I read through this year’s platform of the Republican Party of Texas in horror. It is really, really bad.
And then I wondered if it always had been this bad. Have the state party’s legislative priorities changed in any way over the past dozen years?
Remember, Republicans have been in charge of Texas for 30 years.
This year’s crazy platform is the culmination of more than a decade of work by those opposed to individual rights and liberties. But it turns out the language hasn’t always been this harsh. It has gotten worse as far-right Republicans (Greg Abbott versus George W. Bush) have taken the reigns of state government.
By tracing the changing language and ideas across 12 years, it’s easy to see how Christian nationalism has grown exponentially — and with it a total rejection of liberal democracy.
“By tracing the changing language and ideas across 12 years, it’s easy to see how Christian nationalism has grown exponentially.”
I wanted to know how this year’s platform stacks up against those of previous years, so I pulled the Texas GOP platforms for 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 to compare with 2026. You can read them all for yourself by following the links.
What’s changed?
Some things in the principles of the party platform have not changed in 12 years. For example, the party remains committed to limited government: “We believe in limiting government power to those items enumerated in the United States and Texas Constitutions.”
That exact language has been used since 2014.
Also unchanged: “We believe in self-sufficient families, founded on the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural woman.”
Some principles have been subtly changed. For example, the statement on reproduction has been tweaked to add the highlighted words here: “We believe in the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, which should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death.”
Same with this statement on sovereignty, which was changed in 2024 to include one new word: “We believe in preserving individual, Texan, and American sovereignty and freedom.”
On the right to self-defense, several tweaks have been made. In 2014, the platform stated: “We believe in Americans having the right to be safe in their homes, on their streets, and in their communities; and the unalienable right to defend themselves.
By 2016, the language became more strident: “We believe in the inalienable right of all people to defend themselves and their property.”
The same idea is stated more succinctly this year: We believe in the right of all people to defend themselves and their property is inalienable.”
Some other parts of the platform have undergone major renovation, aligning more closely with tenets of Christian nationalism.
For example, on sources of Constitutional authority, the platform in 2014 advocated “strict adherence to the original intent of the Declaration of Independence and United States and Texas Constitutions” and “the laws of nature and nature’s God.”
“This year there’s an explicit reference to Christianity added.”
But this year there’s an explicit reference to Christianity added: “We believe in ‘The laws of nature and nature’s God,’ and we recognize the historic and continuing influence of Christianity in securing our rights and liberties as endowed by our Creator. We support the strict adherence to the original language and intent of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the United States and of Texas.”
Another dramatic change relates to education. In 2014, the platform stated: “We believe in having an educated population, with parents having the freedom of choice for the education of their children.”
This year’s platform states: “We believe in parents having the complete freedom of choice for the education of their children, and where and by whom they acquire the general diffusion of knowledge.”
This, of course, aligns with Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to destroy public education in Texas and give taxpayer funding to private Christian schools and charter schools or even homeschoolers.
Shifting planks
The substance of each year’s party platform includes numbered planks, items the party wants legislators to take up. They cover the usual culture war tropes: marriage, homosexuality, women’s rights, public school education, religious freedom and more.
But the evolution of language shows the narrowing viewpoint of Texas Republicans.
Beginning with the 2020 platform, Texas Republicans increasingly redefined religious freedom as the preferential treatment of their brand of conservative Christianity over and above all other religions (including other expressions of Christianity).
“Texas Republicans increasingly redefined religious freedom as the preferential treatment of their brand of conservative Christianity over and above all other religions.”
One notable example is a shift in language from “public schools” to “government schools.”
This year’s platform also states: “We demand school administrators and officials protect the rights of students and staff to pray and engage in religious speech, individually or in groups, on school property, without government interference. We urge the Legislature and the State Board of Education to require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership, and Christian self-governance. We support the use of chaplains in schools to counsel and give guidance from a traditional biblical perspective based on Judeo-Christian principles with the informed consent of a parent.”
And in a direct assault on Muslims, the platform urges legislators to”pass legislation to ensure that no business or school can be required to provide accommodation for individuals whose religion requires them to interrupt regular business operations or schedules to pray multiple times per day.”
The Republican platforms have evolved to echo the fears that conservative evangelicals are being persecuted by society.
This includes support for removal of laws and regulations that are used to force business owners and employees to violate their conscience, sincerely held beliefs, or core values.” It also includes a call to repeal the Johnson Amendment, a federal regulation the state legislature has no control over.
Beginning in 2020, the platform stated: “We oppose any effort to intimidate and prevent Christians and other people of faith from exercising their rights.” There is no mention of the rights of anyone else.
This year’s platform takes aim at Muslims in another way too, urging the Texas Legislature t “reject legislation that mandates public schools or other taxpayer-funded institutions to provide meals or services certified under any religious dietary standards, including halal or similar certification systems.”
Unless such limitations are deemed to be antisemitic, of course.
And then this gem: “We urge the Texas Legislature and our Congressional delegation to limit official government religious holiday recognition and paid public leave solely to those days of traditional Christian significance that have historically been part of the American experience.”
For the first time in 2026, the platform includes a resolution titled “Don’t Sharia My Texas,” that demonizes Sharia Law — a religious and cultural practice among Muslims that governs things such as dietary guidelines. The platform calls for constitutional amendments “that will protect Texas and Texans from any Sharia-based laws, or other laws and practices that are incompatible, subversive, or which conflict with the Texas or US Constitution or our republican form of government.”
Other examples of Christian nationalism
There are simply too many other examples of shifting language in the Texas Republican platform to give in this one article. But here are some highlights:
- The 2024 and 2026 platforms oppose women leaving the state to obtain abortions in other states where the procedure is legal, with the 2026 platform calling this “abortion trafficking.”
- The 2026 platform includes a resolution calling on President Donald Trump to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873 to limit access to abortion medication via mail, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled on.
- Every year since 2018, the Texas GOP has asked the legislature to rescind support for the stalled Equal Rights Amendment.
- Building on previous opposition to “no-fault divorce,” the platforms have grown increasingly specific by talking about “unilateral no-fault divorce” and “promote the maintenance of the traditional family via required intervention or counseling prior to any decree of divorce.”
- On the matter of homosexuality, the 2026 platform uses quotes to refer to same-sex marriage, thus delegitimizing it, and calls for the expansion of “religious liberty” protections for those who oppose it. The platform affirms “God’s biblical design for marriage and family as a God-ordained, legal and moral covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman, which has proven to be the foundation for all great nations in Western Civilization.
- Gender identity first appears in the 2022 platform and has grown more severe since then. This year’s platform opposes “all efforts to validate transgender identity and ideology” and calls any form of gender-affirming care for minors “child abuse.” It also opposes gender-affirming care for anyone up to age 26.
- Beginning in 2022, the Texas Republican Platform dedicated a plank to defunding “political correctness” and instead supporting “Western Civilization instruction” in colleges and universities.
Mara Richards Bim
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as the first Justice and Advocacy Fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas where she recently was ordained to the gospel ministry. She earned the master of divinity degree and a certificate in spiritual direction from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company, which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.