In CPAC’s Conservative Circus, Are Gays The High-Wire Act?
Last week was the perfect storm of Conservative carnival cacophony.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of All Ages….” should have been the rallying cry, starting on Valentine’s Day, when homophobe Tucker Carlson did a spot with Clayton Morris of “Fox And Friends,” discussing a new right-wing “study.” It went like this:
Carlson: “College students are more liberal… on certain social issues, gay marriage, abortion, capitalism… College students become more liberal after four years of college — we know that.”
Morris: “And so, what is the answer, how do we fix this, if degrees are making graduates more likely to support same-sex marriage, abortion… How do you fix this?”
How do you “fix” the fact that facts makes people smarter and less ignorant? I don’t know. How do you take back smart and install stupid?
Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!
Then, on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. the Cato Institute, that self-described libertarian think-tank that is funded by billionaire Progressive (?) George Soros, yet boasts Fox’s Tucker Carlson as a Senior Fellow, hosted an event called, “Is There a Place for Gay People in Conservatism and Conservative Politics?” It featured a debate which pitted Andrew Sullivan against Maggie Gallagher (though, not long enough!) and a speech by gay British MP Nick Herbert (also not long enough.)
Herbert, a Conservative, actually shared that in British politics, gay has become OK, and boasted that their conservative party will have more openly-gay elected officials than their liberal party. (Anyone feel like moving?)
But the “really big shew,” the “big top” (although certainly not a “big tent,” as the Log Cabin Republicans thought was coming) was CPAC — the 37th annual Conservative Political Action Conference. And boy, did they put on a show.
From homophobe Jason Mattera, who mocked the halls of liberal educational institutions, proclaiming a “feminist new black man” is “a crossover between RuPaul and Barney Frank,” to homophobe (and domestic-violence restraining order recipient) Ryan Sorba, the man who for years has been claiming to be writing a book titled after his lecture, the “Born Gay Hoax,” who denounced the entire conference for allowing a gay Republican group to co-sponsor the event (and was booed!) to homophobe Rep. Mike Pence’s call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, to homophobe Rep. Steve King, who has tried to repeal his state of Iowa’s same-sex marriage law, and who actually included not only (the expected) “Liberals and Progressives” as the “enemies of America,” but “Che Gueverians, Castroites, Socialists, Trotskyites, Maoists, Stalinists, Leninists,” and, wait for it… yes, Marxists too, the call rang out loud and clear: if you’re queer, get out of here.
But the promise of hate speech like that — unsurprising from the CPAC crowd — didn’t stop GOProud, Jimmy LaSalvia’s new gay Republican group, from showing up. Although months ago Liberty Counsel threatened to pull out if GOProud pulled into town, they stayed.
Gay blogger “Gay Patriot,” was at CPAC too. He claimed he was welcomed with open arms (Ryan Sorba, Mike Pence, Tucker Carlson, Jason Mattera, Steve King, Tom Tancredo, et al, not withstanding) by the CPAC conference.
Now, I’m sure GayPatriot thinks he was welcomed, just as I’m sure Jimmy LaSalvia thinks he was welcomed. And I’m sure the more libertarian attendees there did welcome them. But they’re not the CPAC base. This is the CPAC base. Tell me who among the list of co-sponsors or exhibitors would support us, support repeal of DOMA and DADT, support passage of ENDA? Pretty much nobody.
It’s clear the majority of America’s right-wing hates the LGBTQ community. So what do we do? I, for one, have been calling them out on their lies, hatred, and disgusting accusations full-time for well over a year now.
To be honest, I have a hard time with the idea of anyone in our community supporting that part of America — in this case, CPAC — that hates the LGBTQ community. And I’m very comfortable classifying their overall treatment of the LGBTQ community as “hate.” I’m also very comfortable classifying their treatment of the LGBTQ community as “oppression.”
(Let’s not forget, David Mixner calls the federal government’s treatment of the LGBTQ community “Gay Apartheid.”)
As a matter of fact, turns out, gays do think Republicans hate us. Just a few weeks ago in the wake of the Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll which found, for instance, that 77% of Republicans think same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry, I took a poll. 47% of respondents believe “Republicans hate us,” while an additional 41% said, “hate is too strong a word, but essentially, yes.”
So, while the Democratic party hasn’t lived up to its obligation or promises, we certainly have more to gain selectively supporting Democratic politicians than Republican ones. (And let’s not forget the 39 steps the Obama administration and the DNC have taken against the LGBTQ community!)
But what do you do when “they” are actually “us?”
Many of us have been struggling with our relationship with gay Republicans for some time now. I’ve given it a lot of thought and have decided this.
First, there’s enough evidence to suggest that, just as people are born, not made, gay or straight or bi or trans, so are Republican and Democrats. Yes, biology plays a large role in which way we lean, from a political standpoint. So, it’s equally unfair to ridicule someone for being gay as it is for someone being Republican. And I suppose it could be very hard being a gay Republican.
On Twitter, I had a productive conversation with blogger and CPAC attendee GayPatriot. Here’s an excerpt:
davidbadash: .@GayPatriot How you can support the very organization that thinks who you are is a threat to the American family is beyond me.
GayPatriot: @davidbadash There is no one here at CPAC trying to write me out of the Constitution. They are being open, kind & friendly.
davidbadash: .@GayPatriot So, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is friendly?
GayPatriot: @davidbadash I’m getting a better reception at CPAC than I EVER have with my gay friends or at gay-centric events. TRUTH.
Perhaps. Though what some say to your face and then behind yor back can often be different, as Jimmy LaSalvia found with NOM.
But I believe it’s critical that the LGBTQ community does not take the wrong stance, or think that the tide has turned, and that CPAC, the GOP, the RNC, or Republicans or Conservatives in general support us.
Here’s what happens when we make that mistake.
Jimmy LaSalvia and his GOProud group strongly endorsed then-candidate for Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. On February 5, just days after taking office, McDonnell slashed gays out of that state’s anti-discrimination policy.
So, did we gain anything by GOProud and GayPatriot (and other gay bloggers, like Chris Geidner) being at CPAC? Well, I don’t know.
Geidner, who blogs at Law Dork, and now writes for D.C.’s MetroWeekly, this week, in, “A Gay New Yorker in the CPAC Court,” quoted Craig Held, an openly-gay New York City college student who went to CPAC:
”…I think the reaction to GOProud has been good. I think the Republican Party is definitely going in a more open direction. I think they’ve realized they need to stop alienating people,” he said, ”Being gay doesn’t mean you can’t be a Republican. True conservatism is for individual rights; it has nothing to do with gay marriage – with not allowing gay marriage.
”I think that’s the direction the Party need to go in. And, I think it’s slowly getting there. Baby steps.”
Bruce Carroll writing at Bretibart calls this year’s CPAC a “Milestone Weekend for Gays,” and says,
“Last week at CPAC we saw the many years of work by dedicated conservative gays and lesbians standing up for their values and the principles of freedom and liberty finally pay off. There was a tipping point for gays in America last week at CPAC. It happened because they have been coming out to their parents, friends and relatives over time… as American conservatives who just happen to be gay.”
I’m not so sure. There’s too much hate there for me to agree. Maybe that’s starting to slowly change. Only 1% of CPAC straw poll voters chose “stopping gay marriage” as their top political issue. But those voters were mostly the 18-25 set, only 2395 of CPAC’s reported 10,000 attendees, and they’re also the ones who gave Ron Paul the landslide win as their choice to be the next Republican presidential nominee.
But here’s what I do know.
On the road to full equality, there are many vehicles. Maybe which ever arrives first is the right one, but we have no idea which will be the one that brings us into the future. Maybe, collectively, we need to ride them all. If gay Republicans want to hang out with other Republicans, maybe, just maybe, it will help us change hearts and minds a little. We can’t afford to eliminate anyone who might help us win equality. (Not sending them money until they start voting for us, however, is the right thing to do!)
There are many roads to reach our success. I will not fight anyone for trying. I will for not.
Note: This piece was first published in The Bilerico Project.
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A Wall Street Journal opinion columnist is blasting President Donald Trump’s policies and remarks, warning that the affordability issue “could sink” his presidency.
Trump is underwater on his handling of inflation, and will deliver a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening that the White House says will be “a positive economic, a focused speech, where he talks about all that he and his team has done to provide bigger paychecks and lower prices for the American people.”
But columnist William A. Galston says “there’s a problem: Mr. Trump isn’t buying it. He has denounced the focus on affordability as a Democratic ‘con job,’ a ‘scam’ and a ‘hoax.'”
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“Starting the day I take the oath of office,” Trump told voters last year on the campaign trail, “I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again.”
Galston noted: “The American people were listening, and they expect Mr. Trump to honor his promises. Right now, they couldn’t be blamed for thinking he isn’t even trying.”
And he blasted the president for ignoring the situation.
“’The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows it is far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden,’ he said at a recent White House event. In other words: Keep moving, folks, nothing to see here.”
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Galston noted that economist Stephen Moore, an outside Trump adviser, “says that the president’s low standing on the affordability issue is a ‘messaging problem.’ It isn’t; it’s a reality problem.”
Americans know the problem when they see that some items “are especially unaffordable,” Galston added.
He pointed out that the cost of shelter — rents and mortgage — are up 3.6% over the past year.
Home insurance premiums, he said, are expected to rise 8%. Electricity is up 11% since January, the month Trump took office.
By “rescinding duties on some agricultural goods last month, including beef, bananas and coffee, Mr. Trump tacitly conceded that tariffs put upward pressure on prices,” Galston wrote, adding that removing those tariffs is not enough.
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Image via Reuters
About 200 former attorneys and staff from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice are warning of the “near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel,” and what they call Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “demand” for “loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
“For decades, the non-partisan work of the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has protected all Americans—especially the most vulnerable—from unfair treatment and unequal opportunities,” they write in a letter dated Tuesday. They added that “after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave—along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys.”
Bloomberg Law reported on Tuesday that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will now focus only on “intentional discrimination,” and not “policies that may appear neutral but disproportionately affect racial minorities and other protected classes.”
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In their letter, the former attorneys and staff specifically state that they left the Civil Rights Division “because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights,” and that it “achieved this goal by discarding much of the Division’s most impactful work.”
The group blasted Attorney General Bondi, who, they said, “issued a series of memos that subverted the Division’s mission in favor of President Trump’s political agenda.”
“One stood out: it insinuated that DOJ attorneys were Trump’s personal lawyers, an assertion that struck at the heart of the agency’s independence. Bondi’s demand to us was obvious: loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
In another scathing section, they charged that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon “focused her efforts on ‘driving [the Civil Rights Division] in the opposite direction’ of its longstanding purpose.”
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They allege she issued mission statements “that included fighting diversity initiatives instead of race-based discrimination, investigating baseless allegations of voter fraud rather than protecting the right to vote, and dropping any mention of the Fair Housing Act, a landmark 1968 law that protects Americans from landlords’ racial discrimination and sexual harassment.”
And they charge that the administration “demanded that we find facts to fit the Administration’s predetermined outcomes.”
“Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out,” they wrote. “The campaign to purge staff culminated in Dhillon encouraging everyone to resign after a period of paid leave while threatening layoffs if enough staff did not accept.”
Christine Stoneman, one of the letter’s signatories, told Bloomberg Law, “It is a sad commentary that in this anniversary of the Civil Rights Division, the Trump administration has chosen to eliminate a regulation that, for nearly 60 years has helped root out illegal race and national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds.”
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Image via Reuters
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted loosened campaign finance rules during oral arguments in a case that would allow political parties to receive even more donations.
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Appearing skeptical that the Court should rule in his favor, Justice Sotomayor walked Noel Francisco, the attorney for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, through some top donors to both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates while warning about the appearance of quid pro quo.
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“Your answer is suggesting to me that every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” Justice Sotomayor said. “You’re telling us that Citizens United and McCutcheon ended up, yes, in amplifying the voice of corporations, but diminishing another voice, that of the party.”
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Disagreeing, Francisco replied, “Your Honor, I personally never think free speech makes things worse. I think it virtually always makes it better.”
Without mentioning any donors’ names, Justice Sotomayor then said that “in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton set up a joint victory fund with the DNC, 32 state parties, which allowed a single donor to give up to $356,000.”
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“Joe Biden’s victory fund, together with the DNC and the party committees of all 50 states, um, raised up to $1.3 billion,” the justice added.
She warned that “once we take off this coordinated expenditure limit, then what’s left? What’s left is nothing. No control whatsoever.”
Francisco disagreed again.
“You mean to suggest,” Justice Sotomayor replied, “that the fact that one major donor to the current president, the most major donor to the current president, got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration, does not give the appearance of quid pro quo?”
“Your Honor,” Francisco responded, “I’m not 100% sure about the example that you’re looking at, but if I am familiar, if I think I know what you’re talking about, I have a hard time thinking that his salary that he drew from the federal government was an effective quid pro quo bribery, which may be why nobody has even remotely suggested that.”
Sotomayor warned, “Maybe not the salary, but certainly, the lucrative government contracts might be.”
Justice Sotomayor: “You mean to suggest that the fact that one major donor to the current president, the most major donor to the president, got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration, does not give the appearance of quid pro quo?” pic.twitter.com/rgpXFz9QAz
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 9, 2025
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Image: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Steve Petteway via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
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