I have a love/hate relationship with Texas.

I lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area from 1994 to 2005, where I developed a twang from hanging out with too many cowboys and failed miserably at learning the two-step. I still have my cowboy hat and boots to prove it.

Texans are a unique bunch. They smile to your face, say the sweetest things to strangers and act all hospitable. Many Texans are genuine people and would give the shirt off their backs to someone in need, and I gravitated toward these folks and can count them among my lifelong friends. But for some Texans, underneath that phony exterior beats the heart of a bigot.

During my time in Texas, I observed the state switch from leaning toward Democrats (remember the late, great Gov. Ann Richards) to embracing conservative Republicans (Gov. George W. Bush and the latest joker, Gov. Rick Perry, who has even talked of succession from the Union).

I moved to San Diego in 2005, and I could not be happier about leaving the Lone Star State.

Since then, Texas has become a laughingstock of the nation.

After years of grass-roots efforts, the Christian right wing has taken over the Texas State Board of Education, and its conservative and religious influences are impacting the schooling of millions of children in public schools. The board recently adopted a social studies and history curriculum that rewrites school texts to apply conservative standards that, for example, downplay evolution and advocate creationism.

The board, for example, won’t tell students about gay rights and have decided that President Thomas Jefferson, one of the principal authors of the Declaration of Independence, is not one of the influential political philosophers of his era. I guess he was too damn liberal for their tastes, especially the part about all men being equal.

The decisions by the board have been widely criticized for politicizing public education.

If that isn’t bad enough, the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) has moved so far to the right that it has fallen off the flat Earth that it apparently still believes in.

The RPT recently approved a conservative platform that would ban oral and anal sex, give jail time to anyone who issues a marriage license to a same-sex couple (never mind that marriage equality is already illegal in Texas), and condemns homosexuality and unmarried couples living in sin.

The Texas law criminalizing sodomy was overturned only seven years ago, but now the RPT wants to invalidate that.

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

Texas initially passed a law barring sodomy in 1860. Violators faced five to 15 years in prison. The ban was overturned in 2003.

The RPT platform states that homosexuality “tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit and leads to the spread of dangerous communicable diseases.”

It also states that homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in public schools and “family” should not be redefined to include homosexual couples.

The RPT platform also calls for outlawing sexually-oriented businesses like strip clubs and banning all pornography.

What does all this tell me? Texas Republicans have gone mad with power -- or simply mad, as in crazy mad.