Texas GOP's new platform calls homosexuality 'abnormal' and includes explicitly anti-LGBTQ ideology

• The Republican Party of Texas adopted its latest platform on Saturday at its biennial convention.
• It includes a description of homosexuality as "an abnormal lifestyle choice."

The Republican Party of Texas adopted a platform that included explicitly anti-LGBTQ ideology at its biennial convention on Saturday.

The new 40-page platform contains a "Homosexuality and Gender Issues" section that describes being gay as "an abnormal lifestyle choice."

It calls for a policy of fighting against special status for members of the LGBTQ communities and protection against criminal or civil penalties for those who oppose homosexuality out of "faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values."

There is no federal law that protects LGBTQ individuals from discrimination or grants them special status.

The section also includes calls for opposition to "all efforts to validate transgender identity" and a ban on medical practitioners from offering any gender-affirming care to anyone under the age of 21.

The use of taxpayer funds for gender-affirming treatments is also opposed, and the platform pledges support for the protection of conversion therapy.

Elsewhere in the new platform, which was voted on and passed by delegates, public funding to "homosexuality, transgender or diversity-equity-inclusion centers" was also opposed.

Chris Halbohn of the Log Cabin Republicans of Houston, an organization that represents LGBTQ Republicans, called the language "unnecessarily gratuitous," the NPR affiliate KUT 90.5 reported.

Log Cabin Republicans of Houston is a sister group of Log Cabin Republicans of Fort Worth. The latter, as Insider reported, were not allowed to set up a booth at the Houston convention this weekend.

In a statement, on Friday, the national group called the decision "narrow-minded" and "politically short-sighted."

The decision to exclude the group attracted controversy, prompting Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former president, to criticize the decision.

"The Texas GOP should focus its energy on fighting back against the radical democrats and weak RINOs currently trying to legislate our 2nd Amendment rights away, instead of canceling a group of gay conservatives who are standing in the breach with us," he told Breitbart News.

According to KUT 90.5, the anti-LGBTQ sentiment was felt at Saturday's conference.

Anti-LGBT flyers were passed around, including one titled "Be Alert and Aware of the Homosexual Agenda."

Jack Finger of San Antonia, a precinct chair for the Texas GOP, protested a mention of the Log Cabin Republicans in a schedule. "Their ideas we consider are, quite frankly, evil," he said, per KUT 90.5. "We think their ideals will destroy our society."

Insider contacted the Texas GOP for comment.

The convention also saw Republicans embrace "The Big Lie," Houston Public Media reported. Convention attendees repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud, the media outlet reported.

"We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States," the resolution said, per Newsweek.