Brawl Under the Big Tent

As if the conformity mafiosi weren't bad enough with their "gay Republicans are an oxymoron" trope, there has also been a spirited battle raging in the past couple of years – mostly under the radar – within the ranks of gay conservatives, libertarians and Republicans themselves.

At the center of the big shitstorm is Log Cabin Republicans, a storm that only intensified when LCR announced in 2004 that they wouldn't endorse George Bush for President and would instead spend $1 million toward his defeat to "educate" voters on why the Federal Marriage Amendment was such a bad thing.  (For the record, I feel those decisions were fairly sensible, despite the internecine warfare and identity crisis that they were bound to precipitate.)

Perhaps as if to reinforce the sensitivity involved, LCR's press release announcing those ads is buried on their website.  Their press-release archive page begins only after that announcement was made.

The debate centers on whether Log Cabin should be primarily a gay group or a Republican one.  The head of LCR, Patrick Guerriero, planted his flag squarely in the latter camp in a December interview with The Advocate: “Are we first and foremost a Republican organization, or are we first and foremost a gay organization with a role to play inside the Republican Party? The board and I made a conscious decision on the second, and that has affected everything we have to do and continue to do.”

It's against this backdrop that LCR reached out to bloggists to cover their 2006 national convention, which is underway in Washington, D.C.  (Disclosure: I was invited to attend but am unable to travel this weekend.)  Blog-pal BoiFromTroy is filing reports, as is MeetJustin.

The convention's agenda, true to the Guerriero interview, is heavy on gay advocacy and light on issues related to ways to support and elect Republicans who are more friendly to gay causes.  This has prompted Bruce at GayPatriot, one of the most vociferous critics of Log Cabin, to issue a challenge to BoiFromTroy:

[I]f you find any actual Republicans at the Log Cabin “convention”.. please notify the media!! I’m sure you will trip over the Gay Rights Pro-Abortion Lobbyist and the Neo-Liberal-Neo-Conservative-Neo-Confused Speaker many times, though.

BFT essentially concedes the point:

While the speakers have not been Republicans (sorry Bruce) they see a potential strong ally with Gay Republicans who can certainly do some educating among the members of our party.

As usual, I think I come down somewhere in the middle on this one.

I think advocacy is extremely important: Winning hearts and minds, whether among the public or among elected officials, is indispensable.  But unlike groups such as HRC, which are at least supposed to be bipartisan and advocacy-oriented, LCR was established as a partisan, political entity supporting Republicans.  If it ceases to function as such, it might as well merge with any of the other sundry gay-rights groups out there.  (In fact, the Liberty Education Forum was established parallel to LCR to function as a non-political, 501(c)3, advocacy arm, putting LCR at risk of becoming doubly redundant.)

I do not expect Log Cabin to rush in to support people like Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum or Marilyn Musgrave, nor should they.  But as a gay man who is deeply disillusioned with the current direction of Republicans, I would feel better if Log Cabin spent more of its time and resources at helping build a better GOP: recruiting and supporting more gay and gay-friendly candidates, working harder to build bridges on Capitol Hill, and influencing the legislative process.

Log Cabin Republicans was originally established to say, "We are going to play a unique role in the gay political landscape."  Today, what they are more often saying is, "Ditto!"

Comments

[cmh]

Gosh, it's been a while since I've posted anything here. Still recovering from my last encounter I guess. Well, I'm back for another beating. First off, let me say (and this will be surprising for a pretty much left-wing oriented Democrat) that I think you're right Malcontent on what the focus and activities of the LCR should be. The question I have is how does the LCR go about doing those things when the party as a whole has pretty much signaled that it is not remotely concerned about gay and lesbian issues? The Republican Party has for all intents and purposes been hijacked by religious extremists who by their actions seem to believe that the best role for the GOP is to increasingly marginalize gays and those who attempt to act or speak on the behalf of the GLBT community. How do you attract gay-friendly individuals to a party or to get those within the party to seek political office when it is clear they will not get support from the party leadership? Ok, there's the opening salvo. Have at it.

[Malcontent]

It's pretty simply, really. Those who currently call the shots in the Democratic Party (and it really is now the Moveon.org Party) have shown the DLC the door, but that doesn't mean that the DLC shouldn't keep fighting for sane, centrist Democratic positions and candidates.

Just because the GOP isn't all that receptive to gays right now doesn't mean that it will always be thus, and that those of us who would like to see the party move back to its foundational principles should just give up.

[Casey]

Hey Malcontent,
Something worth noting - today's events were absolutely, as you noted, "heavy on gay advocacy and light on issues related to ways to support and elect Republicans who are more friendly to gay causes," but this not actually the problem you think. You noted the existence of LEF - well, today is actually billed as the LEF National Symposium, with tomorrow's events being more LCR focused (and, reasonably, I think you'll find tomorrow's schedule has a more partisan emphasis). Just an FYI.

[Michael K. Bassham]

I'm a gay Republican attending the convention right now. Bruce, of Gaypatriot.org., refuses to acknowledge that the LCR have not burned bridges with the White House or Republican members on the Hill. I know of meetings between the LCR president and others with the President and Karl Rove, and I, along with scores of others, spent hours yesterday fanning out on capitol hill talking to Republican legislators. The damage Bruce claims was done to the relationship between LCR and the Republicans just isn't true.

[North Dallas Thirty]

The question I have is how does the LCR go about doing those things when the party as a whole has pretty much signaled that it is not remotely concerned about gay and lesbian issues?

Examine the reasons why.

First and foremost, I think, is the fact that Republicans are almost completely convinced of the fact that gay-rights organizations are less concerned with gay rights than they are with sucking up to the Democratic Party.

The example why is obvious; despite their rather loud screeching that anyone who disagreed with gay marriage and supported legislation or amendments to ban it was a hateful, antigay bigot, the vast majority of gay rights groups gave tens of millions of dollars in support, their unqualified endorsement, and numerous chants of "pro-gay" and "gay-supportive" to one of those very bigots.

Second, "gay and lesbian issues" no longer means "gay and lesbian issues". Asking Republicans to support such when such also means being anti-war, anti-religion, anti-corporation, anti-Bush and pro-abortion, pro-Palestinian terrorist, and pro-taxes is a bit beyond the pale of rational expectation.

GayPatriot's point speaks well to both; namely, that if LCR wishes to be taken seriously among Republicans, it needs to ditch the "allies" that will do nothing more than alienate Republicans further and demonstrate that, unlike HRC and other so-called "nonpartisan" organization, it looks at record AND affiliation.

[Dan]

Mal, get real. Moveon.org doesn't control the democratic party. The DLC doesn't control the democratic party. In fact, if anybody out there has any idea who's controlling the democrats, would you mind letting us democrats know?

My money's still on some kind of Karl Rove/voodoo thing.

[raj]

LCR has too many problems to be taken seriously. Just a couple of them.

(i) It is far from clear what, if anything, they are doing in the national Republican party to advance equal rights for gay people. And given the rather obvious hostility of the national Republican party to equal rights for gay people, it is far from clear that LCR would ever be able to achieve anything for gay people.

(ii) Given (i) it is far from clear what they have to sell to gay people--that is, what spin would they use to encourage more gay people to vote Republican (again, at the national level). And that's probably one reason that only some 25% of gay people admit to voting Republican.

There was an LCR chapter here in the Boston area until a few years ago. A friend of mine was involved in it. They disbanded largely because of lack of interest--indeed, disdain--from the Republican party. I guess that's an indication of how interested the Republican party is in supporting the LCR--or, for that matter, equal rights for gay people.

The national LCR will, of course, have their convention, with the obligatory over-priced rubber-chicken dinner. What, if anything, comes out of the convention won't matter very much. What was the quotation "sound and fury, signifying nothing"? That pretty much describes the LCR.

[James]

North,

Quick question: Can you give me a run-down of what you consider "gay and lesbian issues."

peace

[louis]

As if the conformity mafiosi weren't bad enough with their "gay Republicans are an oxymoron" trope

Uhh Mal, that's, "moron" dear I think it's now more than safe to say, as Stones' post was pretty much case in point. Yes at this stage in the game, it would stand to reason that you gay republicans and/or closet gay republicans are FAR MORE simple and fudamental than that of an oxymoron.

NDT - THEY DON'T WANT YOU!

"wake the fuck up"

[Dan]

I'm afraid what you're saying just doens't make sense, Mal. If you're a gay republican and you want to support the GOP, but don't want to be 'weighted down' by that pesky stuff like gay rights, gay marriage, etc, then just work directly for the GOP (or one of their candidates/PACS/etc). The LCR exists for a very unique reason - to advance the recognition of gay conservatives. And if they want any respect in that arena, they need to take a principled stand on those issues that are uniquely important to their constituency. I applaud the courageousness of people like Guerriero, not because he's opposing Bush but because he's actually standing on principle. A rare sight indeed in DC.

[Casey]

Raj, you don't know what you're talking about. This is rather a frequent trend with you, but I'll just debunk this one rather spectacular example of it. You claim the Boston LCR chapter is defunct. The truth is, they are alive and well (biggest difficulty, naturally for any GOP organization, being that they are in Massachusetts) and the only reason why they don't have more than the several members in attendance at the LCR convention today that they do is that the Boston LCR chapter was invited to address the state GOP convention, which is also going on today. Now, can we kindly put an end to the "Log Cabin has no access" and "Log Cabin does nothing for GLBT folk" nonsense? It's just not true if you're willing to actually open your eyes and see what's going on.

[raj]

Casey | April 29, 2006 at 12:38 PM

Stop putting words in my mouth. What I said was

There was an LCR chapter here in the Boston area until a few years ago. A friend of mine was involved in it. They disbanded largely because of lack of interest--indeed, disdain--from the Republican party.

A Log Cabin group might have subsequently organized itself, but what I posted was accurate, according to what I had been told.

BTW, looking at the BayWindows "Community Guide" it appears that there is something called "Log Cabin Club of Eastern Mass" with a telephone number of 617-338-8220. If that is what you are referring to, I find it interesting that they eschew the use of "Republican" in their name. Are they trying to hide something?

[Yum Yum]

I like the ditziness of this blog. I'm a libertarian-leaning conservative too, but please don't get overly political.

[Kevin]

And a lot of southern states "don't want you" either. So do we flee in terror?

Or do we stand and fight?

It's obvious which side 'louis' is on. No wonder the Democratic Party is such a disaster (read Joe Klein's "Politics Lost") and the Republican Party is crumbling from the weight of its own arrogance and power-drunkenness -- because the only people willing to stand and fight are the extremists or the self-interested. It's no wonder that the gay community doesnt cultivate inspirational moral leaders with the sewage and morass that flows from sites like BlogActive and from hatred-soaked, idea-less left-wingers and right-wingers alike.

Frankly, I miss the 90s - when the slick, somewhat disingenuous Democratic White House at least paid lip service, the gay progressives actually had a few ideas left, there was still a modicum of debate in the gay movement about philosophy rather than polltesting everything down to the shoelaces, and the gay Republicans were unapologetically BOTH gay and Republican, liked it just fine and told people who didn't (on both ends of the spectrum) to go to hell.

[louis]

It's obvious which side 'louis' is on.

Yes sweetie, I would imagine it must be.

{waves to the morons way on the other side}

[Dan]

louie, dear, get a writer or something. please.

[louis]

You know what, I'll get right on that oh Danny boy!!! Oh! And until then, if what you've read of mine seems bothersome, unskilled or not up to your obvious sense of humor and intellect (and what words from whom amongst us could ever be), then just avert your eyes from my inserts and go ahead and bypass little 'ole me; as do most with good sense. Yeah; meanwhile we'll all just continue to sit in awestruck wonderment with respect to all of your well written, engaging, enightening *AND* witty posts.

[Dan]

actually that's not bad. you've obviously found your voice as a hysterical, bitter queen.

[louis]

...Profound as always. Why you must be the death life of all social gatherings.

[Queer Conservative]

louie, dear, get a writer or something. please.

Or at least a thesaurus .

[louis]

oh please QC, me not withstandidng of course, very few are as redundant as you and make no mistake that that would include your verbiage.

[Queer Conservative]

Sensitive aren't you, Louis? Or is it delicate, or easily affected, or emotionable, or touchy?

[Queer Conservative]

"withstandidng"

Is that a Norse festival?

[louis]

Yeah go with that rhetoric QC.

Okay we're on some pretty good shit here tonight at the crib and all, but what the hell is going on on SNL??!!I've been assured that I'm not seeing and hearing things but I think my peop's are pulling my leg.

{waves goodnight to the morons way on the other side}

[Kevin]

hahah i do not need to say another word. :-)

nighty night, children.