Texas GOP convention causes a stir with anti-gay platform amendments, exclusion of gay Republican groups
CONVENTION SHAKE-UP | Metroplex Republicans vice president Rudy Oeftering, pictured left with Texas land commission candidate George P. Bush, spoke against the inclusion of anti-gay planks in the Texas GOP platform at the party’s convention in Fort Worth last week, but the language still was included in the final document.
Following last week’s Texas Republican Party convention in Fort Worth, which saw the inclusion of gay reparative therapy in the platform and a controversy over the presence of gay Republican groups at the event, some commentators — even those within the Texas GOP itself — are questioning whether the party has lost touch with voters.
Much of the displeasure with the party was focused on the introduction of a platform plank that would “recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling [of gay people], 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.” The language was introduced late on June 5, and was put up for a vote before the entire convention on June 7.
Before the vote, Rudy Oeftering — a Republican delegate and vice president of the gay political group Metroplex Republicans —made an impassioned plea to the platform committee to drop the issue of homosexuality from the platform. While two lines of language damning the LGBT community in the 2012 platform were dropped — the removed wording read, “We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God” — the provision supporting reparative therapy passed the convention vote easily.
“It will not add one new vote to the Texas Republican vote totals,” Oeftering told the platform committee. “We also believe it’s just bad politics.”
When Oeftering asked the committee whether they believed homosexuality was a social problem that needed to be addressed in the platform, members answered him.
“Social problem?” one spoke up and answered. “Absolutely.”
Oeftering continued his argument that the language be expunged. “Let this issue go,” he said. “It your opinion. It’s your belief. It’s my life.” When he finished, he received applause.
Colter Keathley, a 19-year-old Young Republican and delegate at the convention, noted that the language was out of touch with the beliefs of people his generation — even those who identify otherwise with the GOP.
“[Among] Young Republicans [ages] 18 to 29 … 61 percent support gay marriage,” Keathley said. “A vast majority are moving away from the Republican Party because of what some would call bigoted ideals against homosexual couples.”
He also asked the committee to remove any language disparaging the gay community.
Keathley said he was emotional on the issue because his brother is gay.
The plank was somewhat surprising because in recent years, reparative therapy — which tacitly supports the idea that sexual orientation is a “choice” — has been debunked and largely abandoned, including by some former practitioners. Dallas County Democratic Party Chairwoman Darlene Ewing said reparative therapy was “dangerous,” “outlawed in several states,” and prompted kids to commit suicide.
Family counselor Candy Marcum called advocacy of reparative therapy dangerous.
“It has been soundly rejected by every professional organization for mental health organization that I know,” Marcum said. “They’ve all resoundingly said it doesn’t work.”
Democrats in the state’s bluest counties weren’t the only one criticizing the Republican platform and its homophobic positions. Writers from some of the most conservative newspapers in the state condemned the Republican document.
A comment in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal read, “When I read their 2014 platform, I thought I was reading The Onion … but it was real.”
An editorial in the Beaumont Enterprise said, “The Texas Republican convention that concluded last weekend in Fort Worth moved the party further right. Even some Republicans wonder if the party has gone too far.”
From the Midland Reporter Telegram, “For a party and its leaders, who are supposed to represent all Texans, to endorse reparative therapy in its platform, that’s not something we can get behind.”
Jeff Davis, chairman of Log Cabin Republicans of Texas (a statewide gay group), said a number of people at the convention told him, “This is wrong.” That included people from all walks of life, he said, including those in the religious community.
Davis said the problem with the platform was its length. He said rather than a list specifics, the platform should be a statement of principles.
Log Cabin Texas was refused a booth at the convention. Metroplex Republicans, which broke off from Log Cabin in 2011, was itself the center of a controversy earlier in the week when it had initially been granted a booth … until party officials realized it was gay-friendly and kicked them out of the exhibition hall. Oeftering said his group was told they could not exhibit because their beliefs don’t conform to the party platform. Davis said the idea that Log Cabin was refused a booth because it opposes one plank is ridiculous.
“No one agrees with every one of the 250 items in the platform,” Davis said.
Thomas Purdy, president of Log Cabin Republicans of Dallas, said the treatment of his group locally stands in contrast to how it was treated at the state convention.
“We are fortunate in how seamlessly integrated we are with the Dallas County Republican Party, as we have been for many years,” Purdy said. “The letters to the state party of support for a booth and removal of the offensive planks from the 1950s came overwhelmingly from Republicans in Dallas County, evidence of the very relationships we have proudly developed.”
Earlier in the week, Rob Schlein, president of Metroplex Republicans, said the group was successful removing some language from the 2012 anti-gay platform as well as another plank from earlier platforms which opposed gays in the military. Then the statement supporting reparative therapy was added. Over the past year, California and New Jersey have enacted laws preventing the use of reparative therapy on minors.
After Log Cabin was refused a table at the Republican Convention, the Texas Democratic Party invited the group to have a booth at the Texas Democratic Party convention, which will be held at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas later this month. Log Cabin turned the offer down.
Davis said no one from the Democratic Party contacted him directly so he questioned the sincerity of the offer, but he had an additional reason to refuse.
“It would send mixed messages to our party,” he said.
Ewing said she hadn’t heard of anything special being planned to address the reparative therapy issue or to spotlight Stonewall Democrats, the LGBT Democratic organization, at the upcoming Democratic convention.
“Our Stonewall group is a pretty powerful group,” Ewing said. “They’re part of our executive committee.”
She said members of Stonewall are already among the convention’s planners, speakers and participants and called them an organic and important part of Texas’ Democratic Party.
Log Cabin Republicans of Texas chairman Jeff Davis weighs in on the view from inside the convention, defends gays staying true to party principles. See Viewpoints.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 13, 2014.