Al Cardenas, the new chair of the American Conservative Union, appeared on C-Span yesterday morning and spoke about the controversy surrounding GOProud.
The challenge is always in terms of our participating organizations. Are you willing to be in the sandbox of our principles or not, and if you’re not, your individual members are welcome but not the organization. So we’re going to go through a vetting process. We haven’t decided yet who is going to get invited to the 2012 CPAC or not. We’re going to make sure that organizations that adhere to our beliefs get invited. So that includes GOProud or anybody else so we’re going to go through a vetting process to see what they stand for.
If you are a group, this has got nothing to do with orientation, if you’re a group of straight couples that advocate for gay marriage then that’s not within the scope of what we believe that the three legs of the stool of the movement are. So it’s got nothing to do with the orientation. It has got to do with the principles that you advocate. There are of gays in America that don’t advocate gays in the military issue or gay marriage and so they’ll fit within the tent of what we stand for…so we;ll do our best to be inclusive while at the same time adhering to the principles that Ronald Reagan dreamed about and we’ve been following.
This whole situation only highlights the contradiction embodied by GOProud. It was evident when they masochistically invited Anne Coulter to regale them with homophobic slurs. Or when they made Andrew Breitbart a council member, even as he publicly disavowed their positions on gay rights.
On gay issues, they favor acceptance and depend upon a sort of big tent Republicanism. On — well, everything else, it seems — they stand firmly on the far right and decry anyone to their left as communists, terrorists and traitors. So, really, the only people GOPRoud likes are the people that oppose GOProud’s own aims. What do they achieve by buddying up to these people or foisting themselves on CPAC?
Personally, I think they’re emergence is part of today’s sad trend toward increasingly polarized politics. They define their Republicanism less by right wing policy than by their venomous disapprobation of everything Democrat, liberal or left. The company they keep is indicative. As was the slogan for their award ceremony: “Our gays are more macho than their straights.” It has the air of some kid making friends with the schoolyard bully by finding a mutual target for them to pick on.
in other words, gays who “know their place.” Got it.
History won’t look kindly on these people.
in other words, gays who “know their place.” Got it.
History won’t look kindly on these people.
This whole situation only highlights the contradiction embodied by GOProud. It was evident when they masochistically invited Anne Coulter to regale them with homophobic slurs. Or when they made Andrew Breitbart a council member, even as he publicly disavowed their positions on gay rights.
On gay issues, they favor acceptance and depend upon a sort of big tent Republicanism. On — well, everything else, it seems — they stand firmly on the far right and decry anyone to their left as communists, terrorists and traitors. So, really, the only people GOPRoud likes are the people that oppose GOProud’s own aims. What do they achieve by buddying up to these people or foisting themselves on CPAC?
Personally, I think they’re emergence is part of today’s sad trend toward increasingly polarized politics. They define their Republicanism less by right wing policy than by their venomous disapprobation of everything Democrat, liberal or left. The company they keep is indicative. As was the slogan for their award ceremony: “Our gays are more macho than their straights.” It has the air of some kid making friends with the schoolyard bully by finding a mutual target for them to pick on.
Let him tell us us why he won’t allow Jews.
I wonder if he really believes that these things are so separable.
It is, of course, within CPAC’s prerogative to decide that they’re opposed to the acceptance and affirmation of homosexuality but to pretend that such a policy is indifferent to actual homosexual persons is preposterous.
Let him tell us us why he won’t allow Jews.
I wonder if he really believes that these things are so separable.
It is, of course, within CPAC’s prerogative to decide that they’re opposed to the acceptance and affirmation of homosexuality but to pretend that such a policy is indifferent to actual homosexual persons is preposterous.