Box Turtle Bulletin

Another Republican Activist Judge

One of the election cries of conservatives is “Protect our courts, elect Republicans who won’t appoint activist judges.”

Judge Joseph Tauro, who just found DOMA unconstitutional, was the chief legal counsel to Republican Massachusetts Governor John Volpe until he was nominated for Federal Judge by President Richard Nixon.

It kinda takes the wind out of the “liberal activist judge” claim, doesn’t it.

Montana’s GOP Gets To The Point

The Texas GOP needed 632 words to talk about all the many ways they want to legislate against LGBT Texans, including the reimposition of laws to throw gay people in jail. Which just goes to show what we’ve always known about Texans: they’re full of hot air. Montana’s GOP essentially says the same thing, but displays the directness and economy of words that the folks in Big Sky country are known for:

Homosexual Acts
We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal.

There’s a silver lining though. They don’t seem interested in jailing anyone who conducts a same-sex marriage ceremony. But looking at the bigger picture, those mere twenty words are still saying the same thing. They want your gay butt in jail.

A Texas GOP platform that sounds too familiar

The Texas Republican Party has a long proud history of blatant homophobia. In 1998, Log Cabin, the gay Republican group, was denied booth space at the state convention. At the 2000 Republican National Convention when gay congressman Jim Kolbe took to the podium to speak about foreign policy, the delegates from Texas, in a deliberate show of disrespect, began “praying” instead of listening. Even though Texas GOP’s favorite son George W. Bush built his 2004 campaign partly on homophobia, he looks downright tolerant when compared to his fellow Republicans back home.

But now the Texas Republicans have topped themselves. In this season of ‘who can be the looniest’, the GOP has come up with a state party platform that sounds as though it was written in Kampala. Here’s what the Texas Republicans have to say about you:

• Gay people are a threat to straights.
• Gay people are trying to impose their values through “well-funded, vigorous political and judicial attempts.”
• Homosexuality “tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases.”
• Denying civil rights and equality to gay people “promotes health”
• Schools should not be allowed to present a non-negative message about homosexuality.
• Gay people should be denied marriage.
• States which have chosen to allow gay people to marry should be forced to revoke such marriages.
• No rights or benefits should be allowed or granted to domestic partners.
• Tax laws should give preference to married heterosexuals.
• Gay people should have their children taken from them.
• Gay people should be denied health insurance.
• Sodomy laws should be reinstated.
• Those who attack gay people should not face criminal or civil penalties.
• It should be a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such.

I do not wish to downplay the situation in Uganda or to suggest that the level of hatred and fear in Texas comes anywhere near the extent to which our friends in Uganda are threatened. But all of this rhetoric sound far too familiar to me.

The Republicans in Texas who wrote this platform truly to fear you and hold deep animus towards you.

The section on “STRENGTHENING FAMILIES, PROTECTING LIFE AND PROMOTING HEALTH” is included after the break

Read the rest of this entry »

Some items of interest from a odd poll

Last week a poll in Iowa conducted by a Des Moines television station reported that a majority of Iowans support marriage equality, a finding that appears difficult to believe. Now an oddly conducted poll from the Des Moines Register adds to the picture.

On the face of it, the polling data might seem negative. And, were this of the population as a whole, this might be quite troubling. But it’s not a poll of Iowans, it’s a polling of Republican Iowans who intend to vote in Tuesday’s primary. I have no idea why the Register didn’t get the opinions of Democrats or independents, but we’re stuck with what they gave us.

Here’s what they found:

More than three-quarters of Iowans planning to vote in Tuesday’s Republican primary say Iowans should have a chance to vote on changing the constitution specifically to ban gay marriage.

But the same consensus does not exist for ousting Iowa Supreme Court judges who voted last year to invalidate Iowa’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage.

And one-third of the poll respondents say that some Iowans have overreacted on the issue, and that gay marriage in the state is just not that big a deal.

Voter analysts will tell you that primary voters tend towards the more committed end of a party, those who feel most connected to the reasons for their registration selection. They also tend to be older, especially in a non-presidential election. So it is fair to say that “Republican primary voters” is among the more conservative polling demographics that could be selected.

And now that Iowans have lived with marriage equality for a year, 35% of Republican primary voters think that “having gay marriage in Iowa is just not that big a deal.” And that’s kind of a big deal.

Support Tom Campbell

California Senator Barbara Boxer has long been a friend of our community. But she has also long been considered a relatively weak candidate, and as the Democrat is 168 years old (ok, really only 69) and this is a “mid-term election”, there is a good chance that she could be defeated in November. Our community should be very concerned about who her Republican opponent will be.

There are three candidates for the Republican nomination:

Chuck Devore – Devore is the choice of the hard-core right. He’s is the old-school family values candidate who is running for office so as to protect the family from horrible people like you, me, and sinners of various flavors. He’s endorsed by the usual collection of knuckle-draggers.

Carly Fiorina – Fiorina is the “business candidate”. She was a successful executive at Hewlett Packard and is probably somewhat moderate on social issues. However, she is trying to sell herself as a “conservative” and thus distinguish herself from Campbell (including the now infamous Demon Sheep ad which seriously backfired). Fiorina created domestic partnership programs at HP, but also voted for Proposition 8. She has the endorsement of Sarah Palin.

Tom Campbell – Campbell is a fiscal conservative and social moderate, and a long-time friend of our community. In October 2008, Campbell wrote a piece for Reason Magazine in which he argued that Republicans should support gay marriage and oppose Proposition 8.

Depending on what poll you read, Campbell is either slightly ahead or about tied with Fiorina. And there are only three weeks left before the primary election. He needs our support.

That Campbell is an ally is a good reason to support him in the California Republican Primary. That he’s much needed in Washington is another.

Campbell is uniquely equipped to address the problems we are currently facing. Tom has a PhD in economics and has taught law at Stanford, with a particular emphasis on the application of economics to legal problems. It’s known in political circles that Tom is usually “the smartest person in the room.”

If there is one thing that the Senate is lacking, it’s people who understand economics. Or perhaps those who can do remedial math.

Campbell is a fiscal conservative, but not in a crazy way. Although he’s been twice rated as the most “fiscally responsible” member of Congress, he refuses to sign the wacky “no taxes” pledges or make promises that sound good to ideologues but are irresponsible in practice.

But perhaps the most convincing argument as to why you should support Tom Campbell is that the National Organization for Marriage has been running a campaign against him. Their biggest fear is that California might send a Republican to the Senate who supports marriage equality and harm their divisive game of playing one party off the other. If Campbell were to be elected, it would send a message that Republicans too can support basic fairness and equality.

So NOM has been running ads in the state trying to claim that Campbell is no different from “liberal Barbara Boxer”, in the hopes of hurting him in the primary. Tom, to his credit, has been classy in his response, refusing to throw us under the bus for a few votes. They have now started a campaign of robo-calls.

“The explicit message of this campaign is: don’t vote for Tom Campbell, because he supports gay marriage as well as raising taxes,” said Brian Brown, President of NOM, in a statement.

This is a blatant appeal to bigotry.

I desperately do not want this election to give NOM more perceived power or greater influence over the positions of future candidates. If Tom loses, there is no question but that they will threaten any other Republican who considers abandoning homophobia or anti-gay policies.

Please take a moment to consider whether and how you can help Tom Campbell and give him a chance to present his case against Barbara Boxer. I would very much like to know that whoever wins in November, California’s Senator will remain supportive of my rights.

(Please note that decline-to-state or independent voters may request the primary ballot of any party and can vote for Campbell in June)

Political fallout from Rekers’ rentboy exposure

When Dr. George Rekers was discovered returning from a 10 day European trip with a young man identified as a gay rentboy, the subsequent scandal ended his career as a advocate for anti-gay causes. Further, it added to the growing shared social understanding that ex-gay efforts are futile and based on pretense.

But although the damage to ex-gay and anti-gay efforts cannot be understated, the liabilities of this scandal are wider than could be expected. It appears that the fallout may extend to conservative politicians and may well derail the presumptive Republican nominee for Florida Governor.

In 2007, Frank Gill sued the state of Florida for the right to adopt the two small boys for whom he had become a foster father. Bill McCollum was attorney general at that time and it was his office which defended the state law that banned gay people from adopting.

The case was ideal for challenging the law. The two boys were non-responsive, suffering from untreated medical conditions, distrustful of everyone else and not bonded to any adults. Gill and his partner were ideal parents, and the turn-around in the boys’ socialization was nearly miraculous.

It was virtually impossible for McCollum’s office to convince any judge that it was in the best interest of these two boys that they be taken from the men with whom they had bonded and finally found a family. But McCollum’s office defended the law to the best of their ability. And the best of their ability included hiring Rekers to argue that gay men, on the whole, are less stable and are unfit parents.

Since the Rekers scandal broke, McCollum has sought to distance himself from Dr. Rekers, insisting that the selection and hiring of George Rekers was the decision of the Department of Children and Families, and that his office simply used the witness they selected.

But the Florida Tribune has now discovered that quite the opposite is true. The DCF didn’t want Rekers, and McCollum insisted that he be hired.

McCollum wrote a July 2007 letter to then DCF Secretary Bob Butterworth where he said his legal team “strongly” recommended the hiring of Rekers, a psychologist once on the faculty of the University of South Carolina and who helped found the Family Research Council back in the ’80s.

“They believe that this expert and his testimony are necessary to ensure a successful result in this case,” wrote McCollum in the letter obtained by the Florida Tribune.

McCollum in his letter noted that initially DCF refused to hire Rekers, due primarily to the potential cost of his fees. Instead the child welfare agency wanted to only hire Walter Schumm, a professor of family studies at Kansas State University.

“Dr. Schumm is a good expert, but his areas of expertise are different from Dr. Rekers,” wrote McCollum. “Our attorneys handling this case have searched long and hard for other expert witnesses with comparable expertise to Dr. Rekers and have been unable to identify any who would be available for this case.”

As it turned out, Rekers did a miserable job. His bias was so obvious that the judge wrote in her judgment:

Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court cannot consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.

It probably didn’t help that Rekers, in his testimony, suggested it would be consistent to also ban Native Americans from adopting children in the state. The ban on gay adoptions was overturned, and the state is currently appealing the decision. For which it seems they have employed Dr. George Rekers.

Now Bill McCollum is running for Governor. And the decision to employ Rekers – and pay him in excess of $120,000 – has now become a campaign issue. And it may grow in importance, potentially threatening McCollum’s coronation as Republican candidate for Governor.

Although early finagling resulted in McCollum running without credible primary competition, the Tea Partiers have fielded a candidate with a substantial fortune and a business background. In an attitude of anti-politician anger, McCollum is considered “too establishment.” (TMP)

Scott, a millionaire several hundred times over, jumped into GOP primary on April 13, after months of a campaign that already moved onto the general, with likely GOP nominee McCollum facing off against likely Democratic nominee and state CFO Alex Sink. But a new poll released over the weekend shows Scott has succeeded in forcing McCollum into an unexpected and costly primary fight.

It remains to be seen if Rick Scott will launch attacks on McCollum over his decision to hire Rekers. And, if so, we do not know the tone such ads may take. But there is no doubt that the fallout from the scandal has tainted the Attorney General.

And I think that one of the unexpected results of exposing Dr. George Rekers’ double-life – and revealing the hypocrisy in his testimony – may well be that politicians in the future are more hesitant to present or rely on the testimony of anti-gay activists. The repercussions of the Rekers testimony may encourage politicians who are conscious of their future to steer as far from anti-gays as possible.

What does Bennett’s ouster mean?

Republican Utah Senator Bob Bennett was denied the GOP nomination this year by his party’s convention (he came in third, and thus will not be on the ballot in the primary election). This is likely the result of Tea Party activism and is being touted as the result of “people wanting a Republican Party that is conservative.”

Social conservatives such as Rick Santorum have been all over the news declaring this to be a victory for “real conservatives”, by which he means those who share his troglodyte views. Some right wingers are going so far as to claim that Bennett was dumped because he “voted for gay rights activist Roberta Achtenberg to be Assistant Secretary for Equal Opportunity at HUD.” In 1993. Seventeen years ago.

Nonsense.

No one voting this past weekend based their decision on Roberta Achtenberg. And very few were likely swayed by Bennett being “too gay supportive.” While there are Senators on the Hill who are far less friendly, Bennett was hardly known for his wild social liberalism.

Nor are the candidates who beat him in the voting and going on to the primary raging homophobes running on a “traditional family” platform. Neither of the campaign website for Tim Bridgewater (who got 57% on the third vote) nor Mike Lee (43%) address gay rights in general or specific on their issues pages. And, believe me, they address a lot of issues.

And, although Utah has been in the center of gay rights conflict over the past year, these candidates have been pretty much quiet on gay issues. In fact, as best I can find the only time they addresses gay issues specifically was when six of the eight candidates including Bennett and Bridgewater (Lee canceled due to illness) went to a Log Cabin event to answer questions and appeal for the Log Cabin vote (which was reported as significant). (Salt Lake City Weekly)

Will the next Senator from Utah be supportive of equality? No.

But when we hear social conservatives translating voter dissatisfaction with current elected representatives and fury over what is perceived as fiscal irresponsibility and arguing it to be mandate for their favorite right-wing social agenda items, we should recognize it for what it is: spin, bluster, and nonsense.

Rhode Island GOP welcomes gay Republicans

From the Providence Journal:

The state GOP welcomed a new caucus Wednesday night: The Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay and lesbian conservatives committed to “changing the GOP from the inside, while advancing Republican ideals of personal liberty and fiscal responsibility.”

Republican gubernatorial candidate John Robitaille was among the speakers at an event hosted at the Providence restaurant, Twist on Angel, organized by new caucus chairman, Raymond Beltran, a 26-year-old Community College of Rhode Island student.

“The perception of the GOP being bigoted and narrow-minded — at least in Rhode Island — is hopefully coming to a close,” Beltran said. “We’re a very different breed in Rhode Island in many ways. We have one of the most forward-thinking Republican parties in the country.”

Baker/Tisei win MA GOP nomination

The Republicans in Massachusetts have selected their nominee for Governor. And this year, they can choose between a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent, all of whom are pro-choice and all of whom support same-sex marriage.

Charles Baker, the Republican, had a primary opponent going into the state convention. Christy Mihos also supports gay marriage but believes that “the people should be able to vote on it.” As Mihos did not get at least 15% of the nomination vote, and Baker will be the candidate without a primary election vote.

The convention also endorsed Baker’s running mate, Senate minority leader Richard Tisei; as the sole candidate he won unanimously. If Tisei is elected as Lieutenant Governor, he will be the highest ranking openly gay politician in the nation.

It is six years since same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts and it is so non-controversial that there were no candidates who favor “traditional marriage” laws. And the one candidate who supports “let the people vote” wasn’t able to get more than 11% of Republican Party delegates to vote for him.

How does that fit with your “poll“, Maggie Gallagher?

Michael Steele’s West Hollywood Adventures

The Daily Caller has looked into Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele’s expenses and discussions on purchasing a private jet. They didn’t buy one, but he does like to travel in style: For the month of February he spent 17,514 on private aircraft and $12,691 on limousines. Democrats report no similar high-flying expenses. Other GOP expenses include:

A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex. [Emphasis mine].

Never having heard of Voyeur West Hollywood, I wanted to see what it was all about. The web site for Voyeur isn’t loading this morning, but its Yelp reviews seem to indicate that it’s among the hotter venues in West Hollywood. It seems very popular with the celebrity circuit. No mention of topless women dancers in any of the reviews, but then this is West Hollywood. Maybe topless dancers imitating lesbian sex just isn’t all that noteworthy.

Tom Campbell responds to “two peas in a pod” ad

Today the National Organization for Marriage released an ad attacking California GOP Senate candidate Tom Campbell. They said that his views on income taxes, gas taxes, and (gasp) gay marriage are no different from those of “liberal Barbera Boxer”.

Campbell’s team is crying, “No fair”

Campbell spokesman James Fisfis said the campaign is more upset that the ad compares Campbell to Boxer on taxes. He says the two are worlds apart on that issue.

Gotta love that answer.

Is the Tea Party movement good for gays?

The gay community tends not to fare well when angry conservative populist movements gain influence; the “common man” tends not to hold the interests of minorities to heart.

So many gay individuals and organizations have viewed the Tea Party movement with suspicion and concern. This reaction seemed to be confirmed by social conservatives pointing to the movement and offering praise. However, the Tea Party movement may prove to be a tremendous boon for the community.

There are several articles today about the movement from several different sources and they all seem to be saying the same thing: not only are the Tea Partiers not social conservatives, they want nothing to do with them.

Patrik Jonsson, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, starts his article this way

Emergence of the grass-roots “tea party” movement as a major force on the American political right is having a quiet but fundamental effect on the Republican tribe: Social conservatives have been voted off the island.

In recent years, fiscal conservatives seem to have taken a back seat to social conservatives in the Republican Party. President Bush, with his drunken sailor spending and moralizing piety was about as far from the fiscal conservative wing as you could get.

The Party had gambled that “the people” weren’t interested in esoteric things like the national debt or a balanced budget and pandered instead to biases against gay marriages and pregnant women. Not that Republicans actually did anything on social conservative issues, but by targeting a voter base that cared little about fiscal responsibility, they managed to answer to no one.

But the Tea Party movement appears to be a backlash, as much against the Republican Party that they feel has betrayed them as against President Obama and the Democrats. And in their efforts to change the focus of the Party, they are refusing to allow social issues to intrude. (New York Times)

Tea Party leaders argue that the country can ill afford the discussion about social issues when it is passing on enormous debts to future generations. But the focus is also strategic: leaders think they can attract independent voters if they stay away from divisive issues.

“We should be creating the biggest tent possible around the economic conservative issue,” said Ryan Hecker, the organizer behind the Contract From America. “I think social issues may matter to particular individuals, but at the end of the day, the movement should be agnostic about it. This is a movement that rose largely because of the Republican Party failing to deliver on being representative of the economic conservative ideology. To include social issues would be beside the point.”

And it appears that the jettisoning of the social conservatives is not merely cosmetic. “Family values” leaders are feeling the bite and are not happy with being booted from the drive’s seat (Politico).

“There’s a libertarian streak in the tea party movement that concerns me as a cultural conservative,” said Bryan Fischer, director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association. “The tea party movement needs to insist that candidates believe in the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage.”

“As far as I can tell [the tea party movement] has a politics that’s irreligious. I can’t see how some of my fellow conservatives identify with it,” said Richard Cizik, who broke with a major evangelical group over his support for government action on climate change, but who remains largely in line with the Christian right on social issues. “The younger Evangelicals who I interact with are largely turned off by the tea party movement — by the incivility, the name-calling, the pathos of politics.”

But what impact will this have on our community? That depends, of course, on whether the movement can maintain its anger and its mission.

If they are effective and are seen as a political force, they could change what it means to be a Republican. If they want to draw in young people worried about their ability to pay a massive and ever increasing public debt, they may strong-arm the Party to drop issues such as abortion and gay marriage from the Party Platform. They may even insist on advancing and supporting gay candidates if they are perceived to be the best on fiscal issues.

It is possible that this movement of “common folk” – which includes more than a few that are complete wackadoodles: birthers, racists, and conspiracy theorists – could ultimately place our nation in a position in which there is one party that supports our rights (at least in theory) and another that “has no opinion” on the matter.

Time will tell us whether this movement – one our community mostly mocks and somewhat fears – will bring about a change in public consciousness on social issues, or whether they will just be another footnote in the history of our nation’s advancement.

GOProud talks to Big Government about gay conservatism

In September, Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com launched with a splash by releasing the undercover video done by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles on ACORN. The scandal, which resulted in Congress cutting ACORN’s funding, propelled Beirtbart and his websites to conservative stardom.

This week, columnist Bob Parks posted an interview with GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia, in which the gay conservative defended his positions. I think LaSalvia did well in explaining himself, and was more proactive and less defensive about gay issues than I had given him credit for in the past.

BOB: Let\’s move on to gays in the military.

JIMMY: Cool.

BOB: While serving in the Navy, I had a supervisor who was gay. He wasn\’t in your face about it, and because he was (and everyone knew it), he had to be doubly squared away. Through him, I became a much better writer and journalist and our department won two Chief of Information 2nd Place awards for excellence amongst 600 ship and shore commands. With that, why would there be a need for him to come out and force his sexuality on his shipmates?

JIMMY: I don\’t think it\’s a matter of forcing his sexuality on anyone. It\’s a matter of whether he has to lie about it or not. Listen, conduct should be appropriate in the military no matter who you are. But gay and lesbian servicemembers are forced to lie everyday, just to serve their country. It can be significant, like who should we inform if you are killed or wounded? or somewhat trivial just in conversation like “what did you do when you were on leave?” In 2010, our fine servicemembers are more than capable of doing their jobs as professionals whether straight or gay…we shouldn\’t make some of them lie in order to do it.

But Jimmy could not resist getting in his digs about the “not like me” gays with whom he finds so little in common.

BOB: How do you feel about gay pride parades. Personally, I cringe when watching rap videos because of the impressions it leaves on others of who black people are. Do you see gay pride parades, as lewd as some can be, as a serious PR blunder?

JIMMY: Certainly in this day and age, as more and more gay people have come out and live their lives openly and honestly, the stereotypical images of pride parades don\’t accurately portray the reality of the lives of the vast majority of gay Americans. For the most part, we are just like everyone else…sitting at home on the couch as boring as most other folks watching those nuts on TV! Yes, I suspect it\’s very similar to your reaction watching stereotypical images of black people. The best thing that gay people can do (from a PR point of view) is just live your life like any other person, and the rest of America will realize that we are no different than them.

GOProud Showed Up. Which Is Very Good, But…

Alexander McCobin, at Students for Liberty, welcomed GOProud to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) amid cheers and boos.

Ryan Sorba, of the Young Conservatives of California, responded by denouncing CPAC amid boos and cheers.

For some reason, it’s often the gays who start the hottest trends in this country. The Republican Party’s acrimonious split between the traditional followers of John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine and other believers of individual freedom, and the emerging purer-than-thou wing who today would be loudly lamenting the absence of a “real Republican” if Ronald Reagan himself were alive and running for office — like so many popular trends in America — is just an imitation of what the gays had already started. It was just last April when a group of Log Cabin Republican dissidents split off to form GOProud over the former group’s perceived lack of ideological purity.

But despite GOProud’s purer-than-pure stance, it’s still regarded as being outside the mainstream among other purer-than-pure ideologues who are, in addition, also non-believers in individual freedom. But that didn’t stop GOProud from becoming sponsors of that annual purer-than-pure ideological love-fest known that is CPAC in Washington, D.C. This marks the first time a gay group has been a co-sponsor of the event. It also marks the first appearance of the John Birch Society as a co-sponsor, which had always been excluded for being too extremist.

But while the Birchers were allowed to parade around in their tinfoil hats, the GOProuders would not have a platform to to speak about gay issues at the conference. Outside of their booth with the other exhibitors, their only planned contribution that I’ve been able to discern was a talk about “Using Technology to Mobilize Conservatives.” Other than that, their message was limited to their booth.

Silence appears to be the price of admission. GOProud’s Twitter stream and web site have been uncomfortably silent over the wacky news conference at CPAC over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Okay, there hasn’t been complete silence, at least not when a good opportunity for spin comes along. Bruce Carroll, aka GayPatriot, giddily twittered, “Nation\’s most vocal supporter of gay marriage & removing Don\’t Ask, Don\’t Tell speaks at #CPAC10 – DICK CHENEY! HA.” Except Cheney didn’t utter a single peep about gay marriage or DADT. Chris Crain responds, “Gentlemen… please… we can hold the bar higher than this, can’t we?”

But as we all have come to know, it’s not enough for the purest of the purer-than-pure crowd to have us agree to shut up about our issues and rah-rah conservatism in general. It’s our mere presence, and even our very existence, that many find so horribly offensive. And that offense was on display yesterday when Ryan Sorba decided to go after CPAC for GOProud’s quiet existence. When he was boo’ed, Bruce Carroll (aka GayPatriot) celebrated, saying that this “shows that most mainstream conservatives don\’t have much stomach for such nasty rhetoric.” But I have to wonder whether it’s the rhetoric they can’t stomach or the embarrassment over the fact that CSPAN cameras were capturing a dissenting speech live on national television.

Think about it. Sorba’s remarks weren’t that much nastier than those mouthed at the DADT news conference. Sorba just didn’t follow agreed-upon talking points and he compounded that by openly dissenting with fellow CPAC attendees. The boo’s started when he said he was denouncing CPAC before he even said why he was denouncing them. Was it the rhetoric they were booing? Or was it the open dissent — complete with calling people out by name — on nationwide television that garnered the boos (and cheers)?

(By the way, some are saying Sorba was boo’ed off the stage. It looks to me that he left the stage when he finished saying what he wanted to say.)

But just showing up is all it takes for GOProud to excite the purest of the purer-than-pure element, then even GOProud’s most ardent critics would have to concede that their mere presence served, at least, as a small but important measure of community service for LGBT citizens. Besides, anyone who makes life unbearably uncomfortable for the National Organization for Marriage, which found its booth located just a few short steps away from GOProud’s, is worthy of respect. Jimmy LaSalvia’s “Who’s the pansey?” line by itself is worth GOProud’s sponsorship and travel costs.

Playing rope-a-dope, which GOProud has evidently done, is a very useful role to play. The more dopes we can rope, the better. But at some point we ought to see something other than blind cheer-leading among gay conservatives. I mean please, tying Cheney’s standing ovation over his opposition to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and support for gay marriage? Not uttering a single peep over the ridiculous news conference supporting DADT? That just looks pathetic, especially when compared to the open revolt among gay Democrats over their party’s failure to deliver on promises. I’m glad that GOProud decided to stake out a presence at CPAC, but a presence with a clear eye and critical voice would be more helpful still. Woody Allan said that 90% of life is just showing up, but he’s a moviemaker. What does he know about politics?

Tories to GOP: Don’t Close the Door on Gays

Nick Herbert, Britain’s openly-gay shadow Environment Secretary and member of Britain’s Conservative Party, urged American conservatives to embrace LGBT people or risk years in the political wilderness.

Speaking at a debate at the Cato Institute in Washington on gay marriage, MP Herbert said:

“I am not here to preach or to interfere in your affairs,” he said. “I am here neither to tea party nor to go clubbing. But I can tell you what happens to a party when it closes the door to sections of our society and is reduced to its core vote. It’s no fun being in opposition for thirteen years.”

Herbert spoke of the damage that prior anti-gay Conservative governments have inflicted on the party’s reputation and the lengths that party leader David Cameron has gone through to try to heal the breach:

And our party leader, David Cameron, has publicly apologised for Section 28, legislation introduced by a previous Conservative government which effectively prohibited the teaching of the validity of gay relationships in schools, a law which was deeply unpopular not just amongst gay people, but with those who saw it as a divisive and unpleasant sign of state intolerance.

We needed to say sorry for a stance that was wrong. The truth is that there are millions of people who we drove away but who share our values and want to join us.”

I have no doubt that there are millions of conservatively-minded people here in America which are being driven away from the GOP over its embrace of anti-gay politics as a wedge issue. Maybe someday the GOP will realize the mistake they are making. But with all the noise generated by the teabaggers — er, tea partiers — I doubt it will come anytime soon. Two years do not a wilderness make.