OK, addendum to my last post: Now it’s officially a big deal.
The Heritage Foundation has joined the social-conservative boycott of the Conservative Political Action Conference, reports The Washington Times. The casus belli is CPAC’s willingness to let a gay Republican group participate in the confab. Here’s an amazing quote:
“The rather arrogant treatment of social conservatives by libertarians is troubling,” said Mr. [Andy] Blom [of the American Principles Project].
So it’s “arrogant” for libertarians to ask conservatives to share a room with homosexuals? Whereas, I guess, dictating terms to the whole conservative movement is…humble?
Unlike other CPAC boycotters, Heritage regards itself as a big-tent patron of the whole conservative movement—a conservative uniter, not a divider. I doubt Heritage would have joined the boycott if it weren’t under severe pressure from the cultural right.
Anyway, whether Heritage jumped off the fence or was pushed, it has been forced to choose between its libertarian and social-con impulses. So, folks, it’s official. The battle is joined. The Manhattan Declaration has gone operational.
The real purpose of this campaign is to read libertarians the riot act and put them back in their place, which was worrying about taxes while social-cons handled “values” (abortion and gays). My guess is that libertarians will back down in the face of social-cons’ threat to split the movement. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
27 Comments for “CPAC Crack-Up…Continued”
posted by Jorge on
Unlike other CPAC boycotters, Heritage regards itself as a big-tent patron of the whole conservative movement—a conservative uniter, not a divider.
Emphasis on big. They get some powerful names behind them every so often, too.
My guess is that libertarians will back down rather in the fact of social-cons’ threat to split the movement. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
The cards against this theory are few, but I’ll play them anyway.
First, who said the social cons are the ones threatening to split the movement? A big part of the tea party movement has been about challenging politics as usual among the right and ignoring the social issues in favor of economic issues. So far it has served as an irritant, but if things come to a head, do you really see the tea party backing down? In this econony? With so many things to undo from the last two years? With all kinds of culture war nightmares originating from the left recently?
It must be pointed out that the power on the right is with the tea party movement right now, not with the conservatives (CPAC included). CPAC is not the true battlefield of the right, but it may well be a necessary battlefield for the future of social conservatism. On the other hand, should the libertarians cede CPAC, that won’t be the end of it.
posted by John on
From what Gabriel Malor posted over at Ace of Spades, WashTimes is being misleading in its reporting because Heritage isn’t going to CPAC because of GOProud. It decided to skip CPAC for budgetary reasons.
posted by avee on
WashTimes is being misleading in its reporting because Heritage isn’t going to CPAC because of GOProud. It decided to skip CPAC for budgetary reasons.
No one beleived that initial excuse; sponsorship is only a couple of thousand dollars; Heritage’s budget is huge.
From the Los Angeles Times:
posted by Throbert McGee on
Since the annual CPAC event is in Washington D.C. and the Heritage Foundation is within walking distance of the DC Metro Red Line at Union Station, I’m not sure that I find the “budgetary reasons” explanation to be wholly compelling. I mean, I can see why they might need to scale down their presence at CPAC compared to previous years, but it’s not obvious why they couldn’t continue as nominal participants with one small booth.
Still, I agree that Heritage’s decision to skip CPAC, whatever the reasons, don’t automatically signal some big split in the conservative movement. But on the other hand, if Heritage manages to show up at the Family Research Council’s “Values Voter Summit” (also in DC, but later in the year) after passing on CPAC “for budgetary reasons,” that might be a more meaningful signal.
posted by Throbert McGee on
From the soc-cons’ POV, the libertarians were doing significantly more than merely asking them to breathe the same oxygen as homosexuals; they were asking them to share billing with a group that officially identifies as “gay,” and that doesn’t have clearly different views from progressive/liberal/Democratic gay groups on such prominent “hot-button gay issues” such as Marriage Equality, DADT, and ENDA. (Yes, GOProud may de-emphasize such issues in preference to focusing on fiscal ones — but it declines to say unequivocally, for example, “We believe in the one man, one woman definition of marriage, would endorse a candidate who supported FMA, and we instead call for more states to implement domestic-partnership registries.” So in that sense — at least as soc-cons are going to see it — GOProud are every bit as much “gay activists” as are FRC and GLAAD and the Stonewall Democrats, notwithstanding the “GOP” in the org’s name.)
posted by tjmmz9843 on
“[GOProud] doesn’t have clearly different views from progressive/liberal/Democratic gay groups on such prominent “hot-button gay issues” such as Marriage Equality, DADT, and ENDA. ” – I call bullsh*t. Someone needs to find out more about GOProud. On ENDA, while they officially take no position (for or against), they publish pieces that are against: http://blog.goproud.org/index834e.html?p=329
Whether you like GOProud or not, whether you like ENDA or not, no one can honestly suggest that GOProud has the same views as the other gay groups.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I think you can make a loose analogy to the case of the Order of Hibernians (or whatever their name was) who said that gays were allowed to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade and wear “Kiss Me, I’m Gay and Irish” buttons, but that they couldn’t march as a group under a gay banner.
It’s only a loose analogy in that the St. Patrick’s parade goes down a public thoroughfare (with a permit giving it a temporary “monopoly” on use of that thoroughfare) while the CPAC event is in rental space at a privately owned hotel, so the same legal issues don’t apply — but there is a common concern about the “Control of Message”.
And having GOProud at CPAC as a nominal co-sponsor does send a somewhat different message from allowing the group to rent a booth in the convention hall as a “non-voting vendor” — or from allowing openly LGBT individuals to attend so long as they weren’t there under the aegis of a registered and officially acknowledged Gay Group.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Er, just to be clear, it’s ALSO a “loose” analogy in that the parade organizers were apparently unified in their wish to exclude Gay Groups Under Gay Banners — whereas in the CPAC case, they took a vote on it, the libertarians narrowly prevailed, and the soc-cons went into a snit because they didn’t have enough votes to exclude GOProud.
But all that said, the soc-cons’ desire to not be officially associated with political views they find obnoxious is not, in and of itself, petty or arrogant. (If I were the Family Research Council and I’d invested quite a huge pile of money and energy telling everyone how strongly I deplored homosexuality, I certainly wouldn’t want to be accidentally mistaken for “pro-homosexual”!)
posted by Tom on
[GOProud] declines to say unequivocally, for example, “We believe in the one man, one woman definition of marriage, would endorse a candidate who supported FMA, and we instead call for more states to implement domestic-partnership registries.
I think you are dreaming if you think that opposition to marriage equality but support for equivalent or limited domestic partnerships would satisfy the social conservatives.
The record: In the last couple of years, social conservatives fought:
(a) burial/funeral rights in New Jersey (vetoed by Republican Governor Donald Carcieri) in 2009;
(b) limited domestic partnership rights in Wisconsin in 2009;
(c) limited domestic partnership rights in New Mexico in 2009:
(d) burial/funeral rights in MN (vetoed by Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty) in 2010;
(e) limited domestic partner rights in Illinois in 2010;
(f) well, hell, pick a state and roll your own.
The simple fact is that social conservatives have put the hammer down on every attempt to create any recognition of or rights attendant to, same-sex couples in every state in recent years.
So, somehow, given this record, the social conservatives who are bailing on CPAC would be satisfied if GOProud abandoned marriage equality but supported domestic partnership rights?
That’s dreaming, Throbert. The social conservatives aren’t even content to let us bury each other.
The groups that are bailing on CPAC have been getting more extreme, and more fringe, every year.
A case in point:
In 2006, during the statewide debate over the anti-marriage amendment in Wisconsin, Julaine Appling, CEO of the Wisconsin Family Council/Wisconsin Family Action, had this to say about civil unions/domestic partnerships under the amendment:
So, a rational person might conclude that Wisconsin’s 2009 limited domestic partnership law (passed in 2009 on a party-line vote) that grants hospital visitation, end-of-life, burial and inheritance rights to same-sex couples who register as domestic partners would be okay with social conservatives?
Uh, think again.
Appling and WFC/WFA have (1) brought two lawsuits seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional (the first, a direct appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, was denied on jurisdictional grounds, and the second, brought at the circuit court level, is pending), and (2) extracted a pledge from every single Republican statewide official and Republican member of the State Senate and Assembly elected in 2010 to repeal the domestic partner law.
The anti-gay crowd is not moderating. These folks edge closer to Fred Phelps every day. You aren’t going to see sweetness, light, rationality, corn, salt or the American way out of them anytime soon.
posted by Jorge on
The anti-gay crowd is not moderating. These folks edge closer to Fred Phelps every day. You aren’t going to see sweetness, light, rationality, corn, salt or the American way out of them anytime soon.
I am finding it disturbing that I find myself beginning to be persuaded on this point by nothing other than the force of will of the people who espouse it. What I mean is I don’t have my own frame of reference. How can I, when I am outside the squabbling movement from the beginning?
I think what I’ll do is take a position, stand on it, and see who’s for me and who’s against me.
posted by Jimmy on
Well, don’t strain your milk.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Well, one piece of evidence you should consider, Jorge, is the rant produced by the gay and lesbian community and its leadership this week.
As the new Congress is sworn in this today, there is no denying that pro-LGBT numbers have shrunk on Capitol Hill. HRC’s new analysis shows a pick-up of 53 House seats to anti-LGBT lawmakers as well as a 5 seat addition in the Senate. Not only do those opposing basic equality hold positions of power as House leaders and committee chairmen, their ranks have swollen to 225 – a solid majority of the chamber.
The “analysis”, of course, consisting of a simple equation: Obama Party = pro-LGBT, Republican = anti-LGBT.
In short, the gay and lesbian community is stating that anyone who is a Republican hates gays and lesbians.
Add to that the other rants of the gay and lesbian community, such as, quote, “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”, and the issue comes quickly to be obvious.
Bigots like Tom, who have practiced these scorched-earth tactics for years, are now squealing and bawling as the same is turned back on them. People now recognize that “LGBT equality” is nothing more than the same antireligious, anti-business, welfare-addict rhetoric that the leftists like Tom have been preaching for years dressed up with a new pink bow and lavender ribbon.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And let’s also show another great example of what the gay and lesbian community truly believes and thinks, as shown by the organization Truth Wins Out and its affiliates Ex-Gay Watch and Box Turtle Bulletin.
Actually, Bob, most “reasonable” people, if we’re using the word with a respect for its root word, “reason,” agree that there is no evidence for God’s existence, and thus no rational REASON to believe that any god or gods have determined ANYTHING, much less morality.
Comment by Evan Hurst — May 27, 2010 @ 7:13 pm
Hahahahaha, um. Dude. Seriously? No one in the history of the universe has ever been able to prove that the idea of “gods,” which have always been used to control populations, ever existed. It’s a ridiculous idea, created by uneducated nomads from thousands of years ago.
GROW UP>
Comment by Evan Hurst — May 29, 2010 @ 4:13 am
They all rank “10″ because they’re all retarded and none of them can be proven by any human who’s ever lived.
God, your questions are really stupid.
Comment by Evan Hurst — May 29, 2010 @ 4:29 am
Bob. That means your god is a weak minded little bitch who changes his mind and is definitely NOT eternal or omnipotent. He’s merely a reflection of humanity’s most disgusting instincts.
Grow the hell up.
Comment by Evan Hurst — May 31, 2010 @ 4:20 am
Of COURSE, their idea of god is as a serial rapist. Fundamentalist religious people ARE essentially battered wives. They just act it out on a grander scale without such visible bruises. The really screwed up thing is that their abuser is an imaginary friend.
But it’s a rapist just the same.
Comment by Evan Hurst — May 31, 2010 @ 4:22 am
Ben, everything you said was spot on. Bob’s idea of “god” is a moral reprobate, and a child at that. I wouldn’t worship a sniveling ass like that if you paid me.
Comment by Evan Hurst — May 31, 2010 @ 4:25 am
Please note that “Evan Hurst” is not merely a commenter; he is one of the primary authors of the blog and is certainly considered to be a representative of Truth Wins Out and its worldview. His views are supported and endorsed by David Roberts and others at the “Ex-Gay Watch” and “Box Turtle Bulletin” websites.
Again, when gays and lesbians clearly have nothing but hatred and animosity towards religious beliefs and support discrimination against religious people, what is one to think? After all, if someone opposed what Evan Hurst and Truth Wins Out are promoting, you’d think they would say something, right? Certainly the gay and lesbian community would not be so hypocritical as to insist that others repudiate the words of their associates while refusing to do the same.
posted by Jorge on
And let’s also show another great example of what the gay and lesbian community truly believes and thinks
I find your assumption that the gay and lesbian community posts on Truth Wins Out to be less than credible.
Not to mention the assumptions that they write on it.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Perhaps, Jorge, you aren’t familiar with the accolades and endorsements given to Truth Wins Out and its founder.
Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003).
In 2006, Besen was recognized in the Advocate Magazine’s “People of the Year” issue. In 2009, he was named in Instinct Magazine as a “Leading Man”. In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
Besen has appeared as a guest on leading news and political talk shows including: the NBC Nightly News, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, CNN’ Talk Back Live and The Point, Fox’ O’Reilly Factor and Hannity and Colmes, MSNBC News and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Prior to founding TWO, Besen served as a spokesperson for five years with the Human Rights Campaign.
I find it hard to believe that he would be receiving any of those if his views did not represent the mainstream gay and lesbian community.
posted by Tom on
Jorge, I think the best way to develop a frame of reference is to look at the words and actions of the groups — the AFA, AFTH, CWA, FRC, FRI, the Liberty Counsel, NOM — pushing the anti-gay agenda within the Republican Party over the last couple of decades. That’s what I’ve done, and I think that a trajectory is evident.
I see two dimensions to the trajectory.
First, the groups seem to be growing increasingly at odds with our country’s center-right consensus concerning gays and lesbians as it has developed over the last couple of decades. As the country as a whole moves toward the idea that “equal means equal” — that gays and lesbians should be treated on the same basis under the law as straights — these groups, in general, have been going in the other direction. The example I gave (WFC/WFA’s change from accepting limited-purpose CU/DP’s in 2006 to the groups’ strong current legal and political opposition to Wisconsin’s 2009 limited-purpose DPA) is an example of the retrenchment, but typical. You can look across the landscape of statements and positions of these groups on equality issues over the last two decades and see a similar pattern across the board.
Second, the public statements of the groups seem to have become more strident, less reality-based, and increasingly at odds with the center-right consensus over time. The emergence of Bryan Fischer as the AFA’s primary spokesman and Peter Sprigg as a primary spokesman (Tony Perkins being the other) of the FRC are good examples of this trend. Whatever you may think of the SPLC, there is a reason why the AFA and FRC met the SPLC’s criteria for “hate group” designation this year when they have not in the past. The statements of the two groups have crossed a line in the last 12-18 months.
I emphasized the word “public” statements in the preceding paragraph for a reason. The private thoughts and attitudes of the leaders/staffers of the groups may be more benign or less benign that the groups’ public statements and actions. Julaine Appling (CEO of WFC/WGA), for example, made a statement in a newspaper in October 2006 (““I think we’ve been extremely tolerant in allowing [homosexuals] to live wherever they choose.“) that was chilling. Having participated in forums with Julaine during the period, and having a sense of her from those meetings, I suspect that the idea of enforced, legal segregation of gays and lesbians may be indicative of her private thoughts. But I don’t think it relevant except, perhaps, as material to be used by future historians when analyzing the times in which we live.
It is the public statements and actions of the anti-gay groups that I think relevant, and I do, as noted, see a trajectory in those statements and actions.
What drives the trajectory is less clear.
I suspect that the trajectory is the result of migration in the groups’ audience.
Years ago, when ideas like open service of gays and lesbians in the military or same-sex marriage were espoused by “homosexual activists” and few others, the audience of anti-gay groups was broad and relatively mainstream. Mainstream audiences are best persuaded, in general, by careful, reasoned statements reflecting the attitudes of the mainstream. When the audience was mainstream, the anti-gay groups tended, I think, to seek a broad appeal from the mainstream, using words more carefully chosen than the words used in recent years.
As the mainstream — the center-right consensus, if you will — has moved toward “equal means equal”, the audience of the anti-gay groups has shrunk, and increasingly reflects a hard-core remnant audience that actually believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that gays and lesbians are disease-ridden, closet-pedophiles working to destroy our country. That audience is not as likely to stirred by a mainstream message as it is by a red meat message.
I don’t pretend to know what is going on between CPAC and the Republican anti-gay groups. I’ve read a lot of analysis, including Jon’s in this and other IGF posts on the subject, and I can’t tell whether this development is merely a tactical move in a political chess game being played out between CPAC and VVS or the harbinger of a split between the hard-core anti-gay element within the Republican Party and economic/constitutional conservatives. I don’t know that there is yet enough evidence to come to either conclusion.
But I think that the trajectory I’ve described is real, and it is the trajectory that tells me that, as the anti-gay groups become smaller and smaller over time, they have moved and will continue to move, toward the fringe, becoming more and more strident and less and less reality-based.
I would encourage you to look back at the last thirty years of the history of the anti-gay movement within the Republican Party and reach your own conclusions — build a frame of reference for yourself.
posted by BobN on
Speaking of frames of reference, how in the world is the moderating view of gay people as equal citizens a “center-right” consensus? It’s a GASP center-left or even LEFTwing consensus.
Jesus Christ. Is the “left” so utterly tainted as a political movement that its own triumphs have to be rebranded?
posted by Tom on
Speaking of frames of reference, how in the world is the moderating view of gay people as equal citizens a “center-right” consensus? It’s a GASP center-left or even LEFTwing consensus.
Our country’s current political center point is often described by political scientists as “center-right”, that is, moderate and centrist, but generally tending toward the conservative side of the political spectrum. I accept that as a fair description, but my view is perhaps shaped by the fact that I live in a small town in rural Wisconsin, a swing state with strong progressive and strong conservative traditions. A person living in an urban area or another state might have a different view.
Whether the ours is a country of “a center-right consensus” or a “center-left consensus” is of less importance than the critical fact that “equal means equal” has become mainstream and widely accepted, increasingly relegating the anti-gay groups in question to the fringe.
posted by BobN on
The country may be center-right, but the consensus about gay people is most assuredly NOT center-right.
posted by Tom on
The country may be center-right, but the consensus about gay people is most assuredly NOT center-right.
You know, Bob, I’m not so sure about that …
While historically it is the progressives who have championed “equal means equal” among straight folks, and the highest levels of support continue to come from that group, I think that we have little by slowly made progress among moderate conservatives of all ages, and among younger conservatives of all stripes.
A strong majority of Americans support DADT repeal, workplace equality and other equality issues, with the exception of same-sex marriage.
That is very different than in was ten or twenty years ago, and I think that the current levels of support on those issues can be accurately described as a “consensus”.
Same-sex marriage remains the anomaly at this point, but the trajectory is headed in the right direction. Attitudes on same-sex marriage are largely determined by two factors at this point: (a) frequency of church attendance, and (b) age. Within the former group, age matters — polls consistently show that young evangelicals, for example, are much more likely to accept same-sex marriage than their parents.
In my view, we cannot win the “culture wars” without support from the broad center, and in particular, moderates to the right of center. I think we have made tremendous progress in bringing over that group, and I think that the progress will continue as the anti-gay groups become more and more marginalized and irrational.
posted by BobN on
Tom, I don’t disagree with your analysis, just the terminology. By definition, a policy which comes from the left, encompasses virtually the entire left AND extends beyond that to the middle and even beyond that to include even portions of the right, excluding only the far right and those who lean that way is CENTER-LEFT policy.
posted by Jorge on
Ah, yes.
The frame of reference I usually use consists of certain rightist columnists and politicians of various bents, but being that on the religious conservative front I only pay attention to the Catholic Church and look down on protestant/evangelical organizations, I’m not sensitive to change in those organizations. There are problems because that doesn’t account for all of the power that is being wielded.
That applies on the left, too. If there are people who I don’t trust who want to wield power, living by example isn’t enough? One has to watch them, too?
posted by Tom on
Well, Jorge, as Julaine Appling of the WFC/WFA reminds me every week at the close of her radio broadcast, This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the Prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Let’s also add the fact that the gay and lesbian community is already claiming that Republicans and religious people, particularly Sarah Palin, are responsible for today’s attack on Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Particularly interesting is the claim repeated by Box Turtle Bulletin, one of the sites supported by Independent Gay Forum, that Sarah Palin is responsible for the shooting of Representative Giffords.
Why should the gay and lesbian community be taken seriously when it is making these sort of statements?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And here again the gay and lesbian community is claiming that Sarah Palin ordered the attempted murder of Representative Gabrielle Giffords.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And here’s yet another example of what the gay and lesbian community is stating.
Sarah Palin should be called in for questioning NOW!
The Republican Party is a criminal organization that should be shut down by the authorities and indicted for conspiracy to murder.