Since the religious right took control of the Texas Republican Party back in the early 1990s, writing the state GOP’s platform has been an exercise in promoting extremism every two years. This year wasn’t any different. A Texas Freedom Network analysis shows how the 2012 Texas Republican Party turns back the clock by seeking to erase long-established protections for religious freedom, civil and voting rights, women’s health and public education.
Click here for our analysis of the party’s platform, but following is a sampling of the extremism promoted by Texas Republicans at their convention this month in Fort Worth. That platform:
- Declares separation of church and state is a “myth” and calls for Congress to withdraw federal court jurisdiction over cases involving religious freedom and the Bill of Rights
- Calls for teaching creationist arguments in public school science classrooms
- Opposes the sale and use of emergency contraception and backs the Legislature’s war on women’s health programs
- Rejects “any sex education other than abstinence until marriage” in public schools
- Adopts a radical position that would essentially bar abortion even in cases of rape, of incest or to save a woman’s life
- Advocates for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act, minimum wage laws and the Endangered Species Act as well as the abolishment of the Environmental Protection Agency
- Attacks LGBT Texans as a threat to families and objects to laws that would protect them from job discrimination and hate crimes
- Calls for further funding cuts for public schools following draconian cuts by lawmakers in 2011
- Seeks to change the 14th Amendment to limit citizenship by birth only to those born to a U.S. citizen
- Threatens federal judges with impeachment if they don’t toe the far right’s line in controversial court cases
Alarmingly, the party platform also seeks to increase the authority of the highly politicized and dysfunctional State Board of Education over what Texas students learn in their public schools.
TFN’s analysis of the 2012 platform as well as the 2010 and 2008 platforms are here.
These people are NUTS.
Thanks for what you’re doing.
Texas dear Texas, always on the march .. BACKWARDS!
What are they so afraid of? They scream freedom when it comes to the second amendment, which I completely support, but they push for laws against women’s rights. I don’t get it, freedom isn’t freedom if only some people get it. In this country, we are all free, and we need to use that freedom to vote down the religious zealots who would otherwise kill freedoms for those they don’t agree with. The key here is get out and vote! It is pathetic how few people vote.
Of course the traitorous filth that are the religious right wish the federal courts would stay out of Establishment Clause issues. That’s because they want to destroy the very foundation of our republic, destroy the bedrock our nation was founded upon – freedom to practice whatever religion you like and freedom from the religious beliefs of others.
Our founding fathers and the founding generation knew exactly what they were doing and we should thank them every day. As far as political thinkers go one James Madison is worth 100,000 David Bartons; one James Madison is worth 500,000 James Inahofes.
Personally I’d like to see much tougher federal laws regarding the 1st Amendment. Any efforts by legislators or lobbyists to either inject their religious beliefs into US law or use any taxpayer funds to support religion should be declared exactly what it is – an act of treason – and be punished accordingly.
Thank you. Well said.
amen brother/sister
Most disturbing is the opposition to critical thinking skills (p 12). Really. The platform pretty much flat out says that it doesn’t want kids learning how to question whether what their parents have told them to believe is actually true.
Utterly mindboggling.
From the document:
“Indefinite Detention – The Republican Party abhors any policies of indefinite detention of US citizens without due process. We urge Congress to terminate any practice of detention without due process.”
Really? No foolin’? What will W., Dick, and Karl have to say about that?
Or did I miss a plank that calls for stripping Mooslums of US citizenship?
Come on, you all know that the GOP is in fact the committee to re-elect President Obama. Americans are not that dumb.
Below is a list of the GOP’s 2012 talking points (compiled from several sources), as elucidated by various conservative politicians and pundits:
– Corporations are people.
– Voting is a privilege, not a right.
– Federal workplace standards and business regulations are unAmerican.
– Women who use birth control are sluts.
– A chicken in every pot, and a spy-cam in every uterus.
– College students are snobs.
– Students who must obtain federal loans are unworthy of a college education.
– Public education is part of a left wing brainwashing conspiracy.
– Gay Americans are an abomination.
– Poor people deserve to be poor.
– Union workers are socialist thugs.
– The unemployed are lazy parasites.
– Latinos are illegal until proven otherwise.
– Naturalized citizens with heavy accents are not true Americans.
– The Bible trumps the Constitution.
– America is a Christian nation.
– Secularism equals Satanism.
– Global warming is a hoax.
– Environmentalism is unpatriotic and an attack on the will of God.
– The U.S. auto industry should go bankrupt.
– Cutting taxes for the ultra-wealthy and subsidizing corporations is patriotic.
– Cutting taxes for the middle class and providing funding for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the Food Stamp program is unpatriotic.
– If you cannot afford to pay for your family’s health insurance coverage or preventative health care, then all of you are simply taking up oxygen and deserve to die anyway.
– All progressives are communists.
– Liberal Democrats hate America.
– The U.S. President is a Muslim socialist agent from Kenya.
Well done labman!