Follow-up on the CPAC/GOProud Story

A month ago I wrote about a small group of social conservatives who announced that they would boycott CPAC if the new gay Republican organization GOProud were allowed to be a co-sponsor. CPAC announced that all were welcome and refused to rescind GOProud's co-sponsor status.

Today, Liberty University Law School withdrew as a co-sponsor because GOProud is still going. I couldn't find a non-partisan link to this so here's the story from the very right-leaning anti-gay OneNewsNow and here's the story from a very left-leaning gay rights blog. They are factually indistinguishable, but both heavily weight their tone by their respective positions.

It boiled down to this, from Liberty University Law School's Dean:

"Obviously as an exhibitor or participant, you don't necessarily have to think that everyone agrees with you, and some people might even work against you," Staver notes. "But as a co-sponsor, even though not everybody would have the same mission, not everyone would agree with the same tactics, and some would actually focus on economics whereas others might focus on social issues and others might focus on national defense -- the fact is they're all conservative in nature. You wouldn't expect, however, a co-sponsor to actively work to undermine another co-sponsor, and that is in fact what GOProud does."

Of more interest, I think is that Liberty Counsel, the group that initially started the brouhaha over GOProud's inclusion and vowed to boycott CPAC, is still going.

On a sorta-related note, I'm on my way this evening to a meeting of the Westside Republicans where Dan Blatt aka GayPatriotWest has been invited to talk about blogging and explain why Republican ideas are good for gays. Should be interesting.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:19 PM

| Access Comments