Michael B. Keegan: A Gay Tempest in the Tea Party
The Religious right roots of CPAC begin to show, they need a new dye job.
If, last year, the extremist libertarian and extremist Religious Right branches of the conservative coalition were at least keeping their sniping to a minimum, this year their alliance is beginning to crack. And once again, GOProud and the anti-gay forces that oppose it are at the center of the feud.
In November, a group of Religious Right organizations, getting wind of the fact that GOProud planned to return to the CPAC in 2011, wrote to the conference’s organizers informing them that they would boycott the event if the gay group was allowed to participate. In a curious compromise, CPAC’s organizers said they would allow both GOProud and the far-right nationalist group the John Birch Society to participate. The protesters, including the National Organization for Marriage (apparently no longer interested in a beer summit), stuck to their boycott. Last week, in a great culture wars coup, they were joined by two of the nation’s most prominent Religious Right groups, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America. Soon after, WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah chimed in with a call to “purge” the conservative movement of gays and gay rights supporters.