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February 20, 2010
Who's the real pansy at CPAC?
Posted by: Chris
Just when I thought that Ann Coulter would win the testosterone award at this year's CPAC, the various factions fighting over gay issues at the annual conservative confab are gunning for gold.
The GOProud didn't start off looking particular courageous, what with their head-scratching decision not to participate in a roundtable on Don't Ask Don't Tell but instead parlay their sponsorship to join a technology panel. But they found their inner-feisty after the National Organization for Marriage issued a statement attacking GOProud after appearing too chummy in this CNN report.
In this short clip, which is already going viral, GOProud Executive Director** Jimmy LaSilvia calls NOM out, asking why they couldn't deliver their statement in person, just two booths down, and asking, "Who's the real pansy at CPAC?"
Not to be outdone, an incredibly cocky Ryan Sorba, head of the Young Conservatives of California, "condemned" CPAC for allowing GOProud's participation, and launched into a rant attacking gay rights (video below). Nothing too shocking there, except for the audience reaction, which was more boos and jeers than applause. Eventually, Sorba walks off the stage.
Whatever you think of GOProud's politics or its history as a splinter group complaining that Log Cabin wasn't conservative enough(!), it is a net-plus that even at CPAC, the rightwing inner sanctum, attacking gay rights risks jeers as well as cheers.
** LaSilvia gets bonus points for taking the title executive director and not "president," like Joe Solmonese of HRC, who was in no way elected by that group's membership, or "president and CEO" like some at the helm of other gay rights groups. Next thing you know, these guys will start calling themselves bishops like some ministers with grossly oversized egos.
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Comments
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The backstory can be summarized in a comment, no need to stroke the ego by requiring people to ask for it.
Anyways, the audience started booing before he even mentioned gays. Methinks the reaction wasn't so much over an attack on a gay group but over the "condemn" part on the very group that hosted their ass.
You don't bite the hand that feeds you.
I'm highly unconvinced that the members were moved out of compassion for LGBT's than loyalty to the CPAC brand.
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A "cleansing" led by the Catholic bishops. That I cannot wait to see.
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"Rather than become more uppity, as Gallagher implied, the gay movement has become remarkably more conservative. From its beginnings in sexual liberation and radical counterculturalism, the movement has sharpened its focus on what the vast majority of gay Americans want -- to participate as equals in the fundamental, conservative institutions they grew up believing in: marriage, the family, the Boy Scouts, the church, the military, and so on."
The comments to this entry are closed.
Jimmy LaSalvia on Feb 20, 2010 11:41:08 PM:
The DADT discussion was sponsored by the "Center for Military Readiness" not CPAC. The CPAC panel I spoke on was the one among the panels that were available that was the best fit for us. I'm happy to tell you the backstory sometime.
Jimmy