SAN ANTONIO (LifeSiteNews) — The Republican Party of Texas approved a series of uncompromising positions on issues ranging from homosexual “marriage” to no-fault divorce in its official platform over the weekend, at a time when the national GOP is striking a decidedly more liberal tone.
Houston Public Media reports that the Texas GOP wrapped up its 2024 convention on Saturday, during which it finalized the latest version of the party platform.
“Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice,” the approved platform reads, echoing language adopted in 2022. “We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior” or “identification.”
“We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman,” it also says, going on to declare opposition to “same-sex parenting, intentionally subjecting a child to the loss of their biological father or mother,” as well as call for “nullifying federal Executive Branch rules, orders, or regulations in cases involving family law, especially any changes in the definition of marriage,” as well as nullifying the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that forced all 50 states to recognize homosexual “marriages.”
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The GOP also retained a 2022 plank “urg[ing] the Legislature to rescind unilateral no-fault divorce laws” and rewriting the state family code to “promote the maintenance of the traditional family via required intervention/counseling prior to any decree of divorce.”
“We urge lawmakers to enact legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization,” the party says in another retained 2022 plank, “because abortion violates the United States Constitution by denying such persons the equal protection of the law.” The platform also calls for abortion to be recognized as “homicide.”
Other causes embraced by the 2024 platform include “choices for ordinary Texans to use gold and silver in everyday transactions,” the return of “affirmation of God, including prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments” to schools and other public buildings, deportation of legal non-citizens who engage in rioting or violent protests, the release of whatever information the federal government still has on unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and various changes to election rules.
Houston Public Media notes there was a push to cut the reference to homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle,” as well as an opposing push to strengthen the GOP’s disapproval by adding “unnatural and unhealthy.” Both efforts ultimately failed.
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The national Republican Party platform, last updated in 2016, is similarly firm on major issues, including its call to “support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth”; and its affirmation that “we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to the states.”
However, national GOP leaders have not acted in accordance with those calls for several years. In 2022, 47 House Republicans and 12 Senate Republicans joined Democrats in passing a federal law codifying Obergefell, without resistance from GOP leaders in either chamber. More recently, former president and 2024 nominee Donald Trump and other national GOP leaders have urged leaving future abortion policy battles to the state level while protecting the embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry.