Never Straight But Gayly Forward
GOProud ends its silence after getting the boot as CPAC sponsors:
ACU board members do, however, have a legitimate argument for excluding the group. The conservative movement has long depended upon the unity of a coalition consisting of those who advocate economic liberty, strong national defense, and traditional moral values. “Movement conservatives cannot be expected to agree on everything,” says board member Morton Blackwell. “But no group which insists on the incompatibility of a major element of the conservative movement should have a formal role at CPAC.
GOProud, of course, doesn’t buy it. “Half of our membership is not gay,” says Barron. “It is perposerious for me to believe that those people cannot be social conservatives. I mean, hell, Ann coulter is chair of our advisory council.”
“Dick Cheney has a more progressive position on marriage than GOProud does,” adds Barron, who is, himself, married to a man (Barron obviously believes in gay marriage, but GOProud avoids the issue, arguing it should be left up to the states to decide).
As Stacy McCain likes to say, you can’t build a movement by a process of subtraction.
Another thing to remember: The future will be even more gay-friendly than today. So until it changes its ways, CPAC is not the future.
With the financial markets a mess, the Middle East going up in flames, Europe going down the tubes, and China and Iran getting more aggressive I think the way conservatives treat gays should be ranked very low on the list.
Progress has given us nothing but trouble.
How the conservative movement treats conservative allies is indicative of the sagacity and health of the movement.
Amen, Stephen. It seems like we’ve had this debate a couple of times in recent memory and haven’t learned. During GWB’s first term the extreme social conservative wing of the GOP started making noises that the “big tent might be a little bit too big” with groups like Dobson’s Focus on the Family complaining that it was time to marginalize the libertarians and the gays within the GOP. Let’s examine how that worked out… Not that marginalizing the gay community would cost the GOP any elections, but as a fiscal conservative who is just starting to trust the GOP (maybe a little bit) again, I’d be concerned to see us heading down that particular slippery slope another time.
So, it’s either beat on social conservatives or accept gay conservatives. Glad I know what the conservative movement is all about. Then again, if the courts forces us all to accept gay marriage, or even the states, then it’ll be okay in the end, right Stephen?
Show me a case where GOProud has pushed a case like you’re talking about. Just one.
Put up or shut up.
They’re pushing it NOW, Stephen. It’s the ACU’s event and they can exclude whomever they wish. Why should the ACU have to force it’s doors open for GOProud at the risk of alienating it’s other members? The statement from the GOProud member above says everything, “Dick Cheney has a more progressive position on marriage than GOProud does.” The “progressive” position on matters – politically, culturally, and economically – has done wonders for the world.
It seems to me that every time this issue comes up, people are always saying that the federal government has no role in determining the state of marriage. You are absolutely right. The state of marriage was determined well before there was a such a thing as the United States government, but in order to accept gay marriage the only way that it can be implemented is by having the government force it on people. I don’t accept the government’s role on moral issues and can now see why it has gained so much power in the area.
It’s not about throwing one out over the other – this part of being a “Conservative” I don’t get about alot of “Social Conservatives” – if you truly believe that Federal government shouldn’t have a role in it, means that FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULDN’T HAVE A ROLE IN IT. That goes both ways, even if they are doing things that YOU like. Take that as a person who believes in the rights of the CHURCH to decide who it marries (or choses not to).
If you actually READ Steve’s piece, you’d see that GOProud said it should be left to the States to decide. Sounds like Constitutionalism to me. Tell me, why do you hate the Constitution and Founders so much? (Just kidding)
Agreed, Robert. If we’re deciding who’s conservative and who isn’t, I’d rather jettison the social conservatives. As discussed in the comments of the last GOProud post, the real struggle is not left vs. right, but big government vs. small government and I see little evidence that social conservatives are on the right side of that issue.
Oh come on now. It’s perfectly OK to hold the fiscal future of this country hostage by certain groups so that they can impose their religious beliefs on others. It’s what Jesus would do. It’s right there in the Bible next to the part of protesting at the funerals of fallen soldiers.
Organizations like GOProud serve a vital function. They act as “halfway houses” for recovering Democrats. They give lie to the Democratic assertion that the GOP has no place for minorities. In time the recoverer realizes that the GOP doesn’t care if he’s gay, black, or Californian. At least the libertarian wing doesn’t care. That, I think, is a major source of the heat on this issue. The social conservatives know that groups like this will change the balance of power in the GOP. Gays are the only minority group that is likely to strongly prefer the libertarian wing. Keeping them marginalized is the best way to maintain political power. Destroying the country is a small price to pay.
I wrote this a while ago for classical values…
I really don’t have any resentments over gays, per se. What I resent the hell out of are the whiny flamers sobbing about how they’re so put upon in this, the most tolerant society on earth.
I’d like nothing better than for gays with closets full of assault rifles to be as quietly married as everybody else. Look at it this way, every gay married couple is two caring, sensitive guys locking themselves away from women. More hot, rampant coeds for the rest of us!
I have not referred to lesbians so far, because lesbians are hot.
You’re right. Even conservatives have become so preprogrammed and PC, that they never can think this through without attaching gobs of emotional claptrap.
I do not care who you have sex with, or how, but when you become a “gay” this or a “gay” that, you are making it the issue. You are not only doing something which I find abhorrent, but you are rubbing my nose in it. Gay marriage has no actual meaning or purpose except to force non-gays into their play-world. I have a gay brother and sister, and I know very many gay people, some of whom are conservative, most of whom are liberal nutjobs. I always tell them the same thing: I don’t march down the street with my organ hanging out, having fake (or real) sex with a fire hydrant, and demand you like it (and I have seen exactly this, and the gay conservatives present said nothing), so, if you want to be my friend, behave properly, and we’ll get along great. And let’s not pretend we don’t all know what “properly” entails, either.
If you choose to label yourself, first, foremost, and always as a Klan member, ACU wouldn’t want you either, for exactly the same reason: you are offending the other members through their associational endorsement. If you are gay, and want to be involved with the ACU, join a group that is welcome, and leave your gayness at the door. The question I have is, “Why do you require a gay organization only to represent you? Are you heterophobic?”
I can only say this: I am more than willing to accept homosexuals as partners in advancing conservative policies in this country. The more the merrier. But, I will not join in furthering specifically homosexual causes. If some Democrat believes in lower tax rates, I will welcome his efforts to help get rates lowered. But I will not support his push to over-regulate business. I don’t have to agree with absolutely every point with each person on the bus, but not everyone is worthy to drive it. We should take whatever help we can get on conservative issues. But that doesn’t mean we must support each sub-group’s personal issue.
By the same token (or maybe, “on the other hand”), each sub-group, such as GOProud, needs to be conscious of why they are on the bus in the first place. They can’t divert its course in order to satisfy its personal and unique issues. The bus can’t get to its more important destination of conservatism by stopping along the way to satisfy any riders with less than conservative stops.
(Wow. I’m having trouble with my bus analogy.)
And BTW, the future will be truly “more gay-friendly” when it stops pretending the condition is morally benign and not consequence free for either the individual or the culture.
To stretch your bus analogy. The fewer stops, the fewer the riders.
Ah! But the bus is a charter, not a city bus. The charter picks up all the riders at one terminal for transport to a mutually desired destination: a country with conservative values regarding defense, the economy and, in general, right & wrong, and all the benefits derived therein. That doesn’t mean that each rider will have each and every personally beneficial desire addressed, but that every desire met will be beneficial to each rider.
Whew! Thanks for the help with my analogy.
The gay organization that has any chance of making inroads with cultural conservatives is the one that can establish itself as the antithesis of the statism of the gay left. Specifically:
1. It accepts that rational people can disagree over the nature of homosexuality, and recognizes that many of the negative attitudes toward homosexuality are secular in nature.
2. It accepts that people don’t have to like homosexuality to get along with homosexuals, and recognizes that many cultural conservatives share this belief.
3. It recognizes that the Boy Scouts have good reasons for excluding gay scout masters for reasons that have nothing to do with homosexuality, reasons that parallel those for Girl Scouts to exclude (gay or straight) male troop leaders.
4. It rejects the ethic of the gay left that seeks to employ the government to change people’s minds about homosexuality.
4a. It fully accepts principles of educational libertarianism – parents ultimately decide what their children be taught, without being overruled by GLSEN, Planned Parenthood, CAIR, NEA, AFT, AFL-CIO, People for the American Way or whomever.
4b. It recognizes that the government own neither the common language nor the concepts that language symbolizes, that marriage is a cultural convention that predates formal government, and therefore that government has no authority to redefine the concept of marriage, whose meaning has always limited itself to heterosexual unions, between a man and a woman or a man and his harem. It also recognizes the motivations of SSM proponents – if they howlingly reject an institution with all the legal privileges of American marriage but not the name, one can only conclude that a crucial goal of SSM is to jack with other people’s vocabulary a la Newspeak.
5. It rejects “hate crimes” classifications. Hate is not something a jury and ESPECIALLY not lawmakers can objectively assess. Judges are already empowered to take extenuating circumstances into account per sentencing; “hate crimes” classification is unnecessary.
That’s what I coudl come up with at the top of my head. Is GOProud that kind of organization?
I must say, having “proud” or “pride” in your organization’s name is a big turnoff. It comes across as arrogant. Maybe not “We Are The Champions”-level arrogance, but still.
Thank you, Mr. Henderson. Well said.
“perposerious?”
“As Stacy McCain likes to say, you can’t build a movement by a process of subtraction.”
And you can’t maintain a movement by kowtowing to every ragged band of mercenaries which offers its services and pledging allegiance to *their* flag. That’s what the Democrats do with gun control, abortion absolutists, feminazis, gays, race-mongers, tax and spend social engineers, union bullies, terrorist sympathizers, multiculti loons, and all the rest of their threadbare patchwork quilt of crazy. Throw a rock, and you’ll hit a patch that at least one of the other patches wants torn to shreds.
GOProud can go to hell. The point of their existence should be to advance the conservative values of the strong military/lower taxes/moral values triad, not to try to force conservatives to advance theirs. And then bitch about it and call us “bigots” when we refuse to bend over.
“Another thing to remember: The future will be even more gay-friendly than today.”
I’m sorry, isn’t this what liberals always said about abortion? Whoops. Turns out public opinion can swing in the moral values direction, too. Ultrasound has changed a lot of minds in a very short time. Besides, I thought the job of a conservative was to stand athwart history yelling “Stop!”
And I don’t care what they do in the bedroom. I just wish they’d stop dragging their bedroom into the middle of every damn street.