Liberty Counsel May Lead Pullout of CPAC if Homosexual Group GOProud Remains as Co-Sponsor

TAKE ACTION: Call or write CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) Chairman David Keene of the American Conservative Union (703-836-8602, ext. 19) and urge him to keep social liberals from corrupting CPAC’s conservative message. E-mail: cpac@conservative.org. Urge Keene to drop GOProud as a CPAC co-sponsor because GOProud supports the same radical homosexualist agenda as other GLBT organizations — which is corrupting children and tearing apart America’s moral fiber.

‘One of these groups doesn’t belong’: the homosexual activist group GOProud joins truly conservative organizations co-sponsoring the annual CPAC conference. Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel is leading a pullout of CPAC by social conservative groups unless GOProud is removed as a co-sponsor.

[Note: since publication of this article we have published a letter to AFTAH clarifying that GOProud does NOT support “hate crimes” laws, as most other homosexual groups do. — Editor]

By Peter LaBarbera

Folks, for years religious conservatives have been complaining about getting  the short end of the stick from CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. There is usually only a token panel or two dealing with “Culture War” social issues like abortion and homosexuality (and rarely one explicitly on fighting the “gay” agenda) — as organizers seek to appease the CPAC libertarians, some of whom support goals like homosexual “marriage” that are anathema to socially conservatives.

Now CPAC’s tenuous “Big Tent” could collapse altogether as social conservatives led by Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber threaten to launch a boycott of the conference (scheduled for Feb. 18-20, 2010) unless CPAC drops a homosexual activist group, GOProud, as a co-sponsor. Barber, my good friend, an AFTAH Board Member, and the Director of Cultural Affairs at Liberty Counsel, is leading the charge to keep the CPAC sponsorship list … conservative.

GOProud describes itself as “the only national organization for gay conservatives and their allies,” but we at AFTAH dispute their definition of “conservative,” which would have the movement’s Founding Fathers, like Russell Kirk (see quotation at bottom), rolling over in their graves.

Matt Barber, author of The Right Hook: From the Ring to the Culture War (www.righthookbook.com)

I received an email sent by Barber to conservatives nationwide in which he wrote:

“I was disturbed to learn that CPAC is allowing the ‘Republican’ homosexual activist group GOProud to sponsor a booth at the 2010 conference. Among other things, GOProud advocates in favor of both ‘gay marriage’ and ‘civil unions,’ against pro-marriage constitutional amendments ; is pushing for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and advocates in favor of federal ‘partnership benefits’ for homosexuals. This group is pushing a radical leftist agenda that is an affront to the GOP platform, conservatism and, most importantly, the Word of God.”

In other words, GOProud is just another “gay” activist group, with a twist: the rest of its agenda (outside its pro-homosexual special interest) is conservative.

Barber is committed to leading a social conservative pullout of a pro-homosexuality CPAC, and AFTAH has learned that a number of leading pro-family organizations have already hinted that they will heed his call if CPAC retains GOProud as a co-sponsor.

TAKE ACTION: Call or write CPAC Chairman David Keene of the American Conservative Union (703-836-8602, ext. 19) and urge him to keep social liberals from corrupting CPAC’s conservative message. Urge Keene to drop GOProud as a CPAC co-sponsor because GOProud supports the same radical homosexualist agenda as other LGBT organizations — which is corrupting children and tearing apart America’s moral fiber.

What is conservatism?

It boils down to this: there is nothing “conservative” about homosexual sodomy–be it two men engaging in what was once called the Crime Against Nature, or two women awkwardly mimicking natural procreative relations or raising a child together in an intentionally fatherless home.

This does not mean that people practicing those and other immoral (and changeable) behaviors cannot think and act conservatively on other issues like lowering taxes, cutting government spending, ending abortion, etc. But let’s be honest: the “proud” in GOProud is not about pride in opposing the death tax, or defending the right to bear arms; it’s about proudly embracing sinful homosexual behavior — and that is hardly a conservative value.

I challenge every thinking conservative to explain why we should jettison our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage (which clearly rejects homosexual acts as immoral) for some new, secularized brand of “conservatism” that fails to conserve natural, normal, and noble sex within God-ordained marriage. Where does the expansion of “conservatism” stop? Would CPAC welcome “Republicans for Abortion” as a co-sponsor? How about “Conservatives For Higher Taxes”? We doubt it. So let’s stop the double-standard on one issue — homosexuality — that happens to be politically incorrect in this decadent age.

Libertarians for a Big Gay Government?

And for you protesting libertarians who attend CPAC: please tell me what part of the statist Big Gay Government agenda you support: the part that expands newfangled federal “rights” based on aberrant-sex and -gender preferences — at the expense of Americans’ historic religious and First Amendment freedoms? The part that redefines criminal prosecution to factor in people’s thoughts (“hate crimes”)? The part that forces men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces to bunk and shower with people who define themselves by their sexual attractiom toward those of the same sex — thus sublimating straight soldiers’ and sailors’ privacy concerns to the demands of activist homosexuals? Or could it be the part that uses taxpayer-funded public schools to indoctrinate innocent, impressionable children in one side of the homosexuality debate?

We’re all ears.

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“A society in which men and women are governed by belief in an enduring moral order, by a strong sense of right and wrong, by personal convictions about justice and honor, will be a good society—whatever political machinery it may utilize; while a society in which men and women are morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent chiefly upon gratification of appetites, will be a bad society—no matter how many people vote and no matter how liberal its formal constitution may be.”
—Russell Kirk, historian, essayist, author, among many other books, The Conservative Mind: from Burke to Eliot

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The following item was posted on GOProud’s website Dec. 8:

GOProud to Cosponsor CPAC 2010

Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director – “GOProud is thrilled to be a cosponsor of the single most important conservative gathering in the country.”

(Washington, DC) Today, GOProud, the only national organization for gay conservatives and their allies, announced they are a cosponsor of CPAC 2010. Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud’s Executive Director, said, “GOProud is thrilled to be a cosponsor of the single most important conservative gathering in the country.”

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will take place February 18-20 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. “GOProud’s participation at CPAC is one of the most important things we will do all year,” continued LaSalvia. “This gathering of the nation’s most influential conservatives gives us an incredible opportunity to deliver our message.”

“GOProud looks forward to continuing to work with the conservative movement to promote policies that will improve the lives of all Americans – including gays and lesbians,” concluded LaSalvia.