I have delighted, most recently a few minutes ago, in watching the left eat its own. But the Texas GOP has released a document which may be even more cannibalistic. I've no problem with fiscal restraint, of course, but there are bits of this which are just plain loony.

(Note to Texas GOP: independents often are socially laissez-faire and fiscally conservative and, listen really carefully now, if you don't get the independent vote, you have an unbroken stream of social engineers and greedy publicans running your life. Think Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Like that? I didn't think so.)

Now for a bit of the idiocy. First, they want to make it a felony for anyone to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. Such licenses are already invalid in the state. This is a gratuitous swipe.

And there's more:

• "We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases."

• "Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country's founders, and shared by the majority of Texans."

• "Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable "alternative" lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should "family" be redefined to include homosexual "couples."

I don't have too much of a problem with not teaching homosexuality as an acceptable "alternative" [notice the sneer quotes] lifestyle in schools. After all, how many gay couples have children who will be in those schools? I'm not sure that in ten years I won't have changed my views and now might be a bit much for parents in Wall, Texas, to hear that Susie is reading stories about Bobby's two mommies, but I'm not rigid either way. Now.

But paragraph one above is the sort of raving nonsense that has caused us the very problem we're having now: an infestation of the world with statist Democrats who have a deep disdain for people, life, and in particular America. The hard right votes Republican. The hard left votes Democrat. The independents, who have decided all elections recently, are swayed by what they hear from both parties.

Just how have I broken down a family unit? Just what have I done? I steadfastly refused to marry because I knew the outcome. And I promise you the women were all a far chalk about the men, but I at least had the character not to marry, back when it was impossible to be in the open.

But not all gays do that. Let me posit an idea for the snarling authors of this document: if you mean the breakup of a family after one partner decides that he (usually) is after all gay and leaves, deserting wife and children? He seriously harmed every life involved and should never have married.

Which he never would have been done if society recognized homosexuality as not being something to be ashamed of. Or tolerated. I don't want to be licked, just tolerated, and the Texas GOP is the opposite of tolerant.

That man who left his family would never have married, would never have disrupted a family. He would never have made a woman feel bitter or hurt and rejected for years if not for her life. He could have "married" a man and made a couple, which would have made a family and stability.

Now for the communicable diseases: my physician told me the fastest-growing group infected with HIV is not gays, but people over the age of female menopause. Because they see no reason to use protection. Just how is that the fault of gays? Two straight septuagenarians having fun? Uh, let's look for a gay in this scene. Under the bed? Nope. In the closet? No. Just where? Oh. I see. The communicable disease was transmitted by the evil thought waves of homosexuals who can infect a neighborhood by driving down the street.

Paragraph two is no winner for intelligence either: I have utterly no business interfering with your religion, unless you're Muslim building a cannon aiming at my house. I have no doubt that most Texans are Christians, and I think that's rather a good thing. The secular society doesn't seem to have enough strength to survive religious fanatics, either Muslim or liberal and I am always impressed by the kindnesses that I've seen come from so many Christians. But the thing that in 2006 which scared a lot of voters into the Democrat party was the huffing and puffing of what is called "The Religious Right." These days appeals to God in politics simply scares people. To me it seems stretched: putting words into a supreme being's mouth is the ultimate sort of self-praising argumentum ad verecundiam.

Now for the rump end of Paragraph three. If you recognize a gay couple, as family you'll have a lot fewer people trolling bars, and you'll have fewer closeted gay men marrying women then leaving them.

And if you recognize a gay couple as family, wouldn't that just be the nice thing to do? We're not going to change. Not a single gay has ever been anything but gay; there are physiological differences which rule out any nonsense about "choosing." It would just be nice to recognize a couple as a couple. Which happens most of the time, but I suppose is to be discouraged by the Texas GOP.

Which way will you have it, GOP? Gays lurking in a closet, acting furtively, never being able to look at people in the eye without a curtain of calculation on how much to reveal? Or throwing gays in jail? Running us out of town? I've seen that with my own eyes. Still grousing over the 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down sodomy laws, the ignorantia give us:

We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

As Stephen Colbert said, making a joke but not too much of one, that if you look up the definition of sodomy you find it's everything but a handshake between you and your wife before you sleep in twin beds.

All this is not conservative thought that can win--and that's crucial. It's argumentum ad ignorantiam. By the ignorancia.

I'll take a breath. It gets sillier. These Mrs. Grundys also want to ban strip clubs and pornography. Wouldn't that put half of West Odessa out of work? Sure, I've been to strip clubs, both gay and straight. You know what? They're sleazy, but I knew that when we went in. (The GOP is getting really mean, and I didn't know that when I went in.) This cheap moralizing is guaranteed to turn off independents. Who, all together now, win elections.

Mean people will use the means available to them to shove their ideas down others' throats. America Left has a lot of them, and the later the loonier. But the right has mean people too, and who let them write this document? Why are they suicidal? Would they rather bitch about a two-term Obama with a victorious socialist Congress and a Supreme Court which will leave no socialism behind? Or would they rather have a stable and prudent nation?

They're making Texas a laughingstock, and not in a good way, like leading in executions.

GOP, STFU, you cannibalistic fools and tools. You're throwing away assets, not only gay voters, but the rest of the independents too.

Since you seem to prefer the suffering of a defeat owing to ideological purity, does it mean that you are the perverts? Isn't this like, oh, masochism?

Well, I'll watch the Texas GOP from now on. As a Libertarian.