Texas GOP may endorse 'ex-gay' therapy.

[afleitch]

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gop-thinking-endorsing-ex-gay-therapy-174500872.html

"According to an early look at the Texas Republican Party's first draft of their 2014 platform, it looks like the Texas GOP is seriously considering throwing its support behind the practice of what's commonly referred to as "ex-gay therapy." The Houston Chronicle obtained a copy of the draft on Wednesday ahead of Thursday's party conference, noting that the section expressing support for "therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle" generated some opposition during Thursday morning's committee consideration of the document. Some, it seems, would prefer Texas's GOP return to its old stance on LGBT people: that the "practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society."

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Sorry.

These people should know that Exodus International shut down for a reason. (ex gay therapy almost never works.)

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So how's that "rebranding" thing going?

[RedSLC]

Considering the Texas GOP has basically no real opposition at the state level, it seems that they've decided to push themselves as far to the right as possible.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

I'm fine with such therapy being an option if it's illegal for people under 18 to be a part of it. Too many fundamentalist parents would force their children into it.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I think it should be illegal to force minors to participate in "ex-gay" therapy - or any kind of psychiatry. Psychiatry in general is discredited. "Ex-gay" therapy is no different.

[RedSLC]

I'm fine with such therapy being an option if it's illegal for people under 18 to be a part of it. Too many fundamentalist parents would force their children into it.

It shouldn't be legal for people of any age. I don't approve of potentially harmful practices being passed off as legitimate treatment, and I consider "ex-gay" therapy to be such a thing.

[Likely Voter]

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But what if they get really good a it?

[bedstuy]

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But what if they get really good a it?

Thankfully the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and uses the fabric to make fabulously tailored pastel linen trousers and a matching neckerchief.

[ElectionsGuy]

If they choose to do this, then they've really outdone themselves on "reaching out". This does not look attractive to young suburban/urban republicans, who in 20 years will (or would be) be a significant amount of the base.

[angus]

Considering the Texas GOP has basically no real opposition at the state level, it seems that they've decided to push themselves as far to the right as possible.

The Texas GOP has a long history of this sort of crazy stuff.  Remember that a couple of years ago they wanted to stop teaching critical thinking skills in public schools.  The support for corporal punishment in schools is also an old standard in the Texas GOP.  I believe that in 2012 they also wanted to repeal the 16th amendment. 

Still, this "ex-gay therapy" plank just might put voters off.  According to a WaPo/ABC poll a plurality of Texans now support same-sex marriage, and the share favoring civil unions is larger than those who do not support either same-sex marriage or civil unions.  It may not make in to the final cut of the platform.

[memphis]

I'm a little but surprised the parties even both producing official platforms these days. They don't seem to serve any purpose. In any case, anybody who's been paying any attention to politics already knows the Republicans are a bunch of batsh!t crazy, old white people with wide stances. There is no need to remind us.

[IceSpear]

I'm actually more shocked that it wasn't already in there.

[angus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSQSx3OCrXQ

[Middle-aged Europe]

Texas GOP should move to Russia.

[Never]

I must say I'm disappointed that this therapy is being considered by the Texas GOP. While I still feel that people can change their sexual orientation, isn't a so-called therapy like this basically brainwashing?

[angus]

Texas GOP should move to Russia.

They have been heavy handed, especially when it comes to entrenching themselves.  About 15 years ago Tom Delay formed a PAC whose goal was to guarantee a Republican-controlled legislature in Texas for the first time since Reconstruction.  By 2002, his goal was realized.  That legislature immediately set about re-drawing the US House districts.  Do you remember when Rick Perry called a special session of the legislature to address the issue after Democrats in the Texas House left the state in order to deny the quorum needed to conduct business on the chamber floor?  I was living in California at the time, and single, watching lots of talking head shows like Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly.  As I recall, eventually some Democrats broke rank, giving Delay and Perry the quorum they needed.  Shortly thereafter the republicans had a slim majority in the Texas delegation.  It has since grown.

I think the GOP had something like 2 US House seats from Texas in 1974.  Now they have 24.  Stalin would have been impressed. 

"It doesn't matter how many people vote, only who counts them."  Pravda!

[pbrower2a]

If they choose to do this, then they've really outdone themselves on "reaching out". This does not look attractive to young suburban/urban republicans, who in 20 years will (or would be) be a significant amount of the base.

When suburban Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio start voting like suburban Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco, then the game is up for the GOP in Texas at the statewide level and in Presidential politics. Such is the difference between Texas and most northeastern and Far Western states.

Barack Obama won much of the suburban vote in the northeastern quadrant of the US , probably because the aging suburbs now have genuinely urban problems and require Big Government to solve them. The suburban areas around Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio are newer than the corresponding suburbs of Northern cities and have yet to show the ravages of age.

Add to that -- the GOP has bet everything upon winning the white Protestant fundamentalists who would rather impose substandard education upon their kids than prepare them for a modern world because those fundamentalists believe that saving a soul is more important than effective education and economic equity.  End Times tribulations? Hallelujah! Those who truly believe will be raptured away from the nastiness, and the secularists will endure Hell on Earth and almost certainly eternal damnation as they die. Global Warming sounds much like End Times anyway.   

[emailking]

I think it should be illegal to force minors to participate in "ex-gay" therapy - or any kind of psychiatry. Psychiatry in general is discredited.

It's not.

[pbrower2a]

I think it should be illegal to force minors to participate in "ex-gay" therapy - or any kind of psychiatry. Psychiatry in general is discredited. "Ex-gay" therapy is no different.

Psychiatry can be very useful. Condemnation of bad psychiatry in the past and in different places (like psychiatry as a means of repression of dissidents in the old USSR) is like altogether  rejecting music because one has heard "Disco Duck" or cinema because one has seen Howard the Duck.   

The American Psychiatric Association condemns 'ex-gay' therapy as ineffective and unconscionable.  Psychiatry can be just the thing for treating people for homophobia.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I think it should be illegal to force minors to participate in "ex-gay" therapy - or any kind of psychiatry. Psychiatry in general is discredited. "Ex-gay" therapy is no different.

Psychiatry can be very useful. Condemnation of bad psychiatry in the past and in different places (like psychiatry as a means of repression of dissidents in the old USSR) is like altogether  rejecting music because one has heard "Disco Duck" or cinema because one has seen Howard the Duck.   

The American Psychiatric Association condemns 'ex-gay' therapy as ineffective and unconscionable.  Psychiatry can be just the thing for treating people for homophobia.

It wasn't until fairly recently that the American Psychiatric Association stopped condemning homosexuality. They considered it a disease until not long ago.

The United States is one of the biggest offenders at using psychiatry for repression of dissidents.

[Badger]

I think it should be illegal to force minors to participate in "ex-gay" therapy - or any kind of psychiatry. Psychiatry in general is discredited. "Ex-gay" therapy is no different.

Psychiatry can be very useful. Condemnation of bad psychiatry in the past and in different places (like psychiatry as a means of repression of dissidents in the old USSR) is like altogether  rejecting music because one has heard "Disco Duck" or cinema because one has seen Howard the Duck.   

The American Psychiatric Association condemns 'ex-gay' therapy as ineffective and unconscionable.  Psychiatry can be just the thing for treating people for homophobia.

It wasn't until fairly recently that the American Psychiatric Association stopped condemning homosexuality. They considered it a disease until not long ago.

The United States is one of the biggest offenders at using psychiatry for repression of dissidents.

Just

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

My, my, my... the death throes of the anti-gay agenda have certainly been nasty haven't they?  When a segment of a political party (the Christian Right) goes out of it's way to produce the type of legislation we've seen in AZ and KS, while the country is shifting radically in the other direction, it really gives you quite the insight into how much the Christian Right really hates the gay. 

Sickening as always from the GOP, but I can't get too worked up over it as I already know this. 

[minionofmidas]

Some clever, preferrably gay, pinko psychiatrist should start offering ex-GOP therapy. He'd make a mint. (It wouldn't work either, though.)

[badgate]

Some clever, preferrably gay, pinko psychiatrist should start offering ex-GOP therapy. He'd make a mint. (It wouldn't work either, though.)

The therapy session is just forcing them to read A People's History of the United States. And then they have to go to their local Barnes & Noble, buy all copies of "A Patriot's History...", and burn them.