, they mean to say "It isn't your fault", so you won't feel guilty, and tell you "You can change!", like with Alcoholics Anonymous.

[Kulindahr]

Texas would be better off if they'd passed the libertarian constitution back in like 2000, than with the GOP.

[Ninja108]

Texas has always been to the far right, they are simply more vocal about it now.

[TX-Beau]

Yeah LBJ was so far to the right he passed all of JFK's agenda. Texas was Dem from 1860 until the late 80's.

[frankfrank]

Strangest fact that I ever heard about Texas politics - which proves the existence of racism or at least strongly suggests it - is what CTF [CentexFarmer] told me about four years ago: NEVER, until sometime in the 1970's (1973?), did any Latino Representative or Senator have a seat in the legislature in Austin.

[Kulindahr]

Strangest fact that I ever heard about Texas politics - which proves the existence of racism or at least strongly suggests it - is what CTF [CentexFarmer] told me about four years ago: NEVER, until sometime in the 1970's (1973?), did any Latino Representative or Senator have a seat in the legislature in Austin.

Incredible.