Strange Bedfellows at CPAC

A group of gay Republicans

Would tell the truth, they vowed;

These honest, gay, conservatives

Became the GOProud

They would not live life closeted,

Nor with the liberal crowd;

They bravely blazed a different trail—

They were the GOProud

With insight and intelligence

These gay men were endowed;

Their work insured Republicans

Respected GOProud

Conservatives are gathering
To celebrate out loud;

Among the groups responsible,

The mighty GOProud

But there are some conservatives

Who’d keep their brethren cowed;

They will not share the conference with

The sinful GOProud

Some say they pitch a giant tent—

Well, gays are not allowed—

The GOP has bigots, too,

Who shun the GOProud.

Their thoughts are fixed on heaven,

So their heads are in a cloud;

They’d rather miss the conference than

Accept the GOProud

So let the Christian Right demand

Their party wear a shroud;

I’m glad the mainstream GOP

Embraces GOProud.

In the "strange bedfellows" department, the Conservative Political Action Conference (next month, in DC), "the conservative movement's largest gathering of the year" (NY Times) has lots of daddies.  Including GOProud, the conservative gay organization (because the Log Cabin Republicans were more Gay than Republican, GOProud emerged as the more Republican than Gay alternative).   

Now, I am not a Republican.  But I am very happy to see the mainstream conservative groups sponsoring CPAC are ever-so-slightly more modern less medieval than the [predominately] church-based groups that have refused to share their Big Tent with fellow conservatives who agree with them on better than 90% of their agenda... but who love their fellow men a bit more literally than the bible-bangers can stomach.

The New York Times story focuses on the "Divisions On The Right", but really, the "divisions" are very meaningfully different.  And this is good news (sorta--bear with me here).  Yes, conservative Christian Pinheads are Homophobic Assholes.  This is Not News.  What is news, though, is that a Gay group is a co-sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference.  Yes, it should have happened with the Log Cabin Republicans, and yes, it should not have required even that.   But movement is movement, even if it makes plate tectonics look like speed dating.