Alva Review-Courier -

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ten years ago, the Texas Republican Party used its platform to oppose teaching critical thinking in schools. In 2014, it declared homosexuality a chosen behavior contrary to God and endorsed "reparative therapy" to reverse it. By 2020, the party was ready to remind the world that "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States."

But now the GOP platform in the country's largest red state — long an ideological wish list that even the most conservative Texans knew was mostly filled with pipe dreams that would never become policy — has broken new ground in its push to...