I am not a gay conservative…to say the least. And I’ve questioned in the past the wisdom of GOProud, the gay conservative group, participating at CPAC along with groups that want to legislate away their dignity. I still question that wisdom. They’ve been sending out reports from CPAC along the lines of “Nobody has beat us up yet, so that means conservatives aren’t bigots after all!” They’re also stupidly suggesting that because Dick Cheney got a standing ovation, that the wingnuts are somehow supportive of gays because Dick Cheney supports gays.

It’s pathetic. Newsflash: Wingnuts like Dick Cheney because Dick Cheney is a torture-mongering ghoul, and wingnuts are weak people, so they feel strengthened by the idea of torturing people, as long as they don’t have to personally exhibit any strength or courage of their own.

Anyway. I don’t care how nice people are to the gay CPAC-ers; what matters is what policies they support. Lots of people are nice to people they hate, especially Southerners, who I would imagine are overrepresented at Winguttapalooza. It’s so ingrained in our culture that we have code phrases that express disdain while always being able to claim the mantle of gentility. (“Bless her heart.”) So personally, the fact that the gay conservatives haven’t been shot at yet at CPAC isn’t impressive.

Also, they’re dealing with the fact that the GOP line on their dignity and existence is that they shouldn’t have any. Consider this quote from Chris Plante, who’s running the National Organization for Marriage (nom nom nom) booth just a few feet away:

“Gays and lesbians have the right to live as they choose, but they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us,” Plante said.

Uh huh, right. And believe me, NOM is more welcome there than GOProud is. Again, I don’t care now nice and polite CPAC-ers are to the gays in their midst. The fact that gay conservatives are impressed and excited to be included without having to wear pink triangles is pathetic and reveals the self-loathing and the deeply ingrained beliefs in their own inferiority that we’ve always seen in them.

Meanwhile, an insane press conference happened, featuring Elaine Donnelly, Queen of the 101st Chairborne Brigade, and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family (who apparently can’t pronounce the word “debacle”), who projected their pathetic Fear of the Gay onto our brave troops as they came out in opposing DADT repeal. Also speaking were know-nothing Tony Perkins and David Keene, who organized the entire conference. Oh, also, there was an old retired admiral who probably had to be helped onto the stage, testifying about his 1930′s version of reality. Watch it if you want, but you’ll lose a few brain cells.

All of that being said, though, this video of Jimmy LaSalvia, the King of the Gay Wingnuts, is pretty funny:

ZING! The boys at the NOM booth are total pansies! On that, we agree.

Anyway, so there you go. Jimmy LaSalvia made a funny and nobody’s been gay-bashed yet at CPAC. Glad to see, again, that they’re persevering in their quest to win the gay rights battles of the 1970′s.

UPDATE: Okay, so all of that being said, this video is also funny. Ryan Sorba, a hysterical and likely closeted anti-gay activist, decided to take to the stage and condemn CPAC for inviting GOProud to the event, and he was received poorly by some in the room. What I notice is that at the beginning, some were booing him, and some were cheering him, but as his childish tantrum grew more hysterical, the boos got louder. Mike Madden at Salon’s War Room opened his report on this by saying, “Turns out CPAC isn’t quite the place for insane jeremiads against homosexuality.” I would suggest, rather, a more balanced reaction, because if you click on the link above to watch the aforementioned press conference, you’ll see that there is indeed a place for insane jeremiads against homosexuality at CPAC. It seems to me that what’s become socially unacceptable, even in CPAC, is the kind of frothing, unhinged anti-gay ranting that’s the hallmark of Ryan Sorba’s “career.” I guarantee you that, for a lot of people in that room, their issue is not the content of Sorba’s tirade, but rather the unfiltered nature of it, because they know that their bigotry is not acceptable in intelligent society. So NOM and Elaine Donnelly and Tom Minnery are fine with them. The rhetorical equivalent of playing with your dingleberries on stage, as exhibited by Ryan Sorba, is not.

Pretty funny, though.

If you missed the event he’s referencing, where the students at Smith College exposed Sorba for the embarrassment he is, click the clicky and laugh.

As if we had not suffered enough inclement weather, citizens of Lynchburg, Virginia and South Bend, Indiana will get “ex-gay” snow jobs this weekend.

In Lynchburg there will be a conference on Friday, “the Consequences of Same-Gender Attraction.” The hate-fest will feature Exodus International’s President Alan Chambers, (pictured) who is using this opportunity as a warm-up act for an April trip to Belfast, Ireland.

Hasn’t Chambers’ irresponsible outfit caused enough problems already in places like Uganda? How this man wakes up in the morning and can look in the mirror without feeling deep shame, (not counting the shame he internalizes over his sexuality) I’ll never know. It takes a special type of human being, one with out a conscience, to consistently lie to himself and others.

I’d like to remind the good folks of Lynchburg, that last time Liberty University tried the ex-gay thing, it didn’t go so well. Their “pray away the gay” poster boy was a man named Michael Johnston. He now lives in a sex addiction facility in Kentucky, following a slew of bareback orgies with men. Here’s the mini-movie:

On Saturday, the Liberty University Law Review will host a legal symposium entitled “Homosexual Rights and First Amendment Freedoms: Can They Truly Coexist?”

Of course they can co-exist, unless your religious beliefs and practice are defined exclusively by violent anti-gay animus. If you believe the First Amendment allows you to harass, intimidate, torment and physically abuse LGBT people then there is a conflict. Other than that, there’s no problem.

So, why all the fear-mongering?

It seems quite obvious that in states with laws that protect citizens based on sexual orientation, people are still free to pray any way they wish. But, reality has never been the Religious Right’s cup of tea.

If you are fortunate enough to be around at 1:30pm on Saturday, you will catch a panel featuring arch-homophobes Robert Knight (pictured) and Elaine Donnelly, “Hire Them and Don’t Fire Them: How Homosexual Rights and Privileges Have Eroded Employers’ Rights and Destroyed Religious Freedom.” (Read More)

A year after it helped launch the Uganda genocide legislation, Exodus is teaming up with Robert Knight, Matt Barber, and an attorney who affirmed child abduction by her ex-gay activist client. Joining with NARTH’s leading political activists “therapists” at Liberty University’s School of Law, their objective is simple: Convince the public that the Constitution’s Bill of Rights cannot survive so long as LGBT people have any rights at all.

Exodus International President Alan Chambers will headline a two-day conference and symposium Feb. 12-13. The events will criticize sexual honesty, reject mainstream psychiatry, deny the existence of sexual orientation, and assert that conservative Christians’ rights are incompatible with the rights of sexual and religious minorities.

According to the Liberty Counsel, a Christian Right legal-attack squad, the February 12 conference is titled “Understanding Same-sex Attractions and Their Consequences.” On February 13, the Liberty University Law Review will host a legal symposium entitled “Homosexual Rights and First Amendment Freedoms: Can They Truly Coexist?” Liberty University was founded by fundamentalist Jerry Falwell, and it is operated as a veritable police state where no dissent from the late Falwell’s ideology and lifestyle are permitted.

Chambers will tell fundamentalists — as he has done many times before — that same-sex attractions are caused by bad parenting and abuse, that public honesty about one’s orientation is sinful, and that recognition of the equality of religious and sexual minorities is demonic. (Read More)

Elaine Donnelly, a woman with no military training and little understanding of the military, runs the Center for Military Readiness, a “think-tank” devoted to opposing the open inclusion of LGBT citizens (and women) in the military. According to her missives, the United States Military just isn’t as strong as the rest of the militaries around the world (like Israel, the United Kingdom, etc.), in which open gays and lesbians serve alongside straight servicemembers. In short, Elaine Donnelly is a know-nothing demagogue who has far more of a voice than her merit deserves.

And now, via Think Progress, Elaine has given an interview to Secure Freedom Radio’s Frank Gaffney, in which she claims that the true culprit in the Abu Ghraib scandal was women serving alongside men in the military:

DONNELLY: Ok, now how are we going to deal with four different sexual groups, say in Special Operations summaries. How’ that going to work? Or are we going to have the kind of military ‚Äî and he clearly suggests this ‚Äî he says yes, we have women in the military. We all support women in the military. However, he says that everything has been going on just fine without incident. Umm, what was that Abu Ghraib scandal all about? It started out as misconduct between men and women and then it steadily deteriorated into abuse of prisoners. The common denominator is lack of discipline. Once you break down discipline, good order and discipline and morale, everything that’ required for unit cohesion, you undermine the culture and the strength of the armed forces. This man obviously doesn’t get that.

Again, she’s a know-nothing demagogue. She seems to be unaware that there are multitudes of decorated female servicemembers, as well as LGBT servicemembers, and it’s done nothing to damage discipline. And, Think Progress also points out that Ms. Donnelly doesn’t seem to have a clue what the Abu Ghraib scandal was all about in the first place, as it’s part of a revealed pattern of torture techniques in Iraq and Afghanistan that started at the very top, with Rumsfeld’s Defense Department. Perhaps Ms. Donnelly doesn’t watch the news very much (and I wouldn’t expect a demagogue of her kind to stay informed about much of anything), but we’ve been discussing the incidence of U.S.-sanctioned torture in these conflicts in our national discourse for several years now. Abu Ghraib was merely the first glimpse of the problem. Torture has happened at CIA black sites, at Guant?°namo, and a recent report in Harper’s exposes* a previously unknown black site at Guant?°namo referred to as Camp “No,” run either by the CIA or by J-SOC, in which Americans may have tortured detainees who had never been charged with a crime, quite literally, to death.

So no, Ms. Donnelly, you’re simply making things up again, in service of your bigotry. It’s important to remember that our foes who fight against the LGBT community tend to also be fierce misogynists. The fact that a few of them have two X chromosomes is irrelevant. They have simply bought into the ideology that states that all human beings should be subservient to straight, white, Christian men. Donnelly believes that women who serve simply don’t “know their place.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Donnelly repeats her tired claims that the repeal of DADT is part of some monolithic “Gay Agenda” which seeks to undermine the military. Same old, same old, like a broken record.

Meanwhile in the real world, General John Shalikashvili, who implemented the policy in the first place, stated this week that it’s time to repeal the DADT policy. Ever the tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist, Pam Spaulding reported that in 2007, when Shalikashvili first came out against the policy, Ms. Donnelly claimed that the general had been coerced into changing his mind by Big Gay Activists, due to the fact that he had recently had a stroke.

What say you now, Elaine? No, just kidding. No one cares what you think.

If you’re interested in what other know-nothings on the Religious Right have to say about the repeal of DADT, Kyle at Right Wing Watch has posted a round-up of their reactions.

Last night, President Obama called for the policy to be repealed this year. We shall see if he follows through, but John Aravosis looked at the language he used and found reasons to be encouraged, and indeed White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett stated that the process for repeal will start right away.

I’m cautiously optimistic.

*If you haven’t read that Harper’s piece, please find thirty minutes to do so. It’s extremely important.