Rarely is the question asked...is our Texas Republicans learning?
Last week, Texas Republicans gathered in Dallas to hold their convention, and inevitably, part of that process is hammering out what batshit crazy things they want their platform to say. It certainly wasn’t a surprise that homosexuality made its way into the platform, given their obsession. What was a surprise was the platform’s statement that a majority of Texans “share” homosexuality. And that homosexuality is ordained by God and recognized by the nation’s founders! Don’t believe me? Look for yourself:
Quite a reversal on the part of the Texas Republican Party!
While I would like to say that the highlighted sentence is a sign that Texas Republicans are becoming more enlightened on the matter of homosexuality, it is actually just a sign that the drafters of the platform don’t know how to grammar. From Texas Monthly:
When the Texas Republican Party got together to write up its platform during the GOP convention in Dallas last weekend, there apparently wasn’t a grammarian in the house, and it led to one of the more amusing comma mistakes you’ll ever see. As expected, the platform was basically a conservative cake baked from scratch with only the most organic far-right ingredients: a spoonful of small-government, a few sprinkles of anti-abortion, a pinch of xenophobia, a cup of climate change denial and, of course, a whole lot of gay-bashing. But the party made a huge mistake. As the New Civil Rights Movement pointed out, there’s a sentence in the platform that unintentionally (we think?) asserts that most Texans are, in fact, gay. From the platform: “Homosexuality is a chosen behavior that is contrary to the fundamental unchanging truths that has been ordained by God in the Bible, recognized by our nation’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.” Whoops! You’ve got to watch out for those pesky commas, always trying to push their “gay agenda” on all the other punctuation marks.
Of course, it isn’t just the comma that is the problem. NPR’s copy chief, Susan Vavrick, took it upon herself to correct the problematic sentence—as if the Texas GOP platform is a freshman English paper—to better convey the homophobia the drafters intended. In addition to adding an apostrophe. Come on, Texas Republicans!
This is not the Texas Republicans’ first grammatical embarrassment. The New Civil Rights Movement points out:
If this is indeed a grammatical error, it could be the Texas GOP's biggest and most embarrassing since the anti-gay marriage amendment of 2005, which actually read as though it banned ALL marriages.
"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage," the amendment read.
Sigh. It’s okay, Texas Republicans...you tried. How about you just do the hate and leave the grammar to someone else.
H/T Joe My God