Sarah Palin, CPAC, and The Gay

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CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) always produces a few headlines. Sometimes, Ann Coulter will stun the world with her latest outrageous statement. Sometimes, it's something Dick Cheney said. But in the last two years, the big topic has been the gay. See, CPAC used to be the premiere right-wing event, until last year. Unhappy with the Log Cabin Republicans--a conservative gay group seen as too gay, and not conservative enough--a new group called GOProud was formed by little g, big c gay conservatives.  Were it not for the fact that these folks pair up in same-sex combinations, they'd be indistinguishible from your standard tea baggin', George Bush-lovin', send Obama back to Kenya right wingers.

Then GOProud showed up as a visible presence at CPAC last year. There was a big kerfuffle about that. This year, they wanted a place at the table again, but got a lot of blowback (heh). All of the organizations with "family" and "tradition" in their names backed out. Several high-profile names did too. And the discussion--if you can call it that--about the issue is toxic. The level of discourse is anachronistic, and nasty. Imagine a political movement insisting that black people must go back to riding in the back of the bus. It's like that.

GOProud could sort of be forgiven for believing that the culture wars were over, and that their homosexuality would be incidental to their conservatism.  Initially, the whole tea party movement seemed to have put social issues on the back burner. The whole gay issue--outside of the occasional blowup around same-sex marriage--seemed to have (ahem) flamed out. Suddenly though, it seems like it's 1950. Conservatives are allowed to say just about any offensive thing they want about gay people, and they're just expressing "their side." It's really, really strange. Where do these people live? I seriously never run into them in real life.

Anyway, Sarah Palin is one of the people whose schedule was just too danged busy to fit CPAC in gosh darn it. When pressed on the issue though, Palin--in one of her classic word salad spews--didn't spit on the gays. Though hard to decipher, her statement sorta sounded accepting of GOProud's presence at CPAC, if not an outright endorsement. Just one little problem. The people in right-wing world who are the most overtly homophobic are also Palin's most ardent supporters! Fun.

[Excerpt]

Does Sarah Palin Support Gay Rights?



Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, is still mum on her 2012 intentions, but her support of a gay conservative group's inclusion at the national Conservative Political Action Conference has led many to wonder whether she has tacked to the center on gay rights. . .
 
Read more at: Huffington Post