No, folks, you’re not reading an Onion article: in a press release today, the folks at GOProud announced the appointment of polemicist Ann Coulter to the post of “Honorary Chair and Gay Icon” of that organization’s Advisory Council. Coulter joins other wingnuts notable conservatives including Andrew Breitbart and Grover Norquist on the council.

Apparently, as far as the self-loathing conservative gays at GOProud are concerned, being on the wrong side of every major LGBT rights issue (opposing the repeal of DADT and DOMA and the passage of ENDA and hate crimes laws, endorsing “reparative therapy,” etc.) presents absolutely no impediment to a person being arbitrarily declared a “gay icon.”

For a refresher course on Ann Coulter’s long history of homophobia, check out this list compiled by Media Matters.

Ann Coulter, gay icon? Who’s next, Anita Bryant? If anyone out there still believes that GOProud serves any function other than being a shill for the extreme anti-gay right wing, today’s insanity should put those misguided views to rest. Perhaps it’s time to break out the straitjackets for Barron & Company.

In a blog post earlier this week, Chris Barron of GOProud took it upon himself to enlighten the rest of us as to why the big, bad, monolithic “Gay Left” is really picking on poor Michele Bachmann (hint: it has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a bigot):

Having followed Congresswoman Bachmann’s career, I am certainly troubled by things she has said and by things she has been purported to have said. However, the attacks on Michele Bachmann and her family by the gay left have absolutely nothing to do with gay rights. In fact, these attacks have little to do with Congresswoman Bachmann or what her [sic] or her husband believes. The truth is that they are nothing more than part and parcel of an orchestrated effort by the left to destroy the Tea Party.

Seriously, Chris?!?

Truth Wins Out’s recent investigation exposed the Minnesota clinic co-owned by Michele and Marcus Bachmann by confirming that it offers morally, spiritually, and scientifically bankrupt “ex-gay therapy.” We went public with the story because it illustrated the depth of Congresswoman Bachmann’s anti-LGBT views. TWO felt that American voters deserved to know that a candidate for the presidency of the United States is intimately tied to an extremist, voodoo “therapy” that not only falsely promises to “pray away the gay,” but also harms people by increasing their chances of depression and suicide.

We didn’t go after the Bachmann clinic because our megalomaniacal liberal overlords bid us do so in an attempt to cripple the Tea Party. TWO is actually a nonpartisan organization; we go after extremists without regard to political affiliation. (Remember Crackpot Kim?) No, destroying the Tea Party had nothing to do with it. We went after Marcus and Michele Bachmann because:

1.) They wrongly believe LGBT people can “pray away the gay”
2.) They make money by falsely promising the same
3.) So-called “ex-gay therapy” is ineffective and harms people
4.) The Bachmann clinic receives state and federal funding despite these dubious practices
5.) Michele Bachmann wants to be President of the United States, and we want voters across America to know more about her archaic and extremist anti-LGBT beliefs.

That’s it, Chris. It has everything to do with LGBT rights and nothing to do with bringing down the Tea Party. Nice try though.

Yes, really, he has a post up wherein he explains to you, the gentle reader, why you hate him.  Look:

The left rarely engages me on policy, which is smart considering they support intellectually and morally bankrupt policies and I support time-tested policies that would actually improve the lives of all Americans – including gays and lesbians. Instead of engaging on policy they rely on personal attacks and name-calling, which is fine, I am a big boy and I can take it.

Eh, uh, no. The left may indeed rarely engage him, personally, on matters of policy, because he is mostly a blow-hard, but not because he has better ideas.

But let’s be honest, the left doesn’t hate me because I am mean or brash or too aggressive – the same label can be applied to many of my critics. No, the left hates me because I have the audacity to stand up to them. They hate me because I am a conservative who happens to be gay. They hate me because I won’t be bullied by them. They hate me because I have dared to wander off the liberal plantation, because I refuse to play the victim card, and because I have rejected their failed big government agenda.

Yeah, that’s it. It can’t be because your entire platform is insane. As for “victim cards,” I hear more whining from wingnuts than I will EVER hear from liberals. Indeed, their entire worldview is built on “stickin’ it to the liberals.” But anyway, now you know why he thinks you hate him. It’s useful to remember that at least 85% of what wingnuts believe involves a massive case of projection.

But in the interest in giving lie to his claim that the left doesn’t engage on matters of policy, here is a long list of liberal sources which spend time every single day engaging on policy, debunking the crap spewed by the Right, and generally informing people far more than any wingnut blog or news organization ever will. As a bonus, they use facts! This is what I like to call the Grown-Up Side of the Internet:

Allison Kilkenny
AlterNet
AMERICAblog
Balloon Juice
Box Turtle Bulletin
Crooks and Liars
Emptywheel
Eschaton
FireDogLake
Gin and Tacos
Glenn Greenwald
Good As You
Hullaballoo [Digby]
Joe.My.God
Lawyers, Guns and Money
No More Mister Nice Blog
Obsidian Wings
Pam’s House Blend
Pandagon
RH Reality Check
Rumproast
Right Wing Watch
Sadly, No!
Salon: Joan Walsh
Talking Points Memo
The Mahablog
The New Civil Rights Movement
The Rude Pundit
Think Progress
Truth Wins Out
Whiskey Fire

Don’t see your favorite source of real, policy-driven analysis and information in that list? Those are my favorites. Suggest yours in the comments!

There are gay conservatives.  I know this.  When I have the sense of humor for it, I try to read their words and figure out where they’re coming from, and how they got there.  There is a common, oft-repeated complaint among gay conservative bloggers and pundits [all three of them] that the Big Gay Left constantly carries water for other liberal causes.  They assume that this is something that happens without forethought, which is always strange to me, because liberalism and LGBT equality go hand in hand.

Indeed, it’s actually conservatism, with its competing strains — disproven economic theory meant to serve Wall Street and Wall Street only vs. libertarianism which hates Wall Street; making the government so small that you can drown it in a bathtub, as Grover Norquist so famously said vs. a social conservatism that hates democracy and seeks to use the government to damage the lives of LGBT people and women from coast to coast, and so forth — that is anything but an aligned movement.  Liberalism?  Not so much.

Amanda Marcotte highlights this in a larger post about John Edwards’ troubles, lamenting just how sucky it is that Edwards has turned out to be such a giant ass in his personal life, as his presidential campaign was one of the few in recent history which actually tied together all the different arms of liberalism into one defining philosophy, and who explained it in terms that made sense to the average voter.  And it really is one defining philosophy. She outlines the three major arms of liberalism and starts to connect the dots:

1) Economic justice. This is labor movements, anti-poverty initiatives, fair taxation, health care reform, social services, government that is functional, etc. Anything that helps secure the middle class, bolsters the economy, and lifts people out of poverty.

2) Social justice. Feminism, anti-racism, gay rights, anti-colonialism, things like that—anything that divides people against each other on the basis of identity hierarchies.

3) Environmentalism and rationalism. Preserving the planet, promoting science, basically using the now to work towards a better tomorrow.

Obviously, a smart person sees how these are interrelated and that you really fail at anti-racism if you don’t think about poverty and that you’re not a good environmentalist if economic justice isn’t part of your worldview, and you’re not an effective feminist if you treat science like it’s a lark.

They really all do go together. I’d add that you’re not really going to understand the gay rights struggle if you aren’t a rationalist who believes in science, and you’re not going to understand the need for marriage equality fully if you don’t understand the real economic results of policies that serve the whole population well — as opposed to just those at the top. This seems like a good time to point out that gay conservatives tend to be upper-middle class white men, or those who dream of one day being so, and are willing to overlook where they actually are in service of who they might be, maybe one day, if things go well for them. And Amanda’s right — there are a million other intersection points between those three arms.

One thing I’ve been encouraged by over the past year has been that, more and more every day, Truth Wins Out readers are coming from more and more diverse areas out of the greater liberal spectrum. Surely there is a huge case to be made for why moderates and conservatives should also support equality for LGBT people, as there is really no philosophy aside from theocracy that it doesn’t fit into. But for those who wonder why educated gay rights activists also tend to support the rest of the planks of liberalism as well, well, now you know why.

Look, I appreciate groups like GOProud to a point, just because watching people like Tony Perkins pull their hair out and have temper tantrums is hilarious, no matter who’s causing it.  But I’ve got to say, it’s really kinda weird to me that these people are so willing to beg for an embrace from people who don’t respect their fundamental dignity as human beings, and no, people who do not support equal rights for gay people do not respect gay people’s fundamental dignity as human beings.  This isn’t 1965.  There is no legitimate excuse for a sentient person to “agree to disagree” on these issues.  You either view us as lesser, or you do not.  Dan Blatt at Gay Wingnut:

That said, as is, [Ben Smith's] word choice suggests that gay Republicans have adopted a confrontational tone with the GOP. That may have been try in Log Cabin’s early years, but today, we’re not so much demanding acceptance as finding a welcome.

Yeah, there still remain social conservatives loath to include us in conservative conclaves, but, by and large, we’ve found a welcome.

And yet, the GOP still can’t run a presidential candidate who doesn’t perform the Stations of the Anti-Gay Cross for the frothing morons who make up their base. Some “welcome.”

Conservatives today are more concerned with the size of government than they are with the private lives of individuals — and pretty much have been for the past forty years, only the media do seem to dwell on the presence of religious conservatives in the movement as if said indviduals define it, rather than represent one aspect of it

Uh, maybe in New Hampshire. Not in Alabama or Georgia or any of the other GOP strongholds.  Oh, and the House GOP is hellbent on defending DOMA right into its grave.  What a hill to die on.

With the first primary debate last night, the GOP, as Matt Taibbi said yesterday, “kick[ed] off the long process of burying their party as a mainstream political force for the next decade or so.”  [Read Taibbi's whole piece, by the way.]  The standard-bearers for the party are, with two exceptions, wingnuts so extreme that they couldn’t appeal to anyone beyond the True Believers if their lives depended on it.  And of course, the exceptions [Pawlenty, Romney], as Taibbi points out, are so painfully boring — and decidedly doubleplusungood when it comes to catering to the wingnuts who will vote in the Republican primaries — that they have little chance of making it out of the primaries, much less having a decent showing in the general election.

In a way, I feel gay conservatives’ pain, because it must be alarming to watch their beloved party go even further into Bachmann-land, but at the same time, since they don’t seem to be asking for dignity or respect, maybe it’s just as well.  I mean, Michele Bachmann’s family watches Glee, right?  As long as she’ll let the gays watch it with her [I mean, they have to sit outside and peer in through the window, of course], and as long as they can shriek the word “diva!” at Ann Coulter, it’s not like they need to be treated like first-class citizens.

So there!  If ever there was an “ex-liberal” pundit I’ve suspected that the Religious Right actually may have created in a secret dungeon, it’s Star Parker.  Because she says things like this:

I became a conservative in church. I thought I was doing okay in my previous life — scamming the welfare system, going to the beach, soaking in my welfare-subsidized hot tub, treating sex as a hobby, and abortion as birth control.

You see, she was one of those “welfare queen” Rush Limbaugh is always talking about, scaring the old white ladies so! And to be fair, Star did have four abortions, so she knows what she’s talking about. [No, she doesn't.] Anyway, she would like to explain why she did not go to CPAC now:

Yes, the reason I declined was the inclusion of GOProud, a group identifying itself as representing “gay conservatives and their allies,” as a sponsor of the event.

[...]

The founder and chairman of GOProud removed any doubt on my part that not participating was the correct decision by dismissing these groups as “losers,” “clowns,” and “not relevant.”

For once, yes, GOProud actually said something to imply that perhaps they are deserving of dignity and shouldn’t be a doormat for the rest of the conservative movement.

I, of course, have been accused of being worse than a clown.

WORSE THAN A CLOWN? There is nothing worse than a clown.

The idea of “gay conservative” is an oxymoron.

“Gay” is everything that “conservative” is not.

[...]

It’s a worldview that is man-centered rather than God-centered. It is a worldview that rejects eternal truths passed on from the beginning of time. Although the worldview that “gay conservatives” choose to invent may diverge from the worldview of liberals, their common ground is they make it all up.

Ah, it’s the old “we’re smart because we believe our interpretation of things in an old faith book, without any corroborating evidence, you’re stupid” approach. It’s adorable because it’s so mindblowingly stupid.

Conservatives believe that there are objective and eternal truths, not of the product of any individual human mind, that are transmitted through the generations.

Like Old Wives’ Tales!

“Gay” is liberal, not conservative, regardless of what their stand may be on government spending or taxes.

Okay, got it.  Gays not conservatives because gays don’t believe in old wives’ tales, and I used to be a welfare queen, so I’m an expert.

Johnny Weir recently confirmed that the sky is indeed blue when he finally acknowledged that he’s gay, and he made a statement that’s being latched onto by conservatives as some sort of statement in support of their ideology.  Here’s what Weir said:

“But pressure is the last thing that would make me want to ‘join’ a community… The massive backlash against me in the gay media and community only made me dig my ‘closeted’ heels in further.”

Oh, whatever.  Creating drama where there is none.

So conservative law perfesser Ann Althouse latched onto this, giving her list of deep interpretations for why Weir waited so long:

3. Some people think of themselves as, above all, individuals, and when others think the most important thing is their membership in a particular group, they resist. They don’t want to be defined by a single quality, especially when it’s a quality that makes other people see them in terms of the group stereotype, and not personal uniqueness. There was a special playfulness to this notion in Weir’s case, because he engaged in the very open “flamboyant” style that people think of as stereotypically gay.

4. Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you like other gay people and want to join their team. Heterosexuals don’t naturally love all the other heterosexuals. Gay men may need to look for their sexual partners in the pool of gay men,* but there’s no reason why you have to like everyone in your category of potential sexual partners, and, indeed, it’s a good idea to reject the vast majority of potential sexual partners. You only need one (at most). You’re entitled to think that most of them are jerks.

Show of hands, please: how many of you, when you came out, did so in order to retain “membership” in the “gay community”? Likewise, how many of you did it as a matter of finally living with honesty and integrity?

And with your hands still raised, please help me smack down the strawman Ann built in #4, with her notion that somehow every gay person is expected to adore everyone in Their Category. Because really, who are we talking about? Speaking from personal experience here, I’m, among many things, a part of The Gay Community — indeed, I’m, I suppose, one of many diverse spokespeople for The Gay Community, writing to you as I am now — but no one on earth would ever accuse me of liking most gay people.  I like some of them!  Maybe I like you!  Maybe I do not!  The point is, what in hell does this have to do with Johnny Weir coming out or not coming out?

But we’re not done erecting strawmen yet.  Over at GayPatriot, Dan Blatt approvingly linked to Althouse’s post with commentary of his own.  Bear in mind, we are still talking about the ice skater who compensates for his lack of gold medals by wearing boas:

It often seem that the gay rights’ movement is devoted to the notion of group rights rather than individual ones. It is why I believe we need develop a conservative message on gays, independent to that developed by the left-leaning gay groups, organizations helmed by men and women with a background in Democratic politics, liberal ideologies and statist theories.

Groups are, um, made up of individuals, and when the individuals in a group are all being denied, individually, the same rights as the other people in the group, it’s common for the, ahem, group of, erm, individuals, to band together to fight for the equal rights of the individuals in the, um, group.

Anyway, to sum up, Johnny Weir didn’t come out because he didn’t want to be perceived as a stereotypical member of the gay community, who only wants rights for groups, but not for individuals, and this is good for conservatives because, oh god, he’s skating to Ke$ha, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!

But this is resonating with someone because Althouse then returns the link-wank and creates a new post out of a comment on the Gay Patriot post.  As Pam would say, protect your keyboards:

“‘Coming out’ doesn’t mean coming to terms with the fact you’re gay — it means publicly identifying yourself so the Gay Police can find you and kidnap you into the Gay Borg. It’s easier for the Gay Police to round you up if you believe that Flyover Country is hostile to gays to you move to a Gay Urban Area. Then, the Borg can save expenses for rounding you up since you jumped into the pen voluntarily. For me, the process of accepting my sexuality meant rejecting the gay community because they didn’t offer a model for sexual behavior which had anything to do with my values. All of my friends are straight since my core identities are masculine, Christian, etc. Gay is way down on the list. I am glad that many gays are refusing to join the Borg, even if it means sacrificing the toaster.”

Okay, now that’s some weird paranoia right there. First of all, gay people live all over flyover country [hi!], but when people in the process of coming out of the closet are simultaneously rejecting others who have taken that same journey, then it bespeaks of personal problems on THEIR PART, not on that of The Gay Community, because as you all know, The Gay Community is made up of many diverse, ahem, INDIVIDUALS.  Also, were y’all aware that there was a Borg?  Have we all been missing the mandatory meetings?  Well damn.

But perhaps we just don’t get it because we’re not conservatives looking for some way to differentiate ourselves as victims in some way or another.

Of course, Tintin at Sadly, No! shortened Dan’s post about “group rights” and “conservative messages on gays” into its purest meaning:

Gay liberals are always shouting about how gay they are. Gay conservatives, like myself, see themselves as unique individuals rather than as gays. Please pay no attention to the name of this blog.

Giggle.

Today’s column from Kerry Eleveld in The Advocate is something that needs to be read, because it spells out where we are, today, on the subject of homophobia:

First off, can we please drop the canard that allowing certain people to marry each other somehow impinges on certain other people’s religious freedoms? No one will be forcing churches or religious leaders to perform same-sex ceremonies against their will, and people will undoubtedly maintain their right to worship as they choose completely free of government interference—as they always have. And for the Post to suggest that recognizing marriage equality necessarily conflicts with the beliefs of all religious groups is completely disingenuous, especially after nearly 200 religious leaders in the district stood with the multifaith group D.C. Clergy United for Marriage Equality.

But perhaps more to the point, it’s time for mainstream America to realize that endorsing politicians who claim to support “equality” for LGBT Americans but not marriage equality is tantamount to aiding and abetting homophobia; that they are mounting a direct attack on the love shared by fellow tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who want to make lifelong commitments to care for one another; that they are relegating people they work with, live with, and, yes, worship with, to second-class status.

There is no gray any longer, no hair-splitting, no rationalization or triangulation that suffices anymore. If you don’t support same-sex marriage, you don’t support equality and that is quite simply homophobic.

Thank you!  There seems to be a mindset among certain people, even among conserva-gays, that the mere fact that somebody doesn’t support marriage equality doesn’t mean they’re homophobic.  Whenever I see that, my reaction is pretty simple:  this is not 1969.  Really, it isn’t.  I joked a few months back that gay conservatives are valiantly fighting the battles of the 1970′s, but I was making a serious point.  In the year 2010, to not support marriage equality is to not support gay people.  Period.

Of course, there are different kinds of homophobia, and wingnuts are quick to assert that viciously anti-gay politicians and leaders hold “the same position as the president” on marriage equality, which is a talking point Obama really needs to stop handing them, since no one in their right mind actually thinks the President is against marriage equality in his heart of hearts.  He’s just being a wuss.  But, as Kerry says, he’s “aiding and abetting homophobia.”

When I talk to people younger than me (and I’m not that old), I’m always quite taken aback to find out that a young person doesn’t support equality.  Usually, my reaction is one of “What planet do you live on, exactly?”, as the consensus among Americans under thirty is so strongly in support of equality.

It’s time for everyone else to get with the program.  You either support all of our equal rights, or you’re standing on the side of hatred and discrimination.  As Kerry said, there’s no longer a gray area here.

Read the whole column, because she says a lot more than I quoted.

[h/t Joe Sudbay]

We knew Homocon was going to be an amazing shame party, and luckily Tintin at Sadly, No! has uncovered the itinerary so we all know what it is to look forward to at this gathering of the homosexual wingnuts:

Yes, it’s that awesome.

Gay conservatives are just like other gays! There’s not anything about their ideology that betrays fundamental psychological issues ranging from general self-loathing to a pathetic willingness to worship at the altar of people who view them as second class citizens, or anything like that! I mean, look at this breathless press release from Jimmy LaSalvia and Chris Barron of GOProud. Nothing pitiable here!

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies, announced that conservative author Ann Coulter is headlining their first annual Homocon – a party to celebrate gay conservatives. “The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the ‘no fun police’ on the left,” said Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud. “I can’t think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed ‘right-wing Judy Garland’ – Ann Coulter.”

Ann Coulter is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers —Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America (January 2009); If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans (October, 2007); Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 2006); How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004); Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).

Homocon 2010 will take place in New York City on the evening of Saturday September 25th. VIP Sponsorships are available for $2500 and general admission tickets go on sale August 20th. To purchase tickets or for more information: www.goproud.org.

“I can promise you, Homocon 2010 will be a hell of a lot more fun than chaining yourself to the White House fence,” concluded Barron.

So basically, Ann Coulter will show up in whatever slutty black dress she found on the floor that morning, she’ll show up and deliver her brand of humor, which is discernible only to wingnuts, a bunch of bitter queens will say things like “Oh, you GO, gurl!” and shout “DIVA!,” and then she’ll collect her check and leave the starstruck fan boys behind to awkwardly fight the remaining demons in the room and grouse about how The Rest Of The Gays don’t make them feel welcome at their tea dances. Also…in what way, shape or form is Ann Coulter the “Judy Garland” of anything? I’d say she’s the Judy Garland of Adam’s Apples, but a horde of drag queens, past and present, would vociferously disagree.

Sounds like quite a night.

For the record, here are some of the things Ann Coulter has said about gay people, slurs she has used, courtesy of Jeremy:

One student asked what she would do if she had a child who came out as gay.

Coulter replied: “I’d say, `Did I ever tell you you’re adopted?’” [SOURCE]

Do I really need to post anything else that she’s said? Doesn’t that one statement show what kind of Stockholm Syndrome we’re dealing with? Here’s Ann talking about how Mike Huckabee is TOO PRO-GAY for her bigoted liking:

Huckabee claims he opposes gay marriage and says Scalia is his favorite justice, but he supports a Supreme Court decision denounced by Scalia for paving the way to a “constitutional right” to gay marriage. I guess Huckabee is one of those pro-sodomy, pro-gay marriage, pro-evolution evangelical Christians.”

What’s next, GOProud boys? Would you like me to see if I could get you some of Anita Bryant’s bathwater for you to use as the base for jello shots at your party?