GOProud

For the last few weeks, Religious Right groups have been pressuring CPAC organizers to drop the gay conservative group GOProud for the list of event co-sponsors and threatening to boycott next year's conference if GOP was allowed to participate.

The pressure prompted the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC, to put the issue before board members for a vote ... and CPAC has decided to allow both GOProud and the John Birch Society to participate:

Several socially conservative organizations have threatened to boycott one of the largest gatherings of conservative activists of the year if a group of gay Republicans is allowed to serve as a participating organization at the event.

Social conservatives, including the National Organization for Marriage among others, staged a walk-out at a meeting of board members of the Conservative Political Action Conference, according to multiple board members, to protest CPAC's decision to allow GOProud to join the event as more than just a vendor organization.

Those groups put enough pressure on the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, that officials put GOProud's fate, along with that of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society, up for a vote. Results made available to board members on Wednesday showed the board voted to allow both groups to continue their affiliation with CPAC.

That could send socially conservative groups packing and cause a rift in the CPAC board. GOProud has its enemies on the board of directors. Board member Cleta Mitchell is stridently opposed to allowing the gay group to participate and has led the charge to kick them out of the event, according to other board members.

This move will undoubtedly anger the many Religious Right groups who regularly participate in CPAC ... but that doesn't seem to particularly concern organizers:

CPAC organizers strongly suggest that this is overplayed. NOM, for example, is neither a board member -- there are only three of those, David Keene, Millie Hallow, and Cleta Mitchell -- or a participating organization of CPAC. "2010 was the first and only year they participated in CPAC," said CPAC director Lisa De Pasquale. "They have not registered for 2011 and have not attended any planning meetings." Participating organizations do not actually get votes on speakers, and while NOM has looked for help from the American Conservative Union's board, it's got only one like-minded GOProud critic -- Mitchell -- on the CPAC board.

Matt Barber and Shawn Akers dedicated a recent Liberty Counsel "Faith & Freedom Radio" program to pushing back against GOProud's effort to get the Republican Party to ignore the Religious Right's social issues agenda, blasting GOProud as liberal group that is masquerading as a conservative organization in order to divide the conservative movement and explaining that the only true conservatives are those who are conservative on social, fiscal, and national defense issues:

Barber: Groups like GOProud are liberal/libertarian organizations that are in place, and I believe furtively so, to really create a divide and conquer scheme within the Republican Party, to really divide and separate and try to splinter off people from the Tea Party movement when, in reality, the vast majority are, as I point out, those three-legged Reagan stool conservatives.

Akers: In order to form a complete conservative, you have to have all three of those things. And if any one of those things is missing, you have something but its not a stool. It won't hold you up. You are not a conservative. You have to be fiscally conservative, defense conservative, and socially conservative.

Barber: You are absolutely right.

Akers: [And] those three legs are not created equal. The fact is when we talk about social issues ... name me an issue that is not social. Social simply means that it has to do with society - what we mean is moral. Fine, show me one of those issues that doesn't deal with morality.

We we talk about defense, we're talking about literally when we will take up arms. You'd better have a moral set on why or when you are doing that.

When we're talking about economics, we're talking about who's going to receive what, how you're going to manage money, who's going to get paid what, how we're going to handle all of the things in our lives - there shouldn't even be a moral component, it had better exist in a moral framework or you've got a very bad system on your hands.

So the fact is of those three stools, they're all three social conservative legs. You can't separate social conservatism from the rest.

Barber: And take the hot button social conservative issues, the ones that they really like to talk about: abortion and so-called gay rights.

On the abortion issue, I'm sorry, but if you claim to be a conservative and you're pro-abortion, you're not a conservative.

I don't think anybody who is not pro-life is qualified or fit to serve. If they can't understand a fundamental right to life, they don't belong in office as far as I'm concerned.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All, again, inexorably linked. You cannot have one without the other and liberty, of course, was at the forefront. And groups like GOProud seek to remove our liberties, they seek to radically redefine family. They push a radical, leftist homosexual agenda and we're not going to let them get away with it.

Evangelical Christians make up overwhelmingly the base of the conservative movement and even of the Republican Party and it is ill-advised of Republicans to go against, really, the will of the Evangelical conservative movement, of the complete conservatives, of the Reagan conservatives and they do so at their own peril, the conservative movement does so at its own peril.

As we noted yesterday, the American Principles Project and several other Religious Right goups have been threatening to boycott next year's CPAC conference if the gay conservative group GOProud to participate again this year.

Now WorldNetDaily is reporting that the pressure is getting to organizers at the American Conservative Union, which has decided to put to issue to a vote before CPAC's board of directors, and that more groups are planning on boycotting the event if GOProud is not given the boot:

The Conservative Political Action Conference board of directors is voting whether to permit a homosexual activist group, GOProud, to participate in CPAC again this year.

CPAC's organizer, the American Conservative Union, is under pressure after the American Principles Project issued an open letter announcing its withdrawal from the conference over GOProud's participation.

"If someone is tempted to think for a moment that GOProud is a benign force, then they should examine GOProud's insistence that the Republican party abandon social issues entirely. This makes them the friend of the Democratic party, which long ago embraced every radical sexual expression under the sun," said Robert Knight, senior correspondent for Coral Ridge Ministries.

With several more social conservative groups dropping out or threatening to do so behind the scenes, ACU chairman David Keene called on CPAC's board of directors to decide whether GOProud should be welcomed at the conference for a second straight year, according to a source on the board.

The results of the vote will be announced on Monday.

"We've decided to put our resources elsewhere," said Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel. "We're going to attend the Values Voters Summit and Awakening 2011."

Staver explained that the latter conferences would both respect all three legs of the conservative "stool" described by President Ronald Reagan: fiscal responsibility, strong national defense and social conservatism.

• I am shocked to learn that "there’s a strong overlap between those who think [President Obama] holds different religious views and those who disapprove of him."
• Consider me unimpressed by the lack of notable names Richard Viguerie managed to round-up for his "don't mess with Jim DeMint" letter.
• Delete your Facebook account or leave his church.
• Quote of the Day from GOProud's Jimmy LaSilvia: "I believe the LGBT community should support the pro-life community. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness applies to gay people and the unborn."
• Finally, Sarah Palin is "disgusted" by the way Levi Johnson has tried to exploit his fame ... says the woman with her own reality TV show and a daughter appearing on "Dancing With the Stars."

For the last few days we have been noting the battle between the Religious Right and the gay conservative group GOProud set off by the latter's effort to get the Republican Party to ignore the social issues that are at the heard of the former's entire agenda.

This question is obviously going to be a significant one as the GOP prepares to take control of the House and sets out its agenda heading into 2012 ... which makes this announcement rather interesting:

Conservative activist Grover Norquist will quiz candidates running for Republican National Committee chairman at a debate to be held just two weeks before elections, he told Hotline On Call Wednesday.

Norquist, who runs Americans for Tax Reform, will moderate the Jan. 3 debate at the National Press Club. It's an effort, he says, to take the race for chairman beyond the 168 members of the national committee and to bolster transparency.

As you may recall, Norquist was savaged by Religious Right leaders for joining GOProud's advisory council, with Tony Perkins slamming him for selling out the conservative movement.

So I wonder how the Religious Right feels about the next RNC chair being vetted by someone like Norquist who clearly does not care about their social issues agenda and, presumably, has no interest in including such questions in the debate process.

As we noted yesterday, the gay conservative group GOProud was urging the Republican Party to ignore the Religious Right's social issues agenda and the effort, not surprisingly, was not going over well with the Religious Right.

Concerned Women for America responded by saying that rather than ignoring social issues, such issues must be placed "at the very top of the list," which is a view shared by Gary Bauer, who dismisses GOProud as a "liberal group": 

There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about the GOP establishment trying to co-opt the Tea Party into abandoning its commitment to fiscal conservatism. Unfortunately, at least one liberal group has already convinced some Tea Party leaders to abandon values issues.

I was very disappointed to read this morning that a pro-homosexual rights group has gotten more than a dozen Tea Party activists to sign on to a letter to new members of Congress. According to Politico, the letter urges them to focus exclusively on fiscal issues, and to oppose the consideration of social issues as part of the agenda for the new Congress. That is terrible advice, and it presents a false choice ... Tonight, I will be attending a reception for new House members. I promise you I will encourage them to fight for the entire conservative agenda — including values issues!

The Family Research Council also weighed in to blast GOProud as a phony conservatives who are out to co-opt the movement in an effort sow anarchy and destroy the fabric of society:

A group that had nothing to do with bringing the Republicans to power suddenly wants to dictate what the party does with it. GOProud, an aggressive pro-homosexual organization that desperately wants to be taken seriously by conservatives, is trying to force its way into the movement by persuading a small handful of tea partiers to sign on to a social truce for the 112th Congress.

...

If anyone's doing the co-opting, it's GOProud--whose "social truce" isn't a truce at all. If Republicans stand down on social issues, it's in this group's interest! GOProud is the one actively fighting for same-sex "marriage," homosexuals in the military, and gay "rights." Essentially they're saying, "We'll keep marching our priorities forward and you" (meaning conservatives) "stand down."

I say, no way! For starters, that won't fly with the broader Tea Party movement which is solidly in the social conservative camp (see DeMint, Jim). Secondly, it's a losing strategy for America. We need to shrink the size of government, but America needs strong families. Those families--not GOProud's phony substitutes--are the backbone of society. Think about the welfare costs associated with the breakdown of social order. Think about the cost in terms of crime and the criminal justice system. What about the loss of human potential? Do these folks really think we can just eliminate those government expenditures overnight? What this crowd is advocating will lead to anarchy, which, ironically, would provide GOProud and friends a perfect environment for their lifestyle.

There only thing that angers the Religious Right more than being told that their social issues agenda does not matter is seeing the GOP downplay their social issues agenda in order to appease other parts of the conservative coalition.

So I can only imagine that this letter from the gay conservative group GOProud and several Tea Party leaders calling on the GOP to ignore social issues is probably not going to go over too well with the Religious Right:

A gay conservative group and some Tea Party leaders are campaigning to keep social issues off the Republican agenda.

In a letter to be released Monday, the group GOProud and leaders from groups like the Tea Party Patriots and the New American Patriots, will urge Republicans in the House and Senate to keep their focus on shrinking the government.

"On behalf of limited-government conservatives everywhere, we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement," they write to presumptive House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell in an advance copy provided to POLITICO. "This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue."

...

"For almost two years now, the tea party has been laser-focused on the size of government," said Barron, who said his group and the tea partiers are part of the "leave-me-alone coalition."

"No one has been talking about social issues - not even the socially conservative candidates who won tea party support," [GOProud's Chairman Christopher] Barron said ... "We're not talking about pushing social conservatives out of the tea party movement. Those people aren't only welcome but they're a critical part of this movement." said Barron.

You really have to marvel at the gall of a gay conservative like Barron talking down to the social conservatives in the movement and basically telling them that they are a "critical part" of the coalition so long as they accept that their agenda is going to be completely ignored.

Considering that a large part of the Religious Right's agenda is rooted in militantly opposing "the gay agenda," I am guessing that they are not going to take too kindly to efforts by a gay conservative group to relegate them to the sidelines.

• Just a reminder to GOProud: just because the Left doesn't like you, it doesn't mean that the right-wing does.
• When even George W. Bish thinks Sarah Palin is a joke, that is saying something.
• Will the Religious Right please stop screaming about this nonsense now?
• Randall Terry is already going after John Boehner.
• Jim Garlow frets that Democrats are going to destroy California.
• It really is amazing how the Religious Right is fundamentally unwilling to condemn Lisa Miller for kidnapping her daughter and disappearing.
• I find it quite remarkable how David Barton's election "analysis" so closely mirrors Fox's "news."
• Finally, quote of the day from David Lane, executive director of AFA Action, responding to the win in Iowa: "For those who impose what we perceive as an immoral agenda, we're going to take them out" ... He said the group would do so again wherever judges "impose their will on free people."

When Ann Coulter accepted the invitation to speak at GOProud's "Homocon 2010," WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah responded by dropping her from his Take Back America Conference. 

And even though Coulter went to "Homocon 2010" and basically insulted all of those in attendance, Farah isn't backing, saying Coulter "down did a disservice to the conservative movement" by legitimizing GOProud by simply agreeing to speak to them and comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan:

That's the trouble with allowing yourself to be exploited by a group with a dangerously extremist agenda that includes the promotion of same-sex marriage, open homosexual service in the U.S. military and a wink and a nod toward hate-crimes legislation.

If a celebrity chooses to speak to the Ku Klux Klan, there is no question the Klan benefits from such an appearance – no matter how much the speaker might attempt to explain the differences he or she might have with the group's agenda. Justifying such an appearance by suggesting it's just another paid speaking gig would hardly mollify the criticism or negate the benefit the Klan received from the event.

Of course, no one in respectable public life would consider speaking to the Klan for those reasons.

However, I would suggest the ungodly, sin-glorifying homosexual agenda represents a far greater and far more imminent danger to the future of the United States than does the Klan's racist, ungodly and sin-glorifying agenda.