CPAC – Ins and Outs

In February it will be time once again for ‘moderate’ (only slightly to the right of Torquemada) Repuglicans to pay homage to the extremist fringe that has become the GOP mainstream in recent years.  I ran across a coupe items on who’s in and who’s out that I found most interesting.

Earlier this month, conservative gay rights group GOProud announced that it would be a co-sponsor of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But the group’s inclusion as a co-sponsor has led to a backlash from the anti-gay right, some of whom are threatening to boycott CPAC if GOProud’s sponsorship isn’t removed. CPAC director Lisa De Pasquale told Hot Air last week that she was “satisfied” that GOProud “do not represent a ‘radical leftist agenda’ and thus “should not be rejected as a CPAC cosponsor.” But David Keene, the head of CPAC’s main organizing group, tried to calm the potential boycott by using a different tactic. In an e-mail to a right-wing radio host, Keene promised that GOProud would not have a speaking spot and that gay rights issues would not be “open to debate”:

In his e-mail response, Keene admitted GOProud “has signed on as a CPAC co-sponsor, but will have no speakers and we told them that, in fact, since opposition to gay marriage, etc are consensus positions (if not unanimous) among conservatives, these topics are not open to debate.” [...] [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

Now, for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why anyone who is gay would want to sponsor CPAC.  Isn’t that like the NAACP sponsoring the KKK?  I don’t know whether Keene’s promise to muzzle the gay attendees will quell the potential boycott, so conservatives who are ‘out’ may or may not be in, but if they are, the may be required to wear a dental dam, lest they might actually say something.

On the other hand, another group, which I had all but forgotten about, has been welcomed by CPAC with open arms and all the love Supply-side Jesus has for haters: the John Birch Society.

 

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I remember them from the 1960s.  With all their ridiculous conspiracy theories, they were a joke.  Nobody I knew took them seriously.  It shows the depths to which the GOP has plummeted that they are now part of the GOP mainstream.