Rick Scott says the Texas GOP platform needs to be more 'inclusive' – but it mirrors his own '11 Point Plan'
United States Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) on Wednesday denounced the Texas Republican Party's platform, which along with declaring Joe Biden as an illegitimate president, demeans LGBTQ+ Americans as living “an abnormal lifestyle choice.” The edict also says that Texas “retains the right to secede from the United States.”
Section 143 of the Texas state GOP's Report of the Permanent 2022 Platform & Resolutions Committee is explicitly homophobic:
Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. No one should be granted special legal status based on their LGBTQ+ identification.
According to the Associated Press, Scott remarked at a breakfast that “my experience is, you know, the Republican Party is inclusive. And so I don’t — I wouldn’t have supported that, what they did." Scott also reportedly said that Biden duly defeated former President Donald Trump in 2020.
Taken at face value, Scott's comments better align with the American mainstream than what the Lone Star GOP is proposing because a vast majority of the country – including most Republicans – supports LGBTQ+ rights. A deeper look, however, reveals that Scott is not a proponent of equality or "inclusion," as he put it to reporters.
Who would you vote for in 2024, Biden or DeSantis? Vote now.
In February, Scott released an “11 Point Plan to Rescue America,” a draconian 31-page manifesto spelling out how he, at the time, envisioned the GOP governing if it retakes control of Congress in November.
While it was widely panned by Senate Republican leadership and elsewhere inside conservative circles, Scott's proposal nevertheless contains language that subjugates vulnerable and victimized people – specifically, Americans who identify as transgender.
Under the guise of traditional family values, Scott's right-wing wish list states:
We will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs. The nuclear family is crucial to civilization, it is God’s design for humanity, and it must be protected and celebrated. To say otherwise is to deny science. The fanatical left seeks to devalue and redefine the traditional family, as they undermine parents and attempt to replace them with government programs. We will not allow Socialism to place the needs of the state ahead of the family.
And:
Men are men, women are women, and unborn babies are babies. We believe in science: Men and women are biologically different, ‘male and female He created them.’ Modern technology has confirmed that abortion takes a human life. Facts are facts, the earth is round, the sun is hot, there are two genders, and abortion stops a beating heart. To say otherwise is to deny science.
In fact, the Texas Republican Party's agenda is almost a mirror image of Scott's 11-point plan, albeit a more extreme one.
"We believe in 'the laws of nature and nature’s God,'" the document proclaims, "and we support the strict adherence to the original language and intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the United 85 States and of Texas."
It adds that only "self-sufficient families, founded on the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman," deserve equal constitutional protections.
Section 207 goes even further:
We affirm God’s biblical design for marriage and sexual behavior between one biological man and one biological woman, which has proven to be the foundation for all great nations in Western civilization. We oppose homosexual marriage, regardless of state of origin. We urge the Texas Legislature to pass religious liberty protections for individuals, businesses, and government officials who believe marriage is between one man and one woman. We oppose the granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for sexual behavior or identity, regardless of state of origin. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose non-traditional sexual behavior out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.
Section 209 compounds that, declaring:
We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal, and moral 1183 covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman.
Section 213, meanwhile, maintains that "the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, overturning the Texas law prohibiting same-sex marriage in Texas, has no basis in the Constitution and should be nullified."
If Scott seeks to push his party to be more inclusive, it would behoove him to reconsider his own ideas.
