Texas GOP Chair Laments Inclusion Of Gay Conversion Therapy In Party Platform

Texas GOP Chair Laments Inclusion Of Gay Conversion Therapy In Party Platform

Texas Republican Party Chairman Steve Munisteri lamented the adoption of language supporting gay conversion "therapy" to the party's platform on Thursday, explaining that his colleagues had outflanked him by using a "parliamentary maneuver."

The state's Republican delegates voted earlier this month to "recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling [that] offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle."

Munisteri said he doesn't believe in the practice, which has already been banned in California and New Jersey.

"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?" he told Texas Public Radio.

He further claimed there was substantial opposition to the plank among his party.

"My emails and phone calls to the office are running overwhelmingly opposed to that plank in the platform," he said.

Munisteri claimed he was unable to strip the language because doing so would have meant sacrificing the entire party platform.

"Because the way the platform works, once somebody calls the question on the platform it's a parliamentary maneuver," he said. "The delegates are really forced to pass the platform as is, because if you don't there is no platform."

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