"CPAC has consistently over the years championed those ideas that have made America great: limited government, free enterprise, low taxes and a strong national defense."
- Vice President Dick Cheney
All that is out the window this year. A boycott is under way led by such weighty conservatives as Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr., Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver, Gary Glenn, President of the American Family Association of Michigan.
What has these über conservatives so riled up?
This year, CPAC has accepted the sponsorship of a conservative gay rights group, GOProud. According to an article on Free Republic, "GOProud advocates same-sex "marriage," a repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and "expanding access to domestic partner benefits" for "homosexuals' "
An announcement on GayPatriot, a conservative Gay blog had this to say about GOProud:
I am thrilled to help announce the birth of a new national gay conservative organization, GOProud. As long-time readers know I have been very critical of the national Log Cabin Republicans for many years.
Their left-of-center positions on important issues have bothered me as LCR has continually sucked the teet of the Gay Leftist agenda. LCR's silence and unwillingness to stand up and be vocal on true gay conservative issues (outing of Republican staffers, increasing threat of gays being selectively aborted, peril gays face by Islamic extremists) has been mind-boggling. And LCR's continued obsession in trashing Republicans, yet letting Democrats get a pass on their gay-related hypocrisies, has been infruriating.
Many of you, friends and critics alike, have told me if I wasn't happy with LCR to do something about it. I have tried shining light on the organization from GayPatriot.org. But many of us felt more had to be done.
Politico ran an article about the launch of GOProud that said:
GOPROUD, the new 527 group, will launch next week, according to a media advisory. The contact given for the group is Christopher Barron, a former Log Cabin political director who broke with the group.
"Essentially, there's no voice for gay Republicans or gay conservatives in particular in D.C. right now. Log Cabin has been completely and totally absent here in D.C. for months and months," Barron said. "It has simply moved way too far from the left and is basically indistinguishable from any other gay left organization."
The ideological battle has been playing out in the gay media and on some blogs for a while, spurred in part by the Blade's revelation that the Log Cabin Republicans' biggest backer is a prominent Democrat, Tim Gill. Their complaint, in general, is that Log Cabin has grown indistinguishable from left-leaning gay rights groups.
Free Republic's Jim Robinson has joined the boycott and had this to say about his reasoning:
"I'll join that boycott. If CPAC is no longer for conservative family values then I want nothing to do with them. They'll have to change their name to HOMOPAC."
- Jim Robinson Founder of Free Republic
