The 10 Most Horrifying Things in the GOP State Platforms

The GOP leadership's plan for addressing the nation's problems is to make them worse in order to screw over Obama and Democrats. Republicans at the state level, however, have introduced more proactive solutions to America's ills. These include outlawing oral sex and porn, taking a stand against the New World Order, and, of course, granting fetuses greater rights than women.

Republican state platforms don't have a direct impact on national politics: they're way too weird for the GOP leadership, which has to balance pandering to the crazy right-wing with wooing independents. But since the state platforms are mostly cobbled together in town halls, they're a good gauge of what inspires activists on the ground -- an important guide to Republican politics in an election year that's seen many GOP fixtures felled by Tea Party right-wingers. (In May, Maine Tea Partiers staged a bloodless coup at the GOP platform town halls, replacing the traditional, bland party platform with a statement of principles soaked in Glenn Beckian paranoia.)

Here are 10 of the weirdest, most extremist planks that have made their way into recent GOP state platforms -- a telling glimpse of Republican views unfiltered by media consultants and political calculations, in an election year hijacked by the Tea Partiers.

1. Brave Stand Against the New World Order

Shadowy global financial and political elites have a really unpatriotic plan in the works: dissolving America and ushering in a socialist, planetary government run by foreigners. Glenn Beck's meticulous reporting reveals that the so-called "New World Order" is swiftly approaching.

Like Beck, the Maine GOP is speaking out against the totalitarian menace in its 2010 platform, pledging to resist "efforts to create a one-world government." (In 2008, Maine Republicans, still blind to the truth, failed to enlist in the fight.)

Texas Republicans are also waging an existential battle to protect American sovereignty, declaring, "We oppose a one-world government in direct opposition to our basic principles and eroding our sovereignty." Also of concern in several platforms: the NAFTA superhighway from Mexico to Canada (an ongoing source of worry for Ron Paul libertarians and assorted conspiracy theorists) and the dreaded Amero, currency of the New World Order.

2. Get the UN Off Our Land!

Establishing a totalitarian one-world government will be easier if Americans have already been crushed into submission, which is where the UN comes in. Fortunately, state Republicans won't let that happen. The Texas GOP platform demands that the U.S. cut all financial and military ties to the UN, and rescind all treaties that allegedly conflict with the Constitution. Texas Republicans also want the UN off American land, urging Congress to "evict the United Nations from the United States and eliminate any further participation."

Maine is opposed to "any and all treaties with the UN or any other organization or country which surrenders U.S. sovereignty." These include the law of the Sea Treaty, and, because child soldiers are a small price to pay for freedom, the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.

Iowa Republicans most definitely do not want UN diplomats invading the state to raise their children, writing "We support parental rights and oppose the recognition of the United Nations Convention on “The Rights of the Child.” (Needless to say, they really don't have to worry -- the Treaty, which prohibits things like child labor, trafficking and child soldiers, carries no mandates and cannot impose laws at odds with the Constitution.)

3. GOP Thinks Gays Should Have Fewer Rights

Like the world's children, gays and lesbians have way too many rights. Republicans in several states would like to remedy this problem. The Texas GOP, which actually has the gall to say that homosexuality "tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases," opposes same-sex marriage, child custody rights for gays, and insurance and retirement benefits for same-sex couples.