A push to include the new language in the platform survived a key vote late Thursday in Fort Worth at the Texas Republican Convention while, across the street, tea party star Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, fired up attendees at a rally to defend marriage as between a man and a woman.
Under the proposed new plank, the Texas GOP will "recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle."
The full convention of nearly 10,000 delegates from across Texas will take a final vote on the platform on Saturday.
Gay conservatives in Texas could still emerge with a rare victory on a separate issue: removing decades-old platform language that states, "Homosexuality tears at the fabric of society." Stripping that phrasing survived a sometimes tense challenge from hard-liners who not only wanted to preserve it but also wanted to replace "homosexuality" with "sexual sins." (SOURCE: Aljazeera America: "Texas GOP advances ‘therapy’ to turn gay people straight")
