No, just kidding!

But in reporting on the Ken Mehlman story today, MSNBC anchor Peter Alexander Thomas Roberts came out openly discussed his sexual orientation in a discussion with Chris Barron of GOProud:

BARRON: We know that opinion poll after opinion poll shows that the single most important factor in determining how someone feels about gay rights or about gay issues is whether or not they know someone who is gay or lesbian….

ROBERTS: I think for probably most heterosexual Americans this isn’t going to come as a big deal, but I think for millions of gay and lesbian Americans — me included — find this to be kind of a shocking admission, especially when Mehlman’s leadership, in the positions that he held, came at a time when he was part of talks that would have put discrimination into the Constitution. When they were ramping up anti gay rhetoric and now he wants to come out say, ‘hey I’m one of you.’ So how does he go about trying to get millions of gay and lesbian Americans to believe that he is not just a big hypocrite.

Watch it:

That, by the way, is my favorite coming-out style ever. The completely casual, “Oh by the way, you didn’t know? Well anyway” style is so effective. It hits people differently. Especially when they are already out of the closet, like Thomas Roberts.

UPDATE: Originally the Think Progress story said that “Peter Alexander” was the anchor, and that he had “come out.” Unfortunately, the man’s name is Thomas Roberts, and his gayness was already well known! My bad for not being able to correctly identify MSNBC anchors beyond “The Joe and Mika ones” and “The Rachel Maddow one.”

For many years, Ken Mehlman worked to prop up elected anti-gay bigots, including running the virulently anti-gay reelection campaign of George W. Bush in 2004.  Now that he’s finally coming out, Mike Rogers is giving Mehlman his ‘Roy Cohn Award’, his reporting from several years ago having been validated:

If I first started writing about Mehlman in 2004, why is Ken getting his Roy Cohn Award now? Because I am able to report – here for the first time — that Ken Mehlman, the former Chairman of the Republican National Committee is set to come out of the closet in a column by Atlantic writer Marc Ambinder Friday morning or early next week. This will be on the heels of him being included in fundraising letter supporting marriage equality.

[...]

The three people most responsible for the anti-gay actions of the Bush reelection campaign are Mehlman, Karl Rove and Bush. In addition to his role at the RNC, Mehlman served in the first Bush Administration as White House Political Director. In 2004 he was the general chairman of the Bush reelection campaign.

[...]

If this move doesn’t call for a Roy Cohn Award, I don’t know what does. Ken Mehlman is horridly homophobic and no matter how orchestrated his coming out is, our community should hold him accountable for his past.

If it seems like Mike is being harsh, it’s because he is, and I understand where he’s coming from.  Mike goes on to explain how Mehlman could actually redeem himself:

I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for being the architect of the 2004 Bush reelection campaign. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for his role in developing strategy that resulted in George W. Bush threatening to veto ENDA or any bill containing hate crimes laws. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for the pressing of two Federal Marriage Amendments as political tools. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for developing the 72-hour strategy, using homophobic churches to become political arms of the GOP before Election Day.

And those state marriage amendments. I want to hear him apologize for every one of those, too.

I agree. Ken Mehlman cynically used his position of influence to rake in mountains of cash for himself, and he willingly did it on the backs of his gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. If Mehlman is still a Republican, I’m sure the GOProud people will embrace him with open arms, because they don’t really care if a person is anti-gay or gay-supportive. They’re pretty much in it for tax cuts and self-shaming purposes. Mehlman will fit right in, in that case. But if he suddenly wants to become a spokesman for The Gays and The Equality, he’s got a lot of explaining and apologizing to do.

Week three of wingnuts sparring with each other over the Homo[sexual]Con[wingnuts] crowd and the Ann Coulter speaking-to of that crowd.

Here’s Ann Coulter on that Fox show Red Eye, along with several other “comedians,” making fun of WorldNetDaily.

[h/t Pam Spaulding]

So, I think this is slapfight, part twenty or so.  Let’s catch up real quick:

1.  Gay Republican group GOProud announces that they have hired third-tier pundit Ann Coulter to speak at their big gay wingnut party.  They are very excited that she deigns to talk to them, for money.

2.  Peter LaBarbera starts crying and begging for Ann Coulter to come back to him and stop hanging out with those other girls.

3.  The other girls are like “LMAO she’s with us, Heather.”

4.  Mustachioed Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily, breaks up with Ann Coulter on the internet and kicks her off of the speaking roster for his Wingnuts of the Sea cruise.

5.  Ann Coulter lashes out at the mustache, calling him “swine” and a “publicity whore.”

Which brings us to today.

Peter LaBarbera is upset that nobody, and I mean nobody, is including him in this conversation, so he has posted another wailing plea to Ann Coulter, asking her to donate her speaking fee to a bigot nonprofit:

We at AFTAH have an idea: how about if Coulter donates her GOProud speaking fee to two worthy pro-family organizations whose mission (we hope) Coulter hopefully agrees with more than that of the phony “conservatives” over at GOProud, who put “gay rights” above traditional values. Here are two wonderful groups that could benefit from GOProud’s cash (via Coulter):

Elaine Donnelly’s Center for Military Readiness, which has led the way in battling President Obama’s reckless plan to homosexualize the U.S. military in a time of war (GOProud supports the Democrat-led effort to repeal the ban on open homosexuals in the military);
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) — this worthy yet perpetually underfunded organization stands up for the rights of former homosexuals — who regularly get demonized and sometimes bullied by the supposedly “tolerant” Homosexual Activist Lobby.

Okay first of all, there’s really nothing incongruent about GOProud’s money going to organizations which exist to hurt gay people, because that’s where they send their money anyway. They don’t usually give their money to such in-your-face hate groups as PFOX, though. Then Peter makes a really strange request, which leads me to believe he wasn’t familiar with Ann Coulter before all this:

Ann, we’re asking you to put your conservative and Christian pro-family principles above the Almighty Dollar.

Yeah, okay, I’m sure she’ll get right on that.

Elsewhere in his missive Peter totally defends The Mustache against the mean lady who wears black cocktail dresses from TJ Maxx in the mornings, because he’s nothing if not chivalrous.

In other news, Joseph Farah is apparently Ann Coulter’s mirror!

The slapfight just goes on and on and on and on. If you’re just catching up to this story, start here. But for those who are already caught up, you’ll remember that last night, World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah took to his little website to announce tearfully that he had kicked Ann Coulter off his speaking roster for the upcoming Wingnuts of the Sea cruise he’s throwing, due to her refusal to gay bash the gay wingnuts of GOProud, and her insistence on taking their money for giving a speech at Shame-Con.

Well NOW, according to Tucker Carlson’s “Daily Choler,” or whatever it is, Ann Coulter has decided to call the kettle a “publicity whore”:

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter responded today to the announcement that WorldNetDaily was dropping her as a speaker for one of their events, calling WorldNetDaily Editor Joseph Farah a “publicity whore” and a “swine.”

Coulter was bumped from the speakers list of WND’s September “Taking America Back National Conference” after it was announced that she had accepted a speaking gig at a New York City party hosted by GOProud, a Washington-based group that represents gay conservatives.

“[F]arah is doing this for PUBLICITY and publicity alone,” Coulter wrote in an email to The Daily Caller on Wednesday afternoon.

AND:

“[T]his was an email exchange [between] friends and even though I didn’t expressly say “OFF THE RECORD” and I believe everything I said, he’s a swine for using my private emails politely answering him.” Coulter wrote in the email to TheDC. “[W]hy would he do such a despicable thing? … for PUBLICITY.”

AND ALSO:

“I will say that [Farah] could give less than two sh-ts about the conservative movement — as demonstrated by his promotion of the birther nonsense (long ago disproved by my newspaper, human events, also sweetness & light, american spectator and national review etc, etc etc). He’s the only allegedly serious conservative pushing the birther thing. for ONE reason: to get hits on his website.”

God bless it, but there is nothing funnier than wingnuts fighting.   That said, I’m guessing that Ann Coulter is pretty much banned from the Joseph Farah Mustache Ride for life now.

UPDATE:

Also note that the gay wingnuts are totally screaming “DIVAAAAAA!” to each other over this, and defending Ann Coulter for being against gay marriage, because really, those guys don’t want equal rights.  As long as they can eat dinner in the big house…

They didn’t dump her as a columnist, because World Net Daily editor Joseph Farah thinks his website is ideologically diverse, and he wants to keep it that way, but they’ve kicked her of the roster as a speaker at THEIR wingnut party:

Conservative superstar Ann Coulter today was dropped as a keynote speaker for WND’s “Taking America Back National Conference” next month because of her plan to address an event titled “HOMOCON” sponsored by the homosexual Republican group GOProud that promotes same-sex marriage and military service for open homosexuals.

Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, said the decision was a gut-wrenching one for his team because of their fondness for Coulter as both a person and writer-speaker.

“Ultimately, as a matter of principle, it would not make sense for us to have Ann speak to a conference about ‘taking America back’ when she clearly does not recognize that the ideals to be espoused there simply do not include the radical and very ‘unconservative’ agenda represented by GOProud,” said Farah. “The drift of the conservative movement to a brand of materialistic libertarianism is one of the main reasons we planned this conference from the beginning.”

Asked by Farah why she was speaking to GOProud, Coulter said: “They hired me to give a speech, so I’m giving a speech. I do it all the time.”

Farah then asked: “Do you not understand you are legitimizing a group that is fighting for same-sex marriage and open homosexuality in the military – not to mention the idea that sodomy is just an alternate lifestyle?”

Coulter responded: “That’s silly, I speak to a lot of groups and do not endorse them. I speak at Harvard and I certainly don’t endorse their views. I’ve spoken to Democratic groups and liberal Republican groups that loooove abortion. The main thing I do is speak on college campuses, which is about the equivalent of speaking at an al-Qaida conference. I’m sure I agree with GOProud more than I do with at least half of my college audiences. But in any event, giving a speech is not an endorsement of every position held by the people I’m speaking to. I was going to speak for you guys, I think you’re nuts on the birther thing (though I like you otherwise!).”

Funny things about this:

A. It’s always funny when wingnuts fight.
B. Ann Coulter declined to endorse GOProud, which continues GOProud’s long tradition of getting all a-flutter over people who haven’t even given any indication that they even like them, aside from a completed cash transaction.
C. Ann Coulter doesn’t endorse “Harvard” or “college campuses,” either. What she’s opposed to is information and learning, you see.

Also: I figured Joseph Farah would be going to Homocon?

…

No?

We’re going to need more popcorn, because this isn’t over.

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.

In case you were wondering why I hadn’t written much about the hilarious snarking back and forth between the various corners of gay wingnuttia over Ann Coulter, it was because I was savin’ it for the Wonkette treatment:

Did everybody hear about the big shame-party that the homosexual conservatives are throwing in New York City for Ann Coulter? If this news missed you, worry not, for there likely will be tickets available until several weeks after the event. But let’s catch up. This group is not kidding when they call themselves “GOProud” — or at least they don’t understand why we think it’s funny — and they are throwing the first annual “HomoCon,” which will be just like Comic-Con, except the virgins will be humorless and homosexual, and at least 99% white.

Go on, then, read it all.

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?

Fight, fight, fight!

Grover Norquist, the anti-tax activist and Republican strategist who famously said he wants to make government so small you can drown it in a bathtub (the way it happened in New Orleans, I guess), doesn’t really care much for the anti-gay part of the Republican agenda, and showed it by joining the board of GOProud, the group of gay conservatives who split off because the Log Cabin Republicans weren’t wingnutty enough.

Predictably, the usual suspects on the Religious Right are losing it over this, as it’s just more evidence that, as usual, the Religious Right is the bastard stepchild of the conservative movement. Kyle at Right Wing Watch has collected reactions from a couple of rightwing Christian organizations. Go there to read the response from Focus on the Family, after you read this reaction from the Family Research Council:

I was somewhat surprised to see that Americans for Tax Reform’s president, Grover Norquist, has decided to join the Advisory Council of the homosexual group GOProud. Grover is usually a masterful Republican strategist and coalition builder — but in this case, he seems prepared to compromise a unified conservative movement in order to appease a tiny minority of the overall population. GOProud is not a conservative organization that happens to be gay. It’s a homosexual organization that’s marginally conservative. GOProud’s own website explains just how radical its priorities are. This is a group that opposes the death tax and ObamaCare — not because they aren’t sound economic policies — but because they “discriminate” against “gay families.”

Interjecting: The Family Research Council is pissed off that GOProud supports the same exact stupid, disproven ideas they support, but does so because (they think) it will help gays. This is how much Peter Sprigg and Tony Perkins hate gay people, that they’ll try to kill off support for their own ideas if a case can be made that they’re good for (wealthy, white male) gays.

And the platform doesn’t end there. One of the group’s top 10 “principles” is to create “enterprise zones” for homosexuals, despite the fact that the average income for gays and lesbians is higher than most everyone else. At least two other of its “principles” call for the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act. Among their other priorities: allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military and defeating any attempt to protect one-man, one-woman marriage. They even ran ads criticizing President Obama for not doing enough for the homosexual community!

Grover is famous for saying he’ll work with anyone who agrees with him “80 percent of the time.” But it’s been the social issues that he seems willing to sacrifice. His belief that we can have fiscal stability without moral decency is doomed to failure and only drives a deep wedge in a movement that was unified to bring change to Washington this fall.

Poor FRC. It’s like Grover defriended them on Facebook, twice.