FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The Texas Republican Party now endorses so-called “reparative therapy” for gays, under a new platform given final approval at its annual convention Saturday.
The new anti-gay language never came up for debate before roughly 7,000 delegates ratified a Texas GOP platform that tea party groups succeeded in pushing further to the right, including winning a harder line on immigration.
One influential tea party group called Texas Eagle Forum had urged the party to support psychological treatments that seek to turn gay people straight. It comes after Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last fall signed a law banning such therapies on minors, and California has a similar law.
The Fort Worth Convention Hall cheered when party leaders announced that Christie finished a distant 11th in a 2016 presidential straw poll.
“There’s a very, very small group of people who want to keep the party in the past. We were here today to try to pull the party into the future,” said Rudy Oeftering, vice president of the gay conservative group Metroplex Republicans. “The only way the party can go into the future is to start listening to young people, to start listening to people who have gay family members.”
Oeftering and allies had lined up to speak against the therapy language that had been added earlier this week. But they never got a chance to address delegates, because a parliamentary motion to approve the full platform was called first.
Under the new plank, 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.”
The American Psychological Association and other major health organizations have condemned such counseling, which generally try to change a person’s sexual orientation or to lessen their interest in engaging in same-sex sexual activity. The groups say the practice should not be used on minors because of the danger of serious psychological harm.
“The platform reflects what the people in the Republican Party have asked for, and that should be no surprise: family values, protection of marriage between one man and one woman and everything that goes along with that,” said Jonathan Saenz, president of the conservative group Texas Values and a convention delegate.
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.”
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
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Associated Press reporter John Mone contributed to this report.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Too bad that there doesn’t seem to be any reparative therapy for choosing to be a Republican, even though I am pretty sure that nobody is born with that particular type of brain disease.
Someone should get the American Psychological Association interested in how to cure Republicanism. Since this ailment has pretty significant repercussions for all of us (unlike, say, being gay, which concerns only the person who is gay), it would be a huge benefit for society if some reparative therapy (preferably with plenty of electric shocks, but I’m no psychologist) is finally invented. Hopefully, it will work much better than gay reparative therapy.
im here to say i support this move. i fully support the republicans of texas to say and believe as they like. its there right. where these types always screw up is they take these beliefs and are using them to strip people of the same legal protections of the US Constitution. Thats where the support stops. Thats why they are bigots. Remember also these religious right zealots are also mixing fear of the other, religion, and lots of guns and ammo. there being told to take back america. they think its there divine right to rule this country under “christian” law. the more advances gay people make the more they feel backed into a corner. what does a scared animal do when backed into a corner… so this is not going to end well for these anti-gay religious extremist as they are violent prone bunch. remember its the same mindset that lynched and sicked dogs on blacks in the south. its the same mindset that blew up that church in birmingham killing those little girls. its the same mindset of eric rudolf who killed abortion drs. its the same mindset of timothy mcveigh who thought the govt. was out of control and took action.
‘Reparative’ implies repair…
My dear gay American friends, did you know you’re faulty and need to be repaired?
Why again do some of you insist on supporting a party that is opposed to your existence?
‘Metroplex Republicans’ are the real-world equivalent of Clayton Bigsby.
Sorry, but you can’t fix stoopid.
Crazy as crazy can be…
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