And the audio is up, so pop some popcorn and listen. Here’s what Michelangelo had to say about it:
Barron has come on the show several times in he past. My program was among the first media outlets to give his group any attention when it first broke off from the Log Cabin Republicans. We’ve had spirited but respectful discussion, as we disagree on just about everything. He seemed to revel in it, enjoying the back and forth, and certainly was not as angry and defensive as he is in this interview.
Not only did GoProud always come on the show when asked — either Jimmy LaSalvia or Barron would come on — but they reached out to my producer to come on the show at other times when we did not ask and we declined, as it wasn’t the best time or was not about something we were interested in. I say that because Barron outright lied in this interview, claiming that he often doesn’t come on my show (implying I asked and he declined), supposedly because of the way I treat him. That’s when I ended the interview. I’m not going to put up with a liar who had clearly become flustered because he was caught in a contradiction so now was changing the subject.
And more. Click over to The Gist to hear it for yourself.
So much for “conservatives don’t hate us, really!”:
GOProud, the advocacy organization for homosexuals that also portrays itself as “conservative,” reportedly will be left out of the annual summit for conservatives in the United States, the CPAC meetings, next year.
Its inclusion last year and this year by David Keene, the outgoing chief of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the Conservative Political Action Conference, had prompted a long list of major players in the movement, including the Heritage Foundation, the Media Research Center, Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, to boycott.
That left Al Cardenas, the new chairman, promising just days ago a “comprehensive vetting process on each CPAC participant.”
He said he wanted to make certain that longtime supporters of the conservative movement, such as those at the Heritage Foundation, are brought “back into the fold.”
Now a source has confirmed that a board vote has been taken that will realign plans for those who participate next year to exclude homosexual advocacy, although details had not been released.
[...]
According to a blogger at the FrumForum, Cardenas had warned it was “going to be difficult” to work with GOProud going forward.
He had cited the “behavior and attitude” of the homosexuality advocates, in light of the description by their leader, Chris Barron, of ACU Foundation chairman Cleta Mitchell as “a nasty bigot.”
Barron later apologized, saying he reached his breaking point because of “unfair and untrue attacks” on him, his friends, his organization and others.
“I shouldn’t have used the language that I did to describe Cleta Mitchell,” he said.
Oh hell, it’s probably one of the only completely accurate things Barron has said in the past year, at least about politics.
Now, granted, this is WingNutDaily, and as such should be treated as “unconfirmed reporting,” but there you have it.
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.
Because I certainly am not. Head thee over to his place for some good stuff.
But here’s his summary of one “Carrie Lukacs” character, a wingnut anti-feminist author:
She’s in favor of people getting married, staying married, and having children.
And she’s gathered a panel of other scolds, one of whom — an excitable Harlem conservative, bless him (Update: He’s Michel Faulkner, author of Restoring the American Dream) –hollers THANK YOU FOR CARING ABOUT MARRIAGE! His great line (really, how can you top it?) is “Our liberties, which have made us great, are now destroying us.” See, “we are beginning to destroy ourselves” with non-traditional marriage. “We must stand for traditional marriage on the grounds that it is good for our society… one man and one woman… if we do not, we will indeed destroy ourselves.”
I wonder how the GOProud guys are liking this.
They’re fine, Roy. They don’t like being gay very much.
Also:
New black preacher up now, saying the GOP shouldn’t give up on black people because a lot of them hate gay people and abortion too, and thus can be tempted — don’t “try to sell the whole farm” of horrific Republican ideas to them, just dangle a fetus. Stands strongly against Heather Has Two Mommies and has said “Don’t throw us under the bus” five times, which helps get the crowd on his side.
Oh, Edroso, you won my heart months ago, but this just solidifies it.
The three-legged stool of conservatism is strong and united at CPAC! Yes, as intelligent and alive as a small piece of furniture. However, the stool may not last long, as the hotel they chose, the Marriott Wardham Park, seems to currently be infested with bedbugs. Yes, we knew that, but are there blood-sucking insects there too? Har har har. “I woke up seeing the bed bugs on the bed, on my shirt and even on the bed that I am not using. Unbelievable!!! The hotel staff wasn’t surprised with what happened at all. I will never stay here again,” one visitor wrote recently. Hey, don’t worry about that. That sounds more like Teabaggers than bedbugs.
I hope that doesn’t make things awkward at “the hottest party at CPAC,” being thrown by known liar Andrew Breitbart and the wild and crazy guys of GOProud, featuring Sophie B. Hawkins of A Long Time Ago Semi-Fame, which Gawker described like this:
Ohhh yeah! A nine-to-midnight orgy of fiscal responsibility, fueled by the dulcet tones of an ominsexual Alanis Morissette knockoff. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Communist: Gays know how to party!
AND BEDBUGS!
Things are about to get sooooooo awkward, at the CPAC.
It’s good that Chris Barron of GOProud is, for a change, standing up for a gay rights issue, but he’s sadly deluded if he thinks that “social conservatives” don’t care about hating gay people anymore. Here’s what Chris had to say about Pawlenty’s calls to defund DADT repeal:
I understand that Pawlenty is trying hard to get people to pay attention to his campaign. Its certainly a challenge for someone with such little stature in the conservative movement to compete with high profile conservative leaders like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, etc. Unfortunately for Pawlenty, comments like this simply show how totally out-of-touch he is with the issues that rank and file conservatives care about. If he wants to show he is a committed social conservative he would be much better served talking about the need to defund Planned Parenthood, end federal funding for abortion, reign in an out of control judiciary and support for a parents rights amendment to protect home-schoolers.
Okay. Let’s take this apart. Besides the fact that it’s grotesque that GOProud is sidling up to patriarchal, ineffective forces in the so-called “pro-life” movement by supporting policies which have been shown to increase the need for abortion while simultaneously making it less safe and taking the primary healthcare provider away from many, many women* [seriously, just use Google for thirty minutes on the subject, or, you know, just go here and read and learn things], it’s laughable that he’s not including anti-gay issues alongside those other wingnut causes. When wingnuts talk about an “out-of-control judiciary,” half of what they’re talking about is judges who rule favorably in gay rights cases.
As I said, it’s good to see Barron standing up for something that helps gay people, because most of GOProud’s agenda is just wingnut talking points with the word “gay” inserted every now and then.
*I’d also add that Planned Parenthood does a hell of a lot for the gay community, when it comes to STD testing, prevention and education. But normal wingnuts don’t have a damn clue what Planned Parenthood really does, so there’s no reason to expect any better from gay wingnuts.
Dan’s take on this is pretty epic, so I’m going to just quote liberally and tell you to click the clicky for the rest:
Actual Republican elected officials move to ban gay marriage in Washington D.C.
Actual Republican elected officials move to ban gay marriage in Iowa.
Actual Republican elected officials move to ban gay marriage in New Mexico.
Actual Republican elected officials move to ban gay marriage in Wyoming.
Actual Republican elected officials move to ban gay marriage in New Hampshire.
Actual Republican elected officials in Florida plot to enforce ban on adoptions by gay couples despite the law having been declared unconstitutional by the courts.
Actual Republican elected officials will block gay marriage in New York State despite polls showing solid majority of New Yorkers favor marriage equality.
Actual Republican elected officials pulling out of CPAC to presence of gays.
Those useful, pole-smoking idiots at GOProud will point to Barbara Bush’s position on marriage equality as proof that today’s GOP is whole lot less anti-gay than yesterday’s GOP. Don’t fall for it.
I like it when Dan says what he really thinks, which is basically every day.
I’d make a joke here about a Boitano-esque death spiral of self-loathing coming to its predictable denouement, but wingnuts would get distracted by all the French and forget what we were talking about in the first place.
Or I could make a Stockholm Syndrome reference, but somehow, somewhere, one of Sarah Palin’s fanbois would end up misapplying the term “blood libel” to herself and it would hang over her head all the way through the Drag Race premiere, so I’ll just demur and move on.
This is kind of a damning piece, all the way around. Jeb Golinkin at FrumForum addresses the differences between GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans, and in a way, exposes just how bigoted groups like the Family Research Council are to back out of CPAC. You see, GOProud isn’t really doing anything. A year ago, it was the Log Cabin Republicans who were holding on to the last threads of their relevance, but that’s changed in a big way:
This year, many social conservative groups are up in arms over GOProud’s return to CPAC, yet the Log Cabin Republicans are conspicuously absent from this entire CPAC fiasco. Why?
The founders of GOProud made a calculated decision to get their name into the public eye and the debate over sponsoring CPAC allowed them to do so at a time when Log Cabin Republicans was floundering. But GOProud may have hitched its wagon to the wrong movement, and at times the wrong candidate. In a September 2010 story on the group, Ben Smith quotes one of GOProud’s founders as saying “We’re Joe Miller; Log Cabin is Lisa Murkowski.” We all know how that turned out, with Murkowski winning reelection and voting to repeal DADT. (During the vote on DADT, GOProud praised the votes of Senators Mark Kirk and Scott Brown, but was silent on Murkowski and other GOP senators it did not endorse.)
The LCR v. GOProud “feud” has gone much the same way as the Alaska Senate race. If GOProud’s star was on the rise at this time last year, this year it is much more desperate for attention. LCR spearheaded the lawsuit which led a federal judge to overturn DADT and it played a vocal role in pushing Republicans to support repealing DADT. Its new executive director, R. Clarke Cooper, became a regular guest on cable news over the course of the year. Under his leadership, LCR probably helped deliver the biggest year that gay Republicans have ever had.
[...]
Conservatives tolerate GOproud precisely because they know the group won’t actually push them to address substantive issues involving gay rights. GOProud’s motto might as well be: “Gays should not ask what the Republican Party can do for them. Gays should ask what they can do for the Republican Party.” But for those gay conservatives who would like their organization to speak for their own interests too, little is to be gained at an event like CPAC. LCR realizes, I suspect, that it doesn’t need to fight such public wars as the tides of progress flow in a pro-gay direction. LCR’S absence from CPAC is a sign of LCR’s strength. GOProud may have provoked social conservatives into a petulant and self-destructive display, but CPAC remains as hostile as ever to a gay civil rights agenda. GOProud’s participation does nothing to correct that offense.
Ouch! The whole piece is worth reading, as it captures a lot of what I’ve noticed about the gay Republican groups over the years. In short: I may not agree with them on many, many things, but at least LCR is doing something.
Haha, but not for the usual reasons!
