Something For Everyone!

That is the Republican platform in Texas, a little something for everyone! Here is a hint... it is all bad.

Texas Republicans call for ban on ‘abnormal’ gay marriage and parenting
The Republican Party of Texas wants to ban “abnormal” gay marriage, same-sex parenting and pretty much anything LGBTQ+.
Pink News
By Chantelle Billson
May 29, 2024

A list on the State Convention of the Republican Party of Texas platform is a cause for deep worry among the LGBTQ+ community who are already under attack in the Lone Star State.

“We believe in… the law of nature and nature’s God,” the principles start, with the party believing in “self-sufficient families, founded on traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman”.

The resolutions describe homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” adding that the party “opposes any criminal or civil penalties” against people who discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community for religious reasons.

I guess none of the Republicans grew up on a farm and seen two stallions humping one another. And they didn’t leave us out of their “hit” parade.

The platform goes on to call for anyone offering gender-affirming care to be “criminally prosecuted for child abuse”.

Under a section devotes to protecting minors, the platform describes Drag Queen Story Hours as a “predatory sexual behaviour” against which children should be protected.

The Constitution and federal laws… Texas is exempt from the Constitution and federal laws didn’t you know that.

“We are opposed to same-sex parenting, intentionally subjecting a child to the loss of their biological father or mother, and other non-traditional definitions of family,” the platform notes. This flies in the face of the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples

The Supreme Court just make suggestion as far as Texas is concerned.

Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools, electoral changes that would lock Democrats out of statewide office
The platform was voted on Saturday, with tallies expected next week. Other planks call abortion homicide and gender-transition care “child abuse.”
Texas Tribune
BY ROBERT DOWNEN AND RENZO DOWNEY
MAY 25, 2024

Republican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.

Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the U.S. government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.

The party hopes to finalize its platform on Wednesday, after Saturday’s votes on each proposal are tabulated.

U.S. government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs… Hey that almost qualifies it for the Cuckoo Award.

The rest of the country is trying to do away with the Electoral College but Texas want to create one…

Perhaps the most consequential plank calls for a constitutional amendment to require that candidates for statewide office carry a majority of Texas’ 254 counties to win an election, a model similar to the U.S. electoral college.

Under current voting patterns, in which Republicans routinely win in the state’s rural counties, such a requirement would effectively end Democrats’ chances of winning statewide office. In 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott carried 235 counties, while Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried most of the urban, more populous counties and South Texas counties. Statewide, Abbott won 55% of the popular vote while O’Rourke carried 44%.

However, some attorneys question whether such a proposal would be constitutional and conform with the Voting Rights Act because it would most likely limit the voting power of racial minorities, who are concentrated in a relatively small number of counties. (The party’s platform also reiterates its previous calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act).

And then, and then we have the Christian Nationalists got a bone thrown to them.

The platform also takes a step further some of the party’s previous calls for more Christianity in public life. The 2022 platform proclaimed that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” for instance, and demanded the repeal of federal prohibitions on political activity by churches.

The 2024 platform goes significantly further: It urges lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools — which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.

Hey, the Constitution? Doesn’t it say something about no state religions? Or maybe Texas thinks it only applies to the Federal government and not to the states.

In another Texas Tribune article,

At Texas GOP convention, Republicans call for spiritual warfare
At the three-day convention, delegates moved the needle further to the right, preaching Christian nationalism and approving rules that would give them unprecedented control of elections.
BY ROBERT DOWNEN
MAY 28, 2024

From his booth in the exhibit hall of the Texas GOP’s 2024 convention, Steve Hotze saw an army of God assembled before him.

For four decades, Hotze, an indicted election fraud conspiracy theorist, has helmed hardline anti-abortion movements and virulently homophobic campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights, comparing gay people to Nazis and helping popularize the “groomer” slur that paints them as pedophiles. Once on the fringes, Hotze said Saturday that he was pleased by the party's growing embrace of his calls for spiritual warfare with “demonic, Satanic forces” on the left.

“People that aren’t in Christ have wicked, evil hearts,” he said. “We are in a battle, and you have to take a side.”

Those beliefs were common at the party’s three-day biennial convention last week, at which delegates adopted a series of new policies that would give the party unprecedented control over the electoral process and further infuse Christianity into public life.

Delegates approved rules that ban Republican candidates — as well as judges — who are censured by the party from appearing on primary ballots for two years, a move that would give a small group of Republicans the ability to block people from running for office, should it survive expected legal challenges. The party’s proposed platform also included planks that would effectively lock Democrats out of statewide office by requiring candidates to win a majority of Texas’ 254 counties, many of which are dark-red but sparsely populated, and called for laws requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools.

Hm… I remember reading something about “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Those fears were stoked by elected officials in almost every speech given over the week. “They want to take God out of the country, and they want the government to be God,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Thursday morning.

“Our battle is not against flesh and blood,” Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, said Friday. “It is against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

”Look at what the Democrats have done,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Saturday. “If you were actively trying to destroy America, what would you do differently?”

Look at what Republican have done! Totally ignored federal laws because they don’t like it!

Of course this is only the party platform and it hasn’t been approved but it shows where their head is screwed on.