IGF CultureWatch

The brouhaha over GOProud’s participation in the Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest annual gathering of conservative activists in Washington, is getting bigger.

Those boycotting the event over the participation of openly gay conservatives are using the Orwellian name “Conservatives for Unity” to declare that gay conservatives are anathema and must be expulsed from the movement. They held forth that “it is necessary for each group within any coherent movement not to stand in diametrical opposition to one or more of its core principles. It is our conviction that the institution of marriage and the family qualify as such principles.”

But what does it say that Larry L. Eastland, a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a board member of the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes CPAC, responded in a letter to fellow board members that they should “not be guilty of ‘casting the first stone,’ and added, “Let us not lose sight of our goals by closing the door on individuals who will stand with us on public issues on which we agree, and keep to themselves their differences on issues where it could give ‘aid and comfort’ to our opponents.”

I guess it says that the boycotters are so crazy that they make the Mormons look like liberals.

More. Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, who sits on the board of the American Conservative Union and is on the advisory board of GOProud, dismissed the boycotters, saying:

Loser people and loser organizations that haven’t done any work all year try to get headlines so they can whine about CPAC. They can get a little press. That happens all the time.

Zack Rosen demonstrates the contortions that gay white men who aspire to be part of the LBGT progressive world have to undergo. He writes “In Defense of the Gay White Male,” but his defense is extremely tepid and his column is more about recognizing his privileged condition as a non-transgendered non-person of color while asserting, mildly, that he really doesn’t quite understand why he should be apologizing for this. Give it up, Zack, cause you’re never going to escape the oppressive white male accusation with that crowd.

Mark Twain said that, if there is a heaven, it’s apt to be mighty crowded with hypocrites. Writing in the L.A. Times on social conservatives who go after gays because they’re easier targets than divorce and single parenthood, David Boaz shows why Twain was right.

Frank Kameny laid the groundwork for the gay rights movement. Now it’s time for us to help him.

In the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News, a progressive outfit called Courage Campaign states:

This weekend in Rancho Mirage, Calif., the Koch brothers—key funders of California’s anti-environment Prop 23 as well as the Tea Party, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and countless other right-wing organizations—will meet behind closed doors with other conservative power brokers. There, these billionaires and their elected officials will strategize on how to impose their right-wing agenda on the rest of us.

Would that “right wing agenda” of the Cato Institute include its amicus brief in Lawrence that Justice Kennedy cited in his opinion overturning state sodomy laws (note: he didn’t cite the briefs from NGLTF or HRC), or the Cato Institute’s efforts backing the suit to overturn California’s anti-gay marriage Prop. 8?

Ah, well here’s some good news to be filed under Things Change: Gay Marine’s husband surprised at respect shown by Naval Academy.

The new iman of the so-called Ground Zero mosque and Islamic cultural center, Abdallah Adhami, advocates retribution for those who leave the faith, reports the New York Post. He advised that those who preach about apostasy should at least be jailed, as “Many [Islamic] jurists have said they have to be killed.”

That led Jordan Sekulow, a lawyer at the Pat Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice, to question why the mosque project would choose a leader who advocates retribution for those who leave the faith. He remarked, “To be in the United States of America and to tell former Muslims to ‘keep your mouth shut’ is against the Constitution.” The Robertson-affiliated center is suing to stop the Islamic center and mosque from being built.

The iman also addressed the issue of homosexuality, holding forth that “An enormously overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling because of some form of violent emotional or sexual abuse at some point in their life.”

That led Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, to respond that “When a religious leader of his standing opens up his mouth and spews this kind of ignorance and hateful statements, it does put his greater judgment into question.”

I believe that those who have legally secured ownership to property should be able to build a religious center, no matter how intolerant they are—whether Iman Abdallah Adhami or Pat Robertson. But that is different from celebrating such a center (when it is of the Islamic variety, of course) as a tribute to “diversity” and the multiculturalism of the Big Apple, as some have done.

The Washington Post reports on still small but none the less important gay inroads within the conservative world, while the New York Times looks at the CPAC flap.

Wishful thinking or green shoots?

The Cato Institute’s David Boaz on what he would have liked to have heard from the president: big spending cuts and repeal of DOMA.

I don’t know if either of these ads will make it to network television, much less the Super Bowl; but I know that I, for one, will be eating more Doritos.