The Texas Republican Party now states as a matter of party platform that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election, part of an extreme list of new platform items on which party members voted this weekend.
Though the results of the vote are not known for most of the platform items, it’s unusual for delegates to the convention to vote down a measure that was approved by the party’s platform committee.
A spokesperson for the party confirmed that at least two planks in the new platform — falsely referring to Biden’s win as illegitimate, and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) for his role in bipartisan gun reform talks — were approved by a voice vote of delegates. “The Texas Republican Party is raising record funds for election integrity,” a statement on the party’s website bragged.
The rest of the platform — which again, will likely be approved by convention attendees once votes are tallied — includes a declaration that homosexuality is “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and the assertion that “denial of an immutable gender binary” leads to “irreversible physical mutilation.”
It also calls for Texas schools to teach “about the humanity of the preborn child,” including the notion that life begins at fertilization, the Texas Tribune reported.
That “education” would include “use of fetal baby models” and “witnessing of a live ultrasound,” according to language shared by a Tribune reporter Saturday, when the vote took place.
The proposed platform also calls for prayer to be returned to schools and government buildings, and for the repeal of the federal income tax and the Federal Reserve.
Several far-right platform planks were part of the existing 2020 platform, including calls for the repeal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, for stripping the state legislature’s power to regulate the “wearing of arms,” and for ending birthright citizenship. As in 2020, the 2022 platform states that “Texas retains the right to secede from the United States.” And it asserts, again, that “We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity.”
The party’s hysteria over gay and transgender people went beyond the platform itself this year and into the conduct of party members: When one delegate, David Gebhart, objected to the plank about homosexuality — “We are the Republican Party of Texas, not the Westboro Baptist Church,” he reportedly said — he was met with a mix of booing and laughter, the Tribune’s Sewell Chan reported.
Separately, the party prohibited the Log Cabin Republicans of Fort Worth, a local branch of the gay conservative group, from setting up a booth at the convention.
