There is a really useful round-up at View from the Right on mainstream "conservatives" and the homosexualization of the military and other homosexual activist issues. I hope no one is surprised that Jonah Goldberg is all in favor and now says he's always been in favor of homosexual "marriage."
More interesting is the fact that CPAC is completely falling to the social liberal agenda. They have recently voted to include a homosexual activist group among the organizing groups of the conference, prompting Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, and a couple of other family values groups to boycott the February conference.
What we are seeing, I'm afraid, is the ousting of social conservatives from the movement that bears the name "conservative" in the United States. We who do consider ourselves socially conservative need to realize this and not be naive about it. We already knew that here we have no continuing city. Increasingly, we don't even have here a city that pretends to have a place for us.
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I have to register mild disagreement with the idea that "CPAC is completely falling to the social liberal agenda." Just because they allow the homosexual activist group to participate in the conference (I don't think it is accurate to say the group is "among the organizing groups of the conference" as I'm not sure there are "organizing groups" -- really just a bunch of conservative groups that pay to have booth space). I would agree with the sentiments expressed in Peter Wehner's blog post here:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/wehner/385254
I was ultimately persuaded away from my own socially liberal views thanks to being exposed to the thoughtful ideas expressed by bloggers and writers from places like Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, etc. Young conservatives need to hear their arguments and folks from those organizations do a disservice (I think) to the conservative movement by picking up their marbles and going home. No "ousting" necessary.
Here's something on GOProud's place vis a vis the conference:
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=244741
"The American Conservative Union, longtime organizers of CPAC, disclosed just before Christmas that GOProud would be considered a 'participating organization,' the second highest level of participation. As a 'participating organization,' GOProud has a voice in planning the conference."
This represents a very significant redefinition of "conservative." It's, in fact, an absurd redefinition. CPAC was supposed to represent conservatism as opposed to mere membership in the Republican party. With this involvement of a homosexual activist group, it no longer does that.
Let's put this entry in a file for when we get the inevitable, "You MUST vote for this GOP candidate, otherwise you are voting for his opponent who is worse. Get over your need for purity."
What's funny, Scott, is that I'm so used to hearing that from the GOP that I scarcely even notice it anymore.
It's creeping me out, though, to be hearing it from CPAC. Say, what? Have I just been asleep at the wheel, or was the whole point of that separate convention supposed to be that "conservatism" isn't necessarily the same thing as "the Republican party"? I.e., Self-styled conservatives are supposedly more conservative than Republicans, especially in the so-con areas. Right? So now even the self-styled "conservatives" aren't social conservatives anymore. We knew about the Log Cabin Republicans. Now it's the "Log Cabin Conservatives." Yikes.
I hate, really deeply hate, term redefinition, term inflation, rendering previously meaningful words meaningless just to give totally undeserved compliments to people and groups who don't meet the previous standards. It positively burns me up.
If you think you can redefine marriage to mean whatever you like, you'll think the same of conservatism.
John Guardiano's recent essays at the American Spectator were the few bright spots in this debacle. And props to Sen. McCain for sticking to principle despite his wife's and daughter's disloyalty.
Practically speaking, the stupidity of the establishment Republican media's non-opposition to repeal will cause havoc in the party. Anti-repeal Republicans will be hectored and will lack backup from the punditry. For the simple sake of social conservatives' electability, the establishment should have tried to defend anti-repeal sentiment as honorable and part of reasonable debate.
Now, SoCons will take "friendly fire" from Republicans eager to demonstrate their progressive attitudes.
And of course, the DADT repeal will harm the advancement of SoCons in the military and shrink the talent pool of conservative veterans who can go into politics.
Those organizations boycotting CPAC have put in long work for the movement, but the movement is now unwilling even to pretend it is serious about opposing homosexual activists and moral turpitude.
The establishment probably figures it can win on "limited government" sentiment and foreign policy/pro-Israel bluster, so it doesn't need SoCons anymore except to rope in pro-lifers.
It seems to me the boycott recognizes that CPAC is a failed vehicle for SoCon concerns. I hope the boycotters do send a few representatives in an unoffical capacity, or CPAC'll just get worse.
Peter Wehner's Commentary blog post to which Jeff Singer links strikes me as deeply insincere. CPAC's inclusion of GOProud was unnecessarily divisive. The boycotters are right to react to hostility with hostility.
GOProud sponsors "Homocon Happy Hours." Its website page pretends it has a "traditional conservative" agenda but speaks of how its members were turned off by the "anti-gay religious right." It even tried to snuff out SoCon sentiment in the Tea Party.
Much the same is going on with the Denver Young Republicans. They're meeting in a hamburger diner with a gay camp theme, an obvious disincentive for any self-respecting SoCon.
If your putative allies are sabotaging your cultural future, perhaps you're better off joining the enemy party and sabotaging theirs.
Indeed, that's the upshot. If GOP pundits want to lecture SoCons about how they should acknowledge defeat and get with the program... SoCons can start wondering whether they might as well join the Democrats. It's an uphill battle either way. Better to fight an open enemy as a Democrat than support a false friend as a Republican.
"It seems to me the boycott recognizes that CPAC is a failed vehicle for SoCon concerns."
That puts it well, Kevin. Exactly. Since when is an ostensibly _conservative_ convention a place for debating basic conservative values? CPAC just isn't conservative anymore, and the boycotters are acknowledging that.
The Wehner article is extremely poorly argued. He tries to get from an extremely generic notion that things are part of the "public scene" and that things "should be debated" to the notion that every position on those issues should be represented _as conservative_. He doesn't even engage that.
If the mere fact that some issue is part of public life in America and should be debated means that every side of that issue should be represented as part of "conservatism," then "conservatism" has no meaning on any of those issues! This should be obvious. By Wehner's premises, we could take any position on any issue in the public policy arena and still call ourselves conservative, and CPAC should welcome us. So we would have not only pro-gay "marriage" "conservatives" but also pro-abortion "conservatives," virulently anti-business "conservatives," "conservatives" who want to enact every plank in the Democrat platform, "conservatives" who support Obamacare, and so on and so forth.
If nothing is excluded from "conservatism," then the very concept is meaningless.
Vaporing about debate, etc., isn't going to change that.
The fact that homosexual "marriage" is a hot topic right now doesn't make both sides of that topic conservative!
This should be obvious. This shouldn't need to be said.
Kevin, as far as I'm concerned, everything that's wrong with the Republicans is wrong with the Democrats, and then there's more. This hardly makes me a loyal Republican--far from it. But it does mean that I cannot think of a single good reason why any conservative would want to join the Party of Death.
I went to CPAC in 2008 and saw then that the folks running it weren't exactly friendly to social conservatives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDOekNQQUQE
--Jonathan
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