From the socially conservative World Net Daily:
Two of the nation’s premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited. . . .
FRC and CWA join the American Principles Project, American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage in withdrawing from CPAC. In November, APP organized a boycott of CPAC over the participation of GOProud. . . .The American Conservative Union, longtime organizers of CPAC, disclosed just before Christmas that GOProud would be considered a “participating organization,” the second highest level of participation. As a “participating organization,” GOProud has a voice in planning the conference.
This is a great sign that the gay haters (who hate to be identified as haters) are splitting off, just as during the late 50s/early 60s the avowed racists and anti-Semites left or were driven from what was becoming the new mainstream (Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley) conservative movement.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
More. Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg opines: “I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too. . . . And given that open homosexuality is simply a fact of life, the rise of the HoBos—the homosexual bourgeoisie—strikes me as good news.”
9 Comments for “A Welcome Winnowing”
posted by Carl on
While I’m glad that CPAC are staying with their guns and not bowing down to these groups, they still, especially FRC, have quite a bit of power. Look at the number of right wing GOP stars who defended FRC when it was designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
posted by Tom on
I think that it is a welcome sign that the death-grip of the religious right on the Republican Party may be loosening. It is long overdue.
I’m not holding my breath looking for a turnaround nationally, though, because (as Carl points out) the religious right continues to have a lot of power within the party, and enough money and adherents to make primaries extremely uncomfortable for a Republican who stands up to them.
And I am certainly not looking for a turnaround in Wisconsin, which seems determined to become the Alabama of the fight for gay and lesbian equality under the law.
But CPAC’s determination to stand up to the religious right is a good thing, and a sign that the Republican Party can change.
GOProud has been a positive force in the party. GOProud stands up and is, accordingly, counted. That can’t be but a good thing in the long run.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Actually, Tom, Wisconsin’s electorate is simply reacting to the fact that gays and lesbians like yourself and your friend David Brock refer to them in this fashion.
Traditional conservatives and the Tea Party movement are united only in their contempt for equal rights for all Americans and a desire to return America to a 19th century idyll. Equality Matters will not allow these latter-day ‘clerics’ to gain serious recognition by the media nor influence the policies that affect the lives of every American.
And I find it endlessly amusing that flip-floppers like yourself who were trashing GOProud months ago as self-loathing and the like are now trying to ride on their coattails.
I think you need to come into the new reality, Tom; the electorate knows that gays and lesbians like you are liars. That’s why you and your Obama Party were repudiated, and that’s why Wisconsin is responding the way that it did. People there know that you called them Nazis and bigots, and you simply can’t hide that fact any more.
posted by Jorge on
Would that more people, conservative and liberal, had the courage to look honestly at a complex world.
posted by esurience on
It really shows you how much hate they do have..
GOProud is not even a “gay activist” group. They’re a group of conservatives who happen to be gay, that’s all. Heck, they tried to get Barney Frank voted out of office in favor of a guy who supports DADT… in Massachusetts! It is clear from their works that they prioritize being conservative over being pro-gay… to the point where many of their actions are actually anti-gay… and yet even these self-loathers can’t attend a conservative conference without causing a ruckus.
posted by Jorge on
Self-loathers? You have an interesting way of decrying bigotry and intolerance.
There are several good reasons to vote Barney Frank out of office. Chief among them are his refusal to be straight with the American people and tell the truth about his mistakes (the pun was not intentional). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac imploded under his watch as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, assisted by policies he advocated, and Frank accepts absolutely no responsibility for his failures.
posted by Tom on
It really shows you how much hate they do have …
That is exactly right, and it is why the religious right has always been so dangerous for the Republican Party in the long run, despite the short-term electoral gains that the party enjoyed because of the party’s alliance with them. Barry Goldwater was dead on when he warned that Reagan and others were playing with fire.
I think that it is important to note that this “sign that the gay haters (who hate to be identified as haters) are splitting off” (as Stephen correctly put it) is not a sign that the Republican Party is yet willing to stop playing with fire. The groups uninvited themselves, not the other way around.
Rabidly anti-gay social conservatives will, I suspect, remain part of the Republican alliance, and will continue to exert considerable sway in Republican primaries, for years to come.
So the religious right remains a real danger to the Republican Party at this point, and may well mire the party in the quagmire of resistance long after the American public has accepted the principle of “equal means equal”.
While these groups sputter and fume about DADT repeal, the rest of the country is moving on, to the point where President Obama has initiated a “conversation” (code word for the beginning moves of a strategy) about same-sex marriage and repeal of DOMA, laying the groundwork for repeal in 2013 or 2014, just as he laid the groundwork for DADT repeal slowly and carefully in 2008 and 2009.
So, while I agree with Stephen that “rigidly thinking that the parties are frozen and unyielding is not a constructive approach to creating change“, it is also important to keep in mind that change in the Republican party will come if and only if conservatives begin to push and shove the party on gay and lesbian issues consistent with conservative political philosophy.
DOMA repeal would seem to me to be a potentially igniting issue for that effort, because DOMA is offensive to federalism and constitutionally unsound. It is an issue on which the Republican Party could — and in my opinion, should — take leadership.
I think that DOMA repeal will be a real test for the party. Will the party lead on repeal, or be left behind in 2013 or 2014?
posted by Tom on
With respect to Jonah Goldberg, two small notes:
(1) The cited article has nothing at all to say about the religious right and its current snit fit over CPAC; and
(2) As far as I can discern, his position on same-sex marriage, including DOMA repeal, is unchanged.
Goldberg wrote, in a series of 2003 Townhall articles, that he saw same-sex civil marriage as inevitable, but favored “civil unions is that I believe they would forestall gay marriage while at the same time doing right by gays and society on a host of public policy issues.” Goldberg has long opposed the FMA, but has had, as far as I know, no objection to DOMA and the principles underlying DOMA. Indeed, in one of his 2003 articles, he said “I’d probably be in favor of an amendment codifying the principle of the Defense of Marriage Act.“
posted by BobN on
Like many conservatives who never paid attention to gay issues, Goldberg has swallowed Andrew Sullivan’s version of the last few decades fish, line, and sinker. Sullivan fancies himself a one-man crusade, singlehandedly responsible for turning the gay rights movement around (from a course only he thinks it was on). The reality is that he spent several years in a bitch-fight with a handful of east coast lefties whom he conveniently extrapolated to the whole gay world.
As for the “purification”, there’s more going on with CPAC than some religious nutjobs punishing it for inviting GOProud. Both sides, GOProud and the religious groups, are spinning this story to their own advantage. I don’t believe any of them.