I find it hard to believe that David Benkof is not also on their advisory board.

That’s a pretty decent read on GOProud. BTW, I don’t think that most of them are self-hating, or at least that they don’t perceive themselves that way. But they do have a deficit when it comes to understanding how to conduct themselves in a manner denoting self-respect. I am all for challenging the group-think that intellectually impoverishes the gay movement. But through its clownish actions, GOProud seems to strengthen group-think by “proving” the canard that anyone who dissents from gay orthodoxy is a self-hating wretch.

You propose that their goals are “to bring together the small minority of gay people who strongly agree with most or all of what the Republican conservative propaganda machine puts out” and “to prove to straight Republican conservatives that gay people can be okay.”

My question would be, how does it serve either of these purposes to: sign a joint letter with, among others, Peter LaBarbera and Tony Perkins; hold a conference in San Diego at the one hotel that is subject to a Prop 8-related boycott; have the head of GOProud identify Jim DeMint, possibly the most anti-gay person in the Senate, as his favorite Senator; take on Ann Coulter as an honorary board member just days after she makes offensive comments about gay people, including expressing support for DADT, which is contrary to GOProud’s own position on the issue?

Examples would include GOP inaction to attack gay marriage in DC, inclusion of gay couples in the 9/11 compensation fund (enacted by a GOP-controlled Congress), or the quiet continuation by GWB of a Clinton-era executive order banning anti-gay discrimination in the executive branch, as well as the anti-discrimination policies in the CIA and FBI. Going back a bit further in time, there was the signing of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, a precursor to the 2009 hate crimes law, by Bush the Elder.

On the state level, it is extremely important to have some GOP support. Without it, there would be no anti-discrimination law in NY (passed by a GOP-controlled state senate and signed by GOP governor Pataki), nor would there be same-sex marriage in VT, NH, or NY. It also is likely that there would have been a constitutional amendment referendum in MA had not some GOP legislators joined our side. And next year, there will definitely be a battle in NH to repeal marriage. Thanks to an extraordinary GOP tsunami in 2010, the all Dem legislature is now an all-GOP legislature with a veto-proof majority in both houses. If there is any chance of keeping marriage, we will need about 10% of GOP House members to vote with us. Right now, the odds look moderately good that this will happen. But if you didn’t have a group like LCR out there making the case, it is likely that some or most of these victories would never have happened.

LCR has not gotten Republican candidates to vow to be fierce advocates or to achieve specific gay legislation. And though ever four years there is a mad scramble to see if there are sufficient votes that can be persuaded on some subcommittee or other to get some of the raging homophobia out of the party platform – so far without success.

Much of LCR’s successes have been less visible – often to convince campaigns not to take certain actions or use certain language (and yes, oh yes, it could have been much worse).

But one example of positive proactive concessions is fairly public:

During the 2000 campaign, the Bush Campaign agreed to a series of demands including that an openly gay person address the Convention during prime time. Mostly, they wanted to avoid happening to Bush what happened to *Dole.

Kolbe didn’t mention his orientation, but everyone in the room knew why he was at the podium. This may not seem like much to non-Republicans, but the symbolism was understood within the room. I think that was the first time that some social conservatives realized that they really are going to lose.

(* In 1996 Dole courted LCR and met with the LCR President to discuss policy – particularly on AIDS issues. But when anti-gays discovered that LCR had given an inconsequential $1,000 contribution to Dole’s campaign, they demanded that he repudiate the group. His campaign panicked and returned the contribution and declared that Dole had nothing in common with LCR.

LCR took the back-story to the press and when it hit the front page of the NYTimes and newspapers across the nation, it became (according to Bob Woodward) the basis for a national impression of Bob Dole, the person, as intolerant.)

I started hearing Republicans, gay and straight, complain of being treated with real nastiness by left of center people.

Well, generally when one defends the powerful against the powerless, a little “nastiness” is to be expected. But it’s all just a game of faux-victimization to cover the intense, endless stream of real and vile hostility that comes from the right.

GOProud is following the current fashion of rigid, extremist policies whipped up in Astroturf campaigns and conservative media, while Log Cabin is the reasonable Republicans I knew growing up who used to run the Party.

That really says it (though I’d replace “reasonable” with “less unreasonable” :).

Am I the only one old enough to remember the Log Cabin was met with the same derision now given to GOProud?

I’m old enough but don’t remember things the way you do. Yes, there was some derision of the Log Cabin Club, but before 1992, gay Republicans were still considered part of the community. It seemed to me that in ’92 the community turned heavily against its Republicans, just as the Republican Party was turning decisively against gay people. After that time, I never heard anything about local (San Francisco) gay Republicans, and I started hearing Republicans, gay and straight, complain of being treated with real nastiness by left of center people. I’ve heard this enough times from enough different people that I believe it. I’ve even seen it happen.

Basically, Republican conservatism has changed, so LGBT people’s attitudes have changed toward conservatism and the Republican Party.

One huge difference is that gay Republicans used to support anti-discrimination laws. The only people in the community who didn’t were libertarians. But to be an “acceptable” Republican conservative nowadays means supporting the “rights” of the wealthy and business whenever possible, so gay conservatives of that type are “neutral” on, or openly opposed to non-marital, non-military anti-discrimination laws. While the self-haters and “pragmatists” play down their support of marriage equality so straight GOP conservatives won’t feel uncomfortable. It’s no wonder the GOProud types are considered by so many to not be part of the community. And given their continuing support of the modern, more anti-LGBT Republican Party, it’s no wonder community skepticism of the Log Cabin-ers has increased.

The only function [GOProud] could serve would be to sell GOP positions on these issues to the gay community, for example, by arguing that gays could defend themselves better if they had easier access to handguns or that the estate tax hurts gay people disproportionately b/c gays do not enjoy the marital exemption. However, for this to have any chance of working, GOProud would have to make a significant effort to be taken seriously w/in the gay community. But instead, it has gone out of its way to alienate itself from the gay community. So it is hard to see what their strategy is, or if they ever had one.

I don’t see that at all. The vociferousness of their attack on the great majority of the gay community that is to the left of them tells me that they have no interest in engaging in a productive manner with the rest of us. I see their goals as these:

1) To bring together the small minority of gay people who strongly agree with most or all of what the Republican conservative propaganda machine puts out; to let those people know there are others like them.

2) To prove to straight Republican conservatives that gay people can be okay.

I’ve had years of dealing with this kind of LGB and even T conservative, and I don’t see them all as self-hating. But the GOProud/gaypatriot.net variety of gay conservatism has no problem with including self-haters.

This type of gay conservative’s defining emotion is anger toward the great majority of the gay community, which, lets be honest, can be pretty nasty to any gay person discovered to be Republican or (at all) conservative. This anger is felt even more strongly by Republican conservative lesbians than it is by the men (not surprisingly, since they are even more outnumbered by left of center gay people of their gender). The women are very open and out, while the men are often less so. One gets the feelings the men are more likely to be struggling with feelings of self-dislike for being gay.