Stop the Excuses, Texas GOP
A Texas GOP Chairman has admitted that he doesn’t believe in conversion therapy, even though his party has endorsed it as part of the party’s platform. We congratulate him for his honesty and clear-eyed logic.
Earlier this month, the Texas Republican Party adopted a change to their platform that endorses “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy” for LGBT individuals. This is a dangerous practice thoroughly denounced by every major medical and mental health organization in the United States.
While many delegates in Texas still believe that gay and lesbian Americans need to be cured, Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri has admitted he doesn’t believe in conversion therapy.
“And I just make the point for anybody that thinks that may be the possibility: Do they think they can take a straight person to a psychiatrist and turn them gay?” Munisteri said.
The final 2014 platform reads, “We recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle. No laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this type of therapy.”
Munisteri also admitted that a group was able to pass the reparative therapy language using a “parliamentary trick.” Munisteri explained, “Because the way the platform works, once somebody calls the question on the platform it’s a parliamentary maneuver. The delegates are really forced to pass the platform as is, because if you don’t there is no platform.”
Shame on the Texas GOP for spreading hatred and prop up debunk science. Join HRC in calling on Chairman Munsteri to reject Texas GOP’s anti-LGBT platform
Source: HRC Blog, “Stop the Excuses, Texas GOP,” June 20, 2014 by Hayley Miller, Digital Media Associate