Republican lawmakers in Texas have endorsed controversial gay conversion therapy that aims to turn the state's homosexual population straight.

The psychological treatment known as conversion therapy, or "reparative therapy," has been banned in California and New Jersey, as Al Jazeera America notes.

During the Texas Republican Convention in Fort Worth, the language of the platform was approved in a key vote late Thursday night. Across the street from the convention, Tea Party Republican Sen. Ted Cruz delivered a speech defending marriage between a man and a woman, which was met with thunderous applause.

The Texas GOP will "recognize the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle," reads the Texas Republican platform.

The proposed platform will receive a final vote from almost 10,000 Texas delegates on Saturday during the convention. Additionally, the delegates will also vote on whether or not to remove decades-old language on the platform, which states, "Homosexuality tears at the fabric of society."

In recent years, Republican hard-liners have succeeded in preserving the language but have also tried to replace the word "homosexuality" with the phrase "sexual sins."

Rudy Oeftering, a Dallas businessman and Metroplex Republicans vice president, said he hopes that the moderate Republicans vote to remove the language.

"I really beg my social conservative colleagues to let this issue go," Oeftering said. "It's your opinion. It's your belief -- but it's my life."

According to Al Jazeera, gay Republican groups have not been allowed to rent booths at the state's GOP convention.

Cathie Adams, leader of the Texas Eagle Forum and former chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party, urged her GOP cohorts to include the new therapy language. She said a man whom she knew was once gay but turned straight after going through the therapy promoted the language.

"He knows what he's talking about. He is one of those who has benefited," Adams said. "I think the majority of Texans feel that way too. It's not like this is mandatory. This is only a voluntary program."