Via Buzzfeed (and yes, I’m a bit late posting this):
GOProud, the bombastic group for gay conservatives and their allies, is going to be going through some major changes in the coming months, as the two co-founders, executive director Jimmy LaSalvia and senior strategist Chris Barron, plan to step back from their day-to-day roles with the group as a new executive director is selected. …
“As Chris says always, there was this little patch of ground that nobody else wanted — and that’s where GOProud is,” LaSalvia said. “We built a foundation on that patch of ground, and I’m really kind of excited to see where it goes from here.”
They’ve done so with support from a number of straight conservatives, including board chair Lisa De Pasquale; Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist; former CPAC organizer David Keene; Republican strategist Liz Mair; and, early on, the late Andrew Breitbart, who hosted a party on GOProud’s behalf at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in 2011. …
We’ve always wanted GOProud to be not just gay conservatives; we wanted it to be people who were conservative and supported gay people,” [LaSalvia] said. “That’s been the real flexing of the muscle. Tony Perkins could care less about just gay conservatives. It’s very easy to marginalize us. It’s a lot harder — when it’s all of these grassroots and grasstop straight conservatives … That’s a different fight.”
Reaching out to and organizing gay-supportive conservatives is transformative work, often greeted with disdain from LGBT progressives.
More. Paul Ryan responds to the shifting political winds. He and the rest of the new generation of GOP leadership aren’t there yet, but they’re heading in the right direction. The Log Cabin Republicans’ new ad campaign spells out why.
11 Comments for “Changing the Game”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Reaching out to and organizing gay-supportive conservatives is transformative work, often greeted with disdain from LGBT progressives.
The reason that GOProud has been greeted with disdain by LGBT progressives is that it kept silent on “equal means equal” (marriage equality, for example) until a few months ago, and GOProudly asupported anti-equality candidates.
It is very had to take a “gay supportive” organization with the likes of Ann Coulter on its governing board seriously, when the rest of the movement has been out there fighting for equality hammer and tong. Respect is earned. So is disdain.
We;ll see if disdain changes to respect as GOProud “evolves”.
posted by Houndentenor on
Are there any gays left in GOProud? I have disdain for GOProud because it’s astroturf. I have repeatedly lauded LCR for their work on DADT. Some of that lauding happened right here. The disdain results from endorsements of openly anti-gay politicians over gay friendly ones. That disdain is deserved. Again, no one opposes reaching out to Republicans and conservatives, but I do not believe in holding conservatives to a lower standard when it comes to gay issues.
posted by Mike in Houston on
I’m betting that these two ‘leaders’ are moving on because the gravy train from Peter Theil is coming to an end.
BTW, did anyone notice that one of the most effective homocons on marriage equality worked via AFER, HRC and EQNY… namely, Ken Mehlman. So much for Steven’s usual whining about disdain from the left.
posted by Jorge on
and yes, I’m a bit late posting this
That’s not the only GAY NEWS! you’re a bit late posting.
Oh, right. This is mundane political gay news. I need to go to that right wing guy’s site for the other type of gay news.
posted by jared on
It’s a blog, not a news site. Stephen blogs about gay stories that happen to interest him. Do you actually think he has an obligation to cover everything and provide you with a digest? So you can make your snippy little remarks?
posted by Don on
it wasn’t their conservatism that turned me off. it was their brand of conservatism that turned me off. nasty sniping in a childish way. and then following it up with bombastic defenses of anti-gay moves from the republicans. they always struck me as gay versions of Ann Coulter or Hugh Hewitt. Had they struck a more William F. Buckley tone: visceratingly effective and difficult to refute, I would not have recoiled from them. Making jokes about the left immediately after a bombing? There is an image problem on the far right. And it comes from such grotesque caricatures of their ideological opponents. Both sides carp, but much of the humor on the far right is mean and inaccurate (Kenya?). and LaSalvia relished that brand of humor.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Translating Stephen: Ryan’s a saavy enough politician to now say it’s okay for gays and lesbians to adopt the kids that no one else wants, but he maintains those same gays and lesbians need to understand that they’re still second-class citizens whose families are undeserving of civil equality…. because, er, freedom! Hooray! We should get behind him for not being a complete jerk when it comes to civil equality for the LGBT community.
We’ve long moved past the point where we need to celebrate crumbs from either party.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I don’t care whether Republicans get to “equal means equal” by way of principle (as Barry Goldwater did), or because gay family or friends triggered honest rethinking (as in the case of Ron Porter), or because they possess just enough low animal cunning to realize that letting the Family Research Council call the tune will leave them without a partner on the dance card (like Paul Ryan).
What counts, and all that is going to count for me, is how they will vote during the next decade while we work to dismantle the 30+ anti-marriage amendments the Republican Party put into place during the last decade.
That’s easy for me to say, though, because I’m a Democrat and I don’t have to hold my nose and vote for a jerk like Ryan.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
And I should not that Ryan is now claiming that he has always supported civil unions. Not by a long shot. He fought hard for Wisconsin’s 2006 anti-marriage amendment, which is among the 20 Republican-sponsored state anti-marriage amendments banning civil unions. Dishonest creep.
posted by Houndentenor on
Agreed. I don’t care why either. If we have to wait for pure motives on the part of politicians, we’d never get anything done. Ever. So what if he’s finally supporting something positive because he sees that it will cost him to take the opposing view. That’s true of most politicians on most issues. It is frustrating to hear them lie about their own record, but at least this is moving forward. I don’t know how progressive it is to admit that some gay couples are good parents since there’s been mountains of evidence of that for decades now, but better late than never.
posted by Clayton on
“Paul Ryan responds to the shifting political winds.”
Translation: Paul Ryan says, “I don’t think that gay and lesbian partners are the moral equivalent of heterosexual couples, so they don’t deserve equal rights. And I’m willing to let them have the kids nobody else wants, but those kids shouldn’t get the same protections that kids adopted by married heterosexual couples have. So I’m not only consigning gays and lesbians to second-class status, but I’m consigning their adopted children to second-class status as well. But they can still have the kids. And we can respectfully agree on matters like these.”