GOProud, the new gay Republican organization, has responded to hate crimes legislation passing the House Judiciary Committee. If you had any question about what sort of org GOProud is going to be, this should answer it.
(Washington, D.C.) - "In the next few days, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives will do exactly what the Republican controlled House in the 108th Congress did - pass hate crimes legislation. In their cynical never-ending quest to lower expectations, the gay left will undoubtedly hail the passage of hate crimes legislation as 'historic.' While the passage of hate crimes may be laudable, its passage, and indeed even its enactment into law, is not historic.
"The truth is that Democrats have spent no political capital on moving on important election year promises such as the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the partial repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Instead of making excuses for the lack of action by Democrats in Washington, the leaders of the gay left should be demanding that Democrats commit to living up to the promises they made."
Oh my, it's really hard to hear their actual opinion on the legislation over the "I hate gay Democrats" whines.
That's probably because the group is undecided about hate crimes legislation. The phrase "may be laudable" isn't an accident - even GOProud's "Legislative Priorities" page says that hate crimes legislation and ENDA "may be worthy goals."
Thinking like a Limbaugh-style Republican, hate crimes legislation has some positives and some negatives. On the plus side:
- It sends more people to prison longer, and that's always good.
- It gives more money to police, and they're good.
But:
- It recognizes various minorities, including teh gayz, as classes of people who might need more protection as a group, and that's bad.
- Liberals seem to like it, and they're bad.
Shouting those statements back and forth is what the right calls a "serious policy discussion."
This non-statement on hate crimes legislation is the new group's second press release. Their first was about gays being oppressed abroad:
(Washington, D.C.) - In the wake of a series of murders of gay Iraqis in the stronghold of radical cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, a registered 527 for gay conservatives and their allies, issued the following statement.
"Instead of unilaterally surrendering the global war on terror, now is the time for the Obama administration to recommit to fighting global extremism. It is intolerable for the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to the type of human rights abuses occurring at the hands of Islamic extremists in Iraq and indeed throughout the Middle East. If the United States is to maintain its position of moral leadership in the world, then this administration must make it clear that basic human rights for all should be respected.
It is shameful that so many on the left have made excuses for the human rights abuses carried out by tyrannical extremist regimes from Cuba to Venezuela to Iran. It is time for the blame America first crowd to recognize the real threats to peace and freedom that exist across the globe."
So when the people committing hate crimes human rights abuses aren't straight Americans, suddenly there's a clarity among the gay right. Not just a clarity, an urgency. And not a fierce urgency of now, but a thick urgency to beat political opponents over the head with to score cheap points.
Like I said before the jump, there really isn't any question what this group is about now; it's just another extreme-right mouthpiece.
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11 Comments
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What does GOP Roud stand for?
Something reminiscent of a roach, which is shallow & reduced to carping?
======================================
Definition: roud
Search dictionary for
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Rudd \Rudd\, n. [See Rud, n.] (Zo["o]l.)
A fresh-water European fish of the Carp family (Leuciscus
erythrophthalmus). It is about the size and shape of the
roach, but it has the dorsal fin farther back, a stouter
body, and red irises. Called also redeye, roud,
finscale, and shallow. A blue variety is called
azurine, or blue roach.
Kathy Padilla | April 24, 2009 12:08 PM
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I am a lifelong Democrat,and although I may disagree with this group stating that the passage of hate crimes would not be historic, I think much of what they have to say about Democrats, in particular Congressional Democrats, is completely on the mark. If this same statement had been voiced by a liberal Democratic group, there would be a wave of agreement by most who follow this site. Let's all be willing to admit that just because it's voiced by a Republican, doesn't make it untrue (although there's certainly many instances where this is the case), and likewise, just because it's voiced by a Democrat, it's not necessarily gospel.
dijiba | April 24, 2009 1:00 PM
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Yeah, but if a lefty group made this statement it would have a little more credit, since the second paragraph is basically making fun of democrats for not be good enough democrats. from an extreme-right group, it just doesn't make sense.
And a lefty group would have taken a position on hate crimes, at least.
Alex Blaze | April 25, 2009 6:06 AM
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Their letter was all smokes and mirrors. I feel sorry to those gay Republicans who donate expecting work on the GOP, only to see the organization squander the donations on mud-slinging toward gay Democrats.
LCR's tentative success with Republican senators in NYC might just send GOPROUD into obscurity, though ;).
What wouldn't be more fulfilling than seeing Gay Patriot's endeavors crash and burn in a most Democrat fashion ;D.
Lucrece | April 24, 2009 2:20 PM
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Yeah, I don't think they think this is a waste of money. One of the Gay Patriot bloggers posted this and then proudly said he gave the group $2000. So something tells me they consider this hard work.
But, yeah, they couldn't have picked a worse time. For the first time in history LCR has an actual accomplishment to show (well, we'll wait till the votes are tallied), and they start their group. Go Proud!
Alex Blaze | April 25, 2009 6:47 AM
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Sorry, but a GLBT Republican is still akin to a Klansman of color.
Polar | April 24, 2009 3:47 PM
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Or Michael Steele, chomping Oreo cookies
Monica Roberts | April 24, 2009 4:50 PM
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If you listen in to the comments from the Gaypatriot website, you'll know exactly what GOProud is all about. Based on the comments I've seen from this website, GOProud will be a group devoted to bashing liberals and Democrats.
Some of these conservatives have become unhinged since the election of Barack Obama.
Joseph Kowalski | April 24, 2009 7:41 PM
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"In the next few days, the Democratic controlled House of Representatives will ... pass hate crimes legislation.... The truth is that Democrats have spent no political capital on moving on important election year promises such as the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the partial repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act"
The Democrats have not moved on important election year promises such as DOMA and DADT, and instead are getting distracted with election year promises such as passing the Matthew Shepard act.
??!??
mcc | April 24, 2009 8:03 PM
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The Matthew Shepard Act affects far more than the likely makeup of GOProud(which isn't even original, for a number of years in the UK there has been a group called LGBTory, which, however, is an offical part of the Conservative Party as opposed to what the Republican Party would say about GOProud)
The Act is inclusive; it protects Butch Lesbians and Trans-people. Neither group is highly regarded by conserva-queers. Consequently, this bill is of little consequence to the conservative Gays; one has only to read their blogs to discover this...
MauraHennessey | April 25, 2009 12:43 AM
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So what's all the fuss about?
On the political spectrum the right centrist GOProud is just a hair to the right of the right centrist Congressional Democrats.
Those are the folks who gutted ENDA in 2007. Earlier they’d voted overwhelmingly for DOMA and DADT and over a decade later still refuse to repeal them. In late 2007 they also underhandedly dropped the hate crimes bill to pander to bigots in spite of the fact that they access to FBI stats showing a huge spike in anti-LGBT crime. There was a “24% increase in total number of victims reporting incidents of anti-LGBT violence (from 1,954 to 2,430). Additionally, 2007 had the third highest murder rate in the past 10 years that NCAVP has been compiling the Hate Violence Report… with murders more than doubling (from 10 in 2006 to 21 in 2007). LGBT people also reported a 61% increase in sexual assaults perpetrated as hate crimes.”
The Democrats backhanded bigotry, not so different in real terms as that of their more openly bigoted cousins the Republicans, fueled more attacks on us during the election period. The strident bigotry of McCain’s bigoted opposition to same sex marriage was echoed by Obama’s infamous “gawd’s in the mix.”
http://www.ncavp.org/media/MediaReleaseDetail.aspx?p=2313&d=2440
We know the Republicans are bad and we know the Democrats are just as bad. Fussing about one group of bigots doesn’t make the other one more palatable. Apologists for the Republicans and the Democrats ought to know that by now.
Bill Perdue | April 25, 2009 4:39 AM
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