Gay Republicans are really having a rough go with things especially
now that they've been explicitly rejected by GOP in Texas.
This is pretty big story but it should be unsurprising considering how
the right wing in America has really gone all in on their hatred and
discrimination of the LGBTQ Community.
But maybe Gay Republicans thought that it was limited to transgender individuals.
They are sadly mistaken, it turns out that the right wing despises them as well.
So, the newly adopted platform of the Texas Republican Party
now officially declares that homosexuality is an abnormal choice.
And there was plenty of hate directly toward the trans community
to the shocking platform voted on by 5,100 delegates.
And alternates Saturday at the party's biennial convention in Houston,
also affirms Texas Republicans opposition to all efforts to validate
transgender identity.
And calls for a ban on any gender affirming medical care including
hormone therapy, for anyone under the age of 21.
So, I thought they were concerned about children having operations and
stuff like but no, it's not really about that.
I mean, really you can't make decisions about your own health and
your own body as a transgender individual until you're 21, yeah.
Yeah, so much for medical freedom, so much for parental rights too.
Exactly, and I mean they're going after parents who are actually good loving
parents who are accepting of their transgender children, I mean, but
none of this surprises me.
And the platform also supports the terrible and
long debunked gay conversion therapy, which they call re-integrative therapy.
Nice euphemism there,
I wanna give you a little screenshot of their platform that addresses this.
They address counseling methods and they write therapists, psychologists and
counselors licensed with the state of Texas shall not be forbidden or
penalized by any licensing board for practicing reintegrated therapy.
Or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any
age with gender dysphoria or unwanted same sex attraction.
It's just, look into those gay conversion therapy clinics and
the sexual abuse that took place within those clinics.
The torture that was used against gay individuals including
electroshock therapy.
I mean, the fact that the Texas Republicans have like really leaned in on
this, tells you everything you need to know about them.
Like they don't care about human lives, they don't care about this insanely
high suicide rate among the transgender community.
Which is of course caused by this type of rhetoric,
this type of political platform, they don't care about lives.
The only time they purport to care about lives is when they want to essentially
legislate and control women's uteruses.
That's the only time they allege to care about human lives, but
even in that regard, they don't really care about lives at all.
As I've said multiple times in the show, it's all about accumulating
political power, it's all about controlling and punishing women.
And it doesn't matter how hypocritical they are,
it doesn't matter how much they contradict themselves.
They throw the red meat out to their Republican base, and
they eat it up and this is what they do to galvanize their voters.
It's incredibly depressing, but it's about time that the log
cabin Republicans who were denied a booth at this event,
learn what the reality is of the party that they actively promote.
Dave Rubin might need to get that message as well, but he's not really,
his financial benefits might go away if he chooses to think critically
about the party that he now supports.
And how much they hate gay people, and trans people for that matter?
When you talk about how suicides for trans kids and for gay kids increase
with this kind of legislation and therapy that's being promoted.
Frankly that's what the right wants, and I think we need to be clear eyed about that.
They either don't want trans people and gay people for
more extreme Republicans to exist, or they don't wanna see them.
They don't wanna think about them and
they certainly don't want their kids to be that right.
They think that if they implement these policies, that their kids will be exactly
perfect little narcissistic versions of themselves, that's really what this is?
They are terrified cowardly parents, who are afraid to expose their kids to
the world because they want their kids to be reflections of themselves.
Frankly, the right wants you to be a bad parent, and they wanna legislated.
And I also just keep thinking when I see this about the progress myth, right?
Where liberals, traditional like neoliberal types,
really wanna believe that the tide of history,
the arc of history bends towards justice.
I'm kind of butchering the quote, but you get what I'm saying.
Yeah. And that's not true, it's not true.
The reason that good things happen for disenfranchised groups and
policies get implemented is cuz people fight for them, they fight for them.
And you know what the right is always fighting, always fighting against that.
And so, right now we're seeing this with Roe V Wade, you mentioned abortion there.
No, the arc of history does not always bend towards justice, because right now,
right is gonna be snatched away from 10s of millions of women in this country.
And it's gonna happen like that, because the right fought for it,
the right fought for it.
And the Democrats need to fight and then left,
I don't even wanna talk about the Democrats, right?
They're fairly useless unless you make them do something, and
that's why we have to have organized on the ground groups.
Like DSA here in New York has this massive slate of candidates that I've been
supportive of large organizations that can wield their power in state legislatures
and eventually on the federal level as well.
But, you can't just like say, you know, we'll just be hands off,
and eventually people won't be bigoted anymore.
That's not how things work, activists fight for them and
claiming that that's the case, erases years and
years of work by indigenous black, gay, trans, etc.
Advocates in this country which actually fought for things, and
it's frankly an offensive myth.
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that, and I think it's such an optimistic take,
an optimistic myth that it's hard not to believe it, right?
Because we did see some progress in this country when it came to social issues.
But the right wing has been active organizing for 50 years,
to essentially put all of the building blocks if you will in
place to get what they want in controlling women's bodies.
And they did it through federal courts,
they did it through ensuring that the Supreme Court was just stacked with right
wing ideologues that didn't believe in a woman's right to choose.
And you always have to be on guard, because you can't just
assume that every victory is a guaranteed permanent victory.
You're always gonna have the opposing side attempt to chip away at it.
And the depressing thing is,
I don't see the opposition to the Republican Party aggressively
organizing to chip away at what they're doing in the country right now.
I mean, it's really hard not to fall into this mood of despair because they
have everything in place to their advantage, including the Supreme Court.
So, not only do we need Democratic politicians who are willing to fight for
the right policies, we also need a fighter who's willing to reform,
because that's definitely what we need.
Reform our institutions including the Supreme Court,
which has now just become another arm of the right wing.
But real quick going back to the reaction to the Texas GOP and their platform,
well, they got a little bit of a response from the Log Cabin Republicans.
I should note that delegates at the convention were peppered with flyers
attacking the LGBTQ community including one warning,
beware of the homosexual agenda.
And then in response to that, there was a tepid denunciation from
Chris Halbohn, who is the Log Cabin Republicans of Houston,
which represents LGBTQ members of the party.
He called the anti-LGBT language an unnecessary gratuitous
addition to the party's platform.
And then made an argument about how they're better served by building
a broad coalition that includes the gay community.
But, look, I'm sure homeboy loves his tax cuts, I'm sure he supports
the Republican Party because he loves the austerity measures that they promote.
I'm sure he loves the tax cuts that he gets to enjoy, but
at the end of the day, they don't see you as human,
they see you as subpar, as someone who doesn't deserve the same rights.
Someone who deserves to be persecuted in American society.
And, sometimes greed gets in the way of common sense thinking, and
that's definitely what's taking place with the Log Cabin Republicans.
Yeah, class interests will largely trump all, I mean,
it doesn't mean that bigotry isn't really how the Republicans are operating.
That's our midterm strategy right now with these anti-gay bills, but
when it comes to certain members of certain classes, I mean, here in New York,
there are people I've encountered like that, right?
Where it's just, yeah, I'm queer but, it's just,
I really like my taxes not going up, and eventually that's kinda how it irons out.
But, yeah, Log Cabin Republicans hypocrites, that's not news [LAUGH].
Yeah, exactly.