CPAC: Gay GOP Group GOProud Booted, So Breitbart And Buddies Boycott
It should come as no surprise that the rabidly-right-wing wingnuts at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, which hosts an annual conference with a strange consortium that is part Ron Paul Libertarians, part American Family Association hate groups, part Ann Coulter/Andrew Breitbart media whores, part Joe and Jane Average older Republican, part Tea Party patriot extremists, and part news media, (not to mention almost entirely white,) doesn’t particularly like homosexuals. In fact, I think they hate homosexuals.
So, it should also come as no surprise that CPAC’s new board has booted the gay Tea Party group GOProud from being able to co-sponsor the conference, which they have the past two years. Of course, GOProud is welcome to attend, like everyone else, but they cannot be officially affiliated with CPAC or the American Conservative Union, which exists primarily to manage the annual CPAC event.
Media mogul Andrew Breitbart, who sits on GOProud’s board, has decided he will not attend next year’s CPAC in response to the booting, as it were, and now his followers are, well, following.
“The decision means GOProud won’t be able to pay to have a booth at the exhibition hall, nor will the organization have its name appear on promotional materials for CPAC 2012,” writes Chris Johnson at The Washington Blade.
“Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for the American Conservative Union, said ACU Chair Al Cardenas took the issue of GOProud’s participation — as well as other groups — to the board ‘given controversies surrounding a few CPAC 2011 co-sponsors’ and ‘concerns raised by a number of our board members’.â€
“GOProud’s participation at CPAC had incurred the wrath of social conservative groups that pledged to boycott sponsorship of the event over the gay conservative group’s involvement. These groups include Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, Liberty Counsel and Liberty University. In 2011, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a social conservative and Tea Party favorite, also declined to participate at CPAC.
“Also last year, GOProud board chair Chris Barron took heat from conservatives after he described Cleta Mitchell, chair of the ACU Foundation, as “a nasty bigot†in an interview. Barron apologized, but ACU chair Cardenas told FrumForum that “it’s going to be difficult to continue the relationship†with GOProud and expressed disappointment in the group’s reaction to the furor over its participation at the event.”
Roger Simon of Pajamas Media is boycotting, as is someone named Ted Frank.
World Net Daily (yes, I know,) also mentions, “a campaign assembled by Americans for Truth’s Peter LaBarbera and Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber to object to GOProud’s participation.
“Barber had objected to GOProud’s endorsement of ‘gay marriage’ as well as its demand that homosexuality be promoted in the U.S. military through the repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ practice’.
GOProud has to take part of the blame for getting the boot. After all, when someone like Chris Barron, GOProud’s co-founder, calls important people nasty names, they’re not too excited about jumping up and supporting the nascent organization.
(Note to GOProud’s Barron and LaSalvia: you actually do catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Not that you really care. If those two spent as much time working for equality as they do bashing “the gay left” as they call us, no doubt we’d all be farther along.)
Interestingly, CPAC also barred the notorious John Birch Society from co-sponsoring CPAC — but no one’s boycotting CPAC for that reason. It’s nice to know that some of the right-wing extremists out there like “the gays” more than “the crazies.”
So now, GOProud is doing what it does best: playing the victim and trying really, really hard to get lots of attention. And when you have a media whore and man who will say or do just about anything, someone like Andrew Breitbart, on your board of directors, how hard could that be? Breitbart is boycotting CPAC, and all the media whorettes who want to get in Breitbart’s good graces are joining in.
Fred Karger, the openly gay Republican presidential candidate, in The Guardian, writes, “If conservative political conference CPAC persists in its anti-gay policy, all Republican presidential candidates should boycott it,” and adds this little dash of insight into the party of supposed free markets and free ideas (sorry, Reason,)
“Alberto “Al” Cardenas, the new head of the American Conservative Union (ACU), has taken bigotry and hypocrisy to new heights. I believe I was a victim of his organisation’s prejudice earlier this year when I wanted to purchase a booth at their annual CPAC gathering in Washington, DC. My credit card information was taken last December, and I was told that I was in. Then, mysteriously, three weeks later, I was told by phone that they had “sold out”. Funny, others were purchasing booths right up until the conference began in mid February.”
Karger, so innocently, adds,
“How can anyone running for president attend, let alone speak at CPAC’s September Florida event or the February conference next year? It is tantamount to endorsing discrimination against an entire class of Americans.”
You really have to smile when you see the gay Right realize what the gay Left has seen all along. What? Discrimination against an entire class of Americans? You mean, like DOMA, And DADT, and no ENDA, and…
Politico’s Ben Smith says GOProud’s “exclusion has become the kind of cause celebre to the libertarian right that its inclusion was to social conservatives,” and adds,
“Cardenas met today, I’m told, with the executive director of the gay conservative group GOProud, Jimmy LaSalvia. It was, a person briefed on the event said, “not a good meeting.” The representatives of GOProud were furious to learn from WorldNetDaily and the Daily Caller that they’d been dropped from the organization, and were also none-too-thrilled about Cardenas’s wife’s recent comments on the subject.”
Comments?
Oh, yes:
“Unfortunately, the biggest victory of the gay movement has been to shift the debate from a ‘behavior’ to identity, whereby those that oppose homosexuality are considered bigoted or hateful. They have equated it to the Civil Rights Movement, seeking to obtain the rights granted under the constitution to all races or religions. Sexual behavior does not fall into either category!!!!It is not about homosexuals wanting to enter into a ‘marriage’ so much as it is about them wanting to gain acceptance into mainstream society by redefining the traditional definition of the institution.”
That was just a small portion.
Meanwhile, in an amusing piece, Alana Goodman writes, “If CPAC caves to outside controversy and blocks one contentious group from participating, then it sets a precedent that could lead to other organizations getting blackballed in the future.”
Funny how “the gays” are always the ones who get blackballed.
Â
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
|
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
