LCR: Planned Obsolescence
Christopher Barron, the former political director for the Log Cabin Republicans, has been tapped to work for Planned Parenthood in developing "its efforts to reach out to pro-abortion Republicans for support," because, I guess, there's such a huge group of pro-abortion Republicans that a marginalized gay guy is the perfect face for a wider outreach effort.
*rolls eyes*
The Log Cabin Republicans are an ostensibly conservative gay group which, nonetheless, refused to endorse Republican candidate George W. Bush for President in 2004 because of Bush's vocal support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would legally codify marriage into strictly heterosexual terms. In other words, Bush conceded to the long-standing definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, and thought it prudent to head-off a national uproar at the pass by initiating a federal amendment to prevent the courts from dismantling marriage as a heterosexual tradition. This got LCR's panties in such a big gay wad that they ran about using terms like "betrayal" and "hijacked by the religious right" all the way up to the actual election, whereas, of course, the Republican candidate that they refused to endorse won, thereby ensuring the Log Cabin Republicans an even fainter voice within the Republican Party than they had before.
Nothing like overestimating one's influence.
Think of the Log Cabin Republicans as a group of excitable, hyper-ventilating Andrew Sullivans, and you've pretty much got it nailed. Self-interested? Oh yes. Conservative. Not particularly, unless the topic is cutting their taxes, but that's about it.
The BF and I flirted briefly with the idea of attending some LCR meetings here in the Seattle area, but after examining the press releases that LCR was shuffling out in the heady days between the start of the Iraq War and the conclusion of the 2004 election cycle, we realized that LCR was just another liberal gay group in Conservative drag.
I suppose one could argue that the Log Cabin Republicans officially see themselves as Spies in the House of the Republicans, or, "changing things from the inside" if you want to be all coy about it, but while gay men and women are becoming a less invisible part of Conservative politics, it's not the pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, pro-gay-military, let's-not-endorse-George W. Bush gay conservatives that hold any positions of real influence. Nor are they likely to.
The gay left has long been synonymous with a plethora of hard left views. Abortion on Demand. Check. Anti-War For Any Reason. Check (and could someone please explain to me the "I'm against all war but let gay people in the military now!" attitude?). Racial and Gender quotas. Check. Party Like It's 1979. Check. So there's nothing revolutionary about members of the gay right traipsing down the same left-swerving paths, nor can I figure out why they'd find it politically expedient to do so.
Amanda Banks, a federal issues analyst for Focus on the Family Action, an outspoken anti-abortion, pro-heterosexual marriage organization, had this to say in a recent interview: "(Christopher Barron) has been employed by one organization (LCR) that works in contradiction to the Republican Party platform, and now he's going to work for another organization (PP) that does the same thing."
And she's speaking about a member of the self-appointed gay conservative political leadership. So, tell me, is gay-marriage and pro-abortion activism the grand plan for how gay conservatives are finally going to get mainstream Conservatives to embrace them into the fold?
OFF TOPIC:
Gay Patriot, I love you for the rest of my life for linking to this video.
Comments
Another sla-a-a-am dunk, Homocon.
Hey, speaking of basketball: I think the funniest part of those two Chinese guys in the Houston Rockets jerseys lip-synching to the boy band is how the guy sitting behind them is playing Counter-Strike and totally ignoring them. That means these guys were probably in a crowded cybercafe in the middle of Shanghai when they recorded their little music video.
In an overpopulated Third-World country filled with Communist conformists, two teenage kids in front of a webcam start a revolution...
Posted by: Scott | November 22, 2005 4:16 PM