Gay Republican advocacy organization shut out of Texas GOP state convention

The Texas Republican Party has denied a request by Log Cabin Texas, a gay conservatives advocacy organization, to be allowed to have a booth at the state party’s annual convention in Fort Worth next week.

The move has led to Log Cabin Texas as well as the national Log Cabin Republican organization to condemn the slight, saying that Texas Republican voter's views on gay rights have evolved while the state GOP leadership remains stuck in the past.

“Overall, Log Cabin Republicans of Texas has found incredible support within the Republican party — Texans, like the rest of the country, are evolving on LGBT rights issues,” said Log Cabin Republicans of Texas Chairman Jeffrey Davis in a statement. “The Republican Party of Texas has even welcomed many of our members as delegates to the Texas State Republican Convention. However, the party has denied our several attempts to host a booth in the convention exhibit hall, citing archaic language in the party platform to support their actions. We deserve to occupy a booth just like anyone else, and it’s time that the Texas GOP’s hypocritical policies and procedures are replaced by new ones that match the general opinion of Texan Republican voters.”

National Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director Gregory T. Angelo agreed: "It’s simply unconscionable that more than a dozen years since Log Cabin Republicans took the fight for gay equality against the homophobic fringe of the Party, the Texas State GOP still doesn’t get it. We are your friends and neighbors; we are your colleagues and family members; above all else, we are loyal Republicans, and deserve a literal seat at the table at the Texas State GOP Convention."

Angelo pointed out that, while the disagreement has nothing to do with the party platform including pressure from the state party’s “anti-gay fringe” to add a platform plank that supports programs that attempt to convince gay youth they can be 'converted' to heterosexuality, the LCR is concerned that the state party is pushing conservative gays towards the Democratic Party.

"At a time when Democrats are working overtime to turn Texas from red to purple and then a vibrant blue, now is not the time for the politics of subtraction and division in the GOP; it is time for addition and multiplication," he said. "The Texas State GOP and its leadership ignore that advice at their peril."

The Texas state party denied the participation request by the LCRT based upon language in the 2012 GOP party platform stating, “the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit.”

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