Grammar Fail: Texas GOP Platform May Actually Imply That Most Texans Are Gay

Plank Also Suggests Founding Fathers Supported Homosexuality

Some members of the Texas Republican Party are questioning the wording of an anti-gay plank in the party’s platform, saying it mistakenly implies that the majority of the state’s residents are gay. 

“There’s a grammatical argument going on,” said Rudy Oeftering, vice president of the LGBT Republican group Metroplex Republicans, who brought the issue to my attention. “Some are insisting the use of commas in the ‘Homosexuality’ plank in the platform could be interpreted as saying that the founders and the majority of Texans are gay.” 

Here’s the sentence in question, as it appears in the platform approved by delegates to the state GOP convention last week: 

Homosexuality – 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 nations founders, and shared by the majority of Texans.

Needless to say, it’s a poorly written sentence in general. Either “truths” should be singular or “has” should be “have,” and “nations” lacks a possessive apostrophe. 

But here are a few of the responses I received when I posed Oeftering’s question to the Twitterverse:  

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. 

 

 

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