Tuesday, June 26, 2012

2012 Texas GOP Platform: Turning Back the Clock


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.

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