Washington: According to a report in The Independent, the Texas Republican Party has endorsed ‘reparative therapy’ for gays, even as professional organisations are up in arms against the practice and other states have banned it.
Around 7,000 delegates at the party’s convention ratified a new platform that also included moves to the right on other policies, including immigration.
New Jersey and California ban licensed therapists from conducting conversion therapy on young people, and the new policy is thought to be partly a resp-onse to that move. Republicans supporting the policy have said that it is intended to give potential patients the freedom to choose.
The policy won a vote on Thursday and was confirmed in another vote on Saturday. The counselling has been condemned by health organisations, including the American Psychological Association.
Defining homosexuality as an illness is an attempt to discredit growing social acceptance, the association has said, and can harm those that undergo it.
The recent move also received criticism from gay conservative groups within Texas.
