Perhaps that's a Protestant dog whistle for "conversion therapy", and as a Catholic I'm just not savvy to it. My issue with it is that, based on that wording alone, you could also tarnish the Catholic position: that
sexual orientation essentialism is a harmful (and fairly recent) ideology, that every person is tempted in different ways, but that we're all called to live chastely. So when a man who identifies as a homosexual (not a real thing) is put through some psudeo-scientific "conversion therapy" bullsh!t to try to make him a heterosexual (also not a real thing), it will likely do great harm to him. But if that same man, who experiences homosexual urges, were to consult with an orthodox Catholic priest, he would be counselled to "change his sexual behavior" and begin striving for chastity. There's nothing bigoted about the proposition that extra-marital sexual acts that aren't primarily ordered toward procreation is immoral.
I hope they'd see Bruce as a deeply troubled, likely mentally ill, man who deserves mercy and compassion, but not social approbation for surgically mutilating himself. Though the part of the GOP that cares deeply about these issues has been marginalized for years, and Trump's candidacy has almost driven them from the party entirely.
It's clearly a nod to social conservatives, but the language Pence used and the wording of the platform is pretty broad and shouldn't be controversial. Regardless, the GOP has promptly rolled over every time it's been challenged on these issues, so it's hardly worth getting worked up over.
