The Patriot Post® · The GOP and the Log Cabin Republicans
Over the past weekend, Texas Republicans held their convention in Houston, where the party formally adopted its platform. Prior to the convention, controversy was stirred up after the party refused to grant a booth to the homosexual lobbying group known as the Log Cabin Republicans. The move sparked pushback from several well-known Republicans, including Donald Trump Jr. “The Texas GOP should focus its energy on fighting back against the radical democrats and weak RINOs currently trying to legislate our 2nd Amendment rights away,” he said, “instead of canceling a group of gay conservatives who are standing in the breach with us.”
It’s true that President Donald Trump had little problem with the homosexual community. In fact, he sought to expand the Republican big-tent vision by making overtures toward them. As the Log Cabin Republicans asserted: “President Trump, who historically expanded the GOP’s coalition, made clear that LGBT conservatives are welcome in the America First movement and the Republican Party. It’s shameful that the Texas GOP leadership is choosing not to follow his lead.”
However, the Texas GOP’s decision to deny the Log Cabin Republicans a booth was not a slight or mere overlooking; it was in keeping with the state party’s political ideology. Within the Texas GOP’s 40-page platform is a section titled “Homosexuality and Gender Issues,” in which the party makes its position on the issue clear:
Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. No one should be granted special legal status based on their LGBTQ+ identification.
The key insight here is the term “special legal status.” In other words, due to the Republican view that homosexuality is an identity based upon a behavioral choice and not a state of being or immutable condition, to recognize homosexuality as special would be to fundamentally embrace inequality under the law. Persons engaged in the homosexual lifestyle have every right to marriage, for example, but they don’t have the special right to redefine that term in order to suit their behavioral proclivities.
The Texas GOP’s platform is similarly consistent when it speaks to the hot-button issue of the day — gender identity and so-called “transgenderism.” The document states:
The official position of the Texas schools shall be that there are only two genders: biological male and biological female. We oppose transgender normalizing curriculum and pronoun use. We hold that biological men shall compete against other biological men and biological women shall compete against other biological women in athletics in the public school system of Texas and at the collegiate level.
The document further delineates the party’s rejection of taxpayer funding for “sex change operations and/or treatments” while opposing any laws that would forbid or penalize “therapists, psychologists, and counselors” from “practicing Reintegrative Therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction.”
Once again, the Texas GOP made its stand refreshingly unambiguous and clear. While it may not be the popular position with many moderates and obviously with the woke Left, the party is not backing down from the battle. The erosion of our nation’s moral fabric will not be repaired if good people who know better sit by and for the sake of “unity” refuse to stand up for the truth. Texas Republicans are to be commended for bravery, even as they are ridiculed by some as bigots. When confusion rages across the country, honesty is not bigotry. Rather, it’s enlightenment leading to freedom.