New Texas GOP Platform Declares Homosexuality 'Abnormal Lifestyle Choice'

In a giant step into the dark ages, the newly adopted platform of the Texas Republican Party now officially declares that homosexuality is an “abnormal choice.”

The shocking platform, voted on by 5,100 delegates and alternates Saturday at the party’s biennial convention in Houston, also affirms Texas Republicans’ opposition to “all efforts to validate transgender identity” and calls for a ban on any gender-affirming medical care, including hormone therapy, for anyone under the age of 21.

Yet the platform supports debunked and dangerous conversion therapy — which it terms “Reintegrative Therapy” — to turn members of the LGBTQ community into heterosexuals and eliminate “unwanted same-sex attraction.”

The platform spells out other positions explicitly opposed to the LGBTQ community under its section on “Homosexuality and Gender Issues.” It opposes offering any special protections for members of the LGBTQ community, and renounces penalties for those who discriminate against the community.

Delegates at the convention were peppered with flyers attacking the LGBTQ community, including one warning: “Beware of the Homosexual Agenda.”

In a tepid denunciation, Chris Halbohn of the Log Cabin Republicans of Houston, which represents LGBTQ members of the party, called the anti-LGBTQ language an “unnecessarily gratuitous ” addition to the party’s platform, according to National Public Radio affiliate KUT 90.5.

The Log Cabin Republicans of Texas were denied a booth at the convention, prompting the national Log Cabin organization to denounce the action as “narrow-minded” and “political short-sighted.” The statement warned that the party must “expand the tent ” to include members of the LGBTQ community or face election losses.

Even Donald Trump Jr. said in an interview that it made no sense to attack fellow Republicans .

But one GOP precinct chair told the radio station that the Log Cabin Republicans’ ideas are “quite frankly, evil. ” Their “ideals will destroy our society,” he added.

The LGBTQ community is the new laser focus of the right-wing in the increasingly hostile and violent culture wars. Earlier this month, Idaho police arrested 31 members of the Patriot Front hate group  who were crammed into a U-Haul truck wearing riot gear as they were heading to disrupt a Pride event in downtown Coeur D’Alene.

In other platform issues, party delegates voted to support barring the teaching of sex and sexuality in schools while calling on Texas schools to teach the “dignity of the preborn human ” and that life begins at fertilization.

Delegates also declared Joe Biden’s presidential election victory illegitimate .