Taxes, gays, abortion targeted by Texas GOP platform

This year's Texas Republican Party platform is, as usual, filled with hysterical, exclusionary language and calls for abolishment of the IRS.

From the HoustonChronicle.com: The new platform not only condemns homosexuality -- 'the practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society' -- it also advocates felony penalties for anyone issuing a marriage license or performing a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple.

Platform committee chairman Kirk Overbey of Austin said the panel received more resolutions from Republican activists demanding action on gay marriage than on any other issue.

Reacting to two walkouts by Democratic legislators, who fled to Oklahoma and New Mexico last year to delay action on a Republican congressional redistricting bill, the platform has a new section on 'AWOL Legislators.' It calls for automatic resignations and loss of pay for lawmakers who flee the state under similar circumstances.

Delegates adopted a plank that strongly supports the war in Iraq. Another plank re-emphasizes long-standing conservative antipathy toward the United Nations by calling for the United States to rescind its membership in the U.N. and physically evict the U.N., which is headquartered in New York, from U.S. soil.

An anti-big-government attitude pervades the document with various planks calling for reduced spending, tax cuts and abolition of the Internal Revenue Service. The platform proposes replacing the federal income tax with a national retail sales tax.

The document also includes a plank calling for new restrictions on lawsuits brought over exposure to asbestos.

The platform also calls for repeal of the hate crimes law, repeal of the minimum wage, opposes the provision of reproductive health services, including condoms, in public schools and proposes the death penalty as a punishment option for rape. "