Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Equality Platform Reflects Rhetoric of Abbott, Patrick

[[{"fid":"1701","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Greg Abbott & Dan Patrick - Anti-Immigrant","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_folder[und]":"906"},"type":"media","attributes":{"alt":"Greg Abbott & Dan Patrick - Anti-Immigrant","height":"787","width":"941","style":"width: 500px; height: 502px;","class":"media-element file-default"}}]]

Greg Abbott's "third world" comments + Dan Patrick's "invasion" remarks = one truly disgusting GOP platform.

Last weekend, at the Texas GOP convention, Republicans adopted an anti-immigrant, anti-equality platform that has set off a firestorm, even from within their own party. Yet it should come as no surprise, as both Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick have repeatedly made statements and supported policies that appease their Tea Party base, at the expense of what is best for Texas.

The furor over the GOP platform is well-deserved:

• Anti-Immigration: The GOP platform provides no pathway to citizenship, stripping a guest-worker program provision and effectively calling for the deportation of every undocumented immigrant. The platform also opposes in-state tuition for Dreamers. In an open letter to his party, GOP State Rep. Jason Villalba described his party's immigration language as "divisive rhetoric and nativist domestic policy." Another delegate said it "moved the party back ten years."
   
• Anti-Equality: The GOP platform opposes the freedom to marry, opposes allowing same-sex couples to adopt children, and calls for "reparative therapy" (better known as "pray the gay away"), a policy that "medical experts say...improperly frames the behaviors of LGBT as mental disorders and moral failings and can lead to teen suicides."

The McAllen Monitor slammed Greg Abbott for allowing the platform language to go through unchallenged:

It is troubling that Republican leaders like Greg Abbott and senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, who all appeared at the convention, would condone such language. As he seeks to win the governor’s seat, it is up to Abbott to bring control to his party but these actions do not reflect that.

Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick's hateful language is just another reason they are wrong for Texas.