CPAC allows LGBTQ group as sponsor for first time, risks pro-family backlash
As the
Conservative Political Action Conference got underway, they faced
strong criticism for welcoming a Republican homosexual activist group as a
sponsor for the first time.
The Log Cabin
Republicans state on their website that their group exists
solely to “make the Republican Party more inclusive, particularly on gay and
lesbian issues.”
“Working from
inside the Party—educating other Republicans about gay and lesbian issues—is
the most effective way to gain new Republican allies for equality,” the group’s
website states. “We believe equality for LGBT Americans is in the finest
tradition of the Republican Party,” it adds.
“Equality”
has become the rallying cry behind the LGBTQ movement and has led to the
illicit overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, the imprisonment of Kim
Davis, and crippling fines leading to bankruptcy of numerous Christian
florists, bakers, and photographers who have refused on moral grounds to
support two people of the same sex calling their partnership “marriage.”
Preston Noell
III, director of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and
Property (TFP) — a group that has sponsored CPAC for many years — is now
threatening to withdraw its sponsorship of the event next year if the
invitation to the pro-LGBTQ group is not rescinded.
“It pains me
to say this, but CPAC is turning left. It's alienating true conservatives and
shattering the cohesion of the conservative movement," he said in a press
release.
“Nothing is
more corrosive to the movement as the deliberate efforts of LGBT and atheist
activists to be accepted as bona fide conservatives and the naiveté of those
who view them as such,” he added.
But Gregory
T. Angelo, president of Log Cabin Republicans, told LifeSiteNews’ John-Henry
Westen that his group has come to CPAC, not to talk about the group’s agenda on
homosexuality, but about human rights.
“I would say
that a lot of the objections of this organization [TFP] to Log Cabin
Republicans’ presence here involve positions that we’ve taken on issues that
we’re not talking about here at CPAC. We’re using our time here at CPAC to talk
about the fact that Iran, right now, is hanging people who are gay, or merely
suspected of being gay, from cranes. ISIS is throwing people who are gay, or
suspected of being gay, from rooftops. You want to talk about pro-life? Let’s
talk about pro-life, and how we can unite on that front,” he said.
Corresponding
to his organization’s reason for existence, as stated above, Angelo admitted
that he was “glad” to become a CPAC sponsor “specifically, to engage with
skeptics, people who might not know about the full spectrum of issues that Log
Cabin Republicans engage on.”
Angelo, who
said he is Catholic and gay, told LifeSiteNews that legal attacks against
Christians refusing to compromise with gay “marriage” come from the “gay left”
not from groups such as his.
“It's unfair
to conflate Log Cabin Republicans with other [pro-LGBTQ] groups on the other
side of the political spectrum that do not identify, or prioritize, their
faith, or who are unable to have a conversation with the people of faith, as
people of faith,” he said.
Angelo said
his group believes that Christians, clergy, and churches should be able to have
a “reasonable religious accommodation” when it comes to homosexuality and to be
able to express conscientious objections, but “not because of who someone is,
but based on an event.”
“I don’t
think it’s right to give people of faith a carte blanche permission to deny anyone service, for
any reason, simply citing moral objections,” he said.
But the TFP
is not buying the Log Cabin arguments, stating that the group’s members still
amount to representatives of the “homosexual movement” who should not be given
a “platform of legitimacy” at a conference that seeks to protect and defend the
natural family.
The TFP is
calling on CPAC organizers to give Log Cabin Republicans the boot as a sponsor.
"We call
upon the American Conservative Union to rescind its welcoming of organizations
like Log Cabin Republicans and Atheist Voters as sponsors and exhibitors. Doing
so would show consistency with the word conservative in its name,” the group
stated.
When
LifeSiteNews’ Dustin Siggins asked Ian Walters, director of communication for
the American Conservative Union, for a reaction to the controversy, he
responded by email: “CPAC is an opportunity for all good conservatives to come
together and talk about positions on which we agree and determine the best path
forward on topics which we disagree.”
CPAC is not
the only conservative bastion to experience infiltration by LGBTQ
activists.
Last month
the Republican club at Christendom College, Virginia's renowned orthodox
Catholic college, decided to
leave the
national and state College Republicans after the organization voted to add
“sexual orientation” as a protected class to their constitution.
"Why ...
must we, as members of the Republican Party[,] constantly be faced with
capitulation to the opposing members of political factions?" the
Christendom Political Action League stated in a press release at that
time.
“When will
we, as the conservative future of America, choose to throw off the conventional
wisdom of those who claim to represent a majority of the people, who are
utterly disconnected from the actual issues facing this nation, our nation, and
not play petty politics in an attempt to gain the supporters of the other
party?”
