While Rick Perry tried his best to justify the Texas Republican Party’s recent embrace of ex-gay therapy by making an awkward comparison of gay people to alcoholics, the chairman of the state party refuses to mount a defense of the controversial resolution.
In fact, Texas GOP chairman Steve Munisteri says he opposes ex-gay therapy, and criticized Eagle Forum activist Cathie Adams for inserting the ex-gay language in the platform.
“And I just make the point for anybody that thinks that may be the possibility: Do they think they can take a straight person to a psychiatrist and turn them gay?” Munisteri said.
Munisteri said he’s not the only one who opposes this plank in the party’s platform.
“My emails and phone calls to the office are running overwhelmingly opposed to that plank in the platform,” Munisteri said.
Munisteri said a group of Republicans at the convention led by his predecessor, Cathie Adams, were able to pass the reparative therapy resolution using a parliamentary trick.
“Because the way the platform works, once somebody calls the question on the platform it’s a parliamentary maneuver,” Munisteri said. “The delegates are really forced to pass the platform as is, because if you don’t there is no platform.”
