Yesterday Lisa De Pasquale, GOProud’s interim chair, published a piece worth reading in The Daily Caller calling out the gay Left for its vicious treatment of gay conservatives and their supporters while simultaneously deploring bullying:
Dan Savage, the “It Gets Better” project’s co-founder, has been just as vicious toward gay conservatives as schoolyard bullies have been toward their gay classmates. In an MSNBC interview, Savage referred to the members of GOProud, an organization of gay conservatives, as “gay Quislings and useful idiots.” He said they were just “window dressing” for bigoted Republicans. Like a schoolyard bully, Savage ridicules people who are different from him.
In 2007, the Human Rights Campaign congratulated Joe Jervis, the creator of the Joe My God blog, for an award he received for having the best LGBT blog. In 2011, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) awarded Jervis with its “Blogger of the Year” award. At the time, GOProud Chairman Emeritus Chris Barron wrote in The Daily Caller:
GLAAD’s tag line is “Words and images matter.”… Jervis goes as far as allowing calls for actual violence against gay conservatives to stand on his site. On two separate occasions, Jervis has openly ridiculed incidents of violent anti-gay hate crimes against gay conservatives. Apparently, words and images don’t matter to GLAAD’s members as long as the subject of those attacks is someone they disagree with politically.
I’m still working on establishing the order necessary for turning things around for us financially and going forward, but I couldn’t resist writing the following comment:
The Left works very hard to make sure its followers do not understand the full implications of the planned economy that they advocate. It also works hard to ensure its followers do not understand the Right and its ideological diversity. Unfortunately for the Right, its social conservatives preach family values, liberty and fiscal conservatism while practicing destruction of any family with a gay member, religion-based totalitarianism and big government redistribution of wealth for their own pet causes. Their saying one thing and doing another while conducting purges goes a long way toward confusing people about the conservative brand. Speaking to the Right, what we have to do as fiscal conservative/social liberals is to do a better job of holding members of our own party to account for behavior that violates our stated ideals.
Speaking to the Left, we have to work to educate the Left about how destructive their beliefs in planned economies are. This is especially true for the gay community, which thrives due to free market principles because gays as a minority must be entrepreneurs in order to cope with job discrimination. In fact, the gay community is a model of fiscal conservatism and self-reliance because gays can never depend on the government for help. That is why the gay community has so many charities, non-profits and clubs for practically every cause, hobby, sport, affinity and interest. Embracing the Left’s economic principles is suicide for the gay community because a planned economy would never duplicate or support the kind of diversity we have because, for the time being, the government doesn’t take so much money that we don’t have enough left over to spend on what we value.
My observation of Ann Coulter is that she is a woman with a good heart who stands by her friends in good times and bad. She also has many gay friends whom she loves and who love her. I wish I were one of them. The gay Left does not understand what an enormous act of love and courage it is for her to stand by GOProud. Single-handedly Ann makes it impossible for social conservatives to claim that gays can’t truly be fiscal conservatives and national security conservatives. Single-handedly Ann makes it impossible for social conservatives to purge the conservative movement of gays. When social conservatives can’t purge the movement of gay conservatives, that means we get to work with other conservatives for the causes we have in common and through the friendships we develop prove that our equality will make America stronger and more prosperous.
Lisa De Pasquale also is a woman of enormous courage and executive ability. Anyone who objects to her leadership role at GOProud is not a strategic thinker. Lisa was executive director of CPAC for many years. This means that she knows everyone who is anyone in the conservative movement as well as where all the bodies are buried. And that means she is well-connected and people take her calls and read e-mails she sends. She began her public support of GOProud while she was CPAC’s executive director and GOProud is fortunate to have her.
However, I do wish that GOProud would show some leadership in the civility wars and adopt a policy that forbids name-calling. Name-calling does nothing to persuade or educate or inspire people to see the merits of any point-of-view. Instead, it causes hurt and anger and closes minds and hearts. It is time to apologize for past errors and pledge to take the high road from now on.
Note: I will resume blogging as soon as I’ve finished creating order in our finances and my work environment. It is an emotionally demanding process and is requiring all my attention. I appreciate all good thoughts, prayers and practical support in the form of donations (see the “Donate” button in the sidebar) that any of my dear gentle readers wish to share to inspire me and help me through my current challenges. I’m really looking forward to finishing this project and returning to blogging.
The comment thread on Daily Caller proves she’s right.
There are days I don’t know who gay leftists hate more, anti-gay social CINOs or gay conservatives. But they are extremely hateful. I refuse to associate with them any more than I would associate with a homophobe.
For one thing, they helped put President NDAA in office.
The problem is the Republicans at large aren’t interested in small government that leaves citizens alone. That party wants control just as much as the Dems. They just have different goals. Bush instituted one of the largest entitlement programs since Social Security with his prescription drug plan. Of course it was mostly a hand-out to the pharma companies, but that doesn’t change the fact that government got bigger. The debt got bigger. And how is the Patriot Act a good thing from the small-government, individual-liberty point of view?
The social conservatives would be happy if all gays and lesbians just went back into the closet and understood that when straight boys beat up gay boys or raped queer girls well that’s just the way it is.
The only small-government person in GOP primary is probably Ron Paul. And he has enough baggage to be unelectable. (I guess I don’t know much about Huntsman, so maybe there was someone in the running.)
Perry wasn’t smart enough to research positions of Republicans outside his home-state and never recovered from the “you have no heart” comment, really. (It was almost a typical Democratic moment. If you disagree with me you are either a despicable person or just plain stupid.)
God knows what Santorum really wants, because as unfriendly as he appears toward gays and lesbians, I get the feeling that the truth may be much worse. Do you think religious freedom applies to non-Christians? Does he?
And these are the people on the Right who choose to run. May all the gods help us, because I think we may have 4 more years of socialism.
Your comment about name calling is as spot-on as the rest of your commentary. I have a request… now that you are going to reboot the Blog, why don’t you take a stand against any name calling? No use of the word Democrap, not calling our President names like Obummer. I know you can’t control the trolls from using words like Rethuglican, but you can discourage it… and your Blog will be a welcome place of intelligence, unsafe for those who bully and namecall instead of discuss and persuade.
I’m tippling your hit jar in response to what I’ve already read… and please consider it a bribe towards this goal too.
Mr. Michael,
I took a stand against name calling from the moment I founded this blog. I write to persuade, educate and entertain. Name calling doesn’t do any of those things. It is just a catharsis. It does nothing to explain why you have come to such a conclusion. It does not allow people any space to come to their own conclusions. Name calling makes people either rebel against your characterization, or bonds them into a mob. It’s not what first rate thinkers and writers do and I aim for being first rate.
I consider my commenters to be co-bloggers, in effect, so I seldom approve comments that bully or namecall. Fortunately, because I strive to create a courteous tone here, my commenters nearly always pick up on it and also are courteous. So this is a safe place to disagree, but not to be rude.
I am grateful for your comment and also for your kind donations. I will put the money to good use. I wish you and your loved ones all prosperity and every blessing always.