Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Grenell bait-and-switch reveals the danger of ‘LGBT conservative’ outreach
LifeSiteNews ^ | March 5th 2021 | Calvin Freiburger

Posted on 03/05/2021 2:11:00 PM PST by Ennis85

March 5, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — For years, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has served to highlight the conservative movement’s divisions at least as much as its points of unity, with some of the most intense infighting revolving around LGBT issues.

As my intrepid colleague Doug Mainwaring detailed Thursday, the Republican Party’s LGBT inroads spearheaded by Donald Trump come at a cost: the dilution of the GOP and the Right’s longstanding positions on marriage, sexuality, and biological truth. Here I’d like to focus on one specific skirmish of this divide, and how it illustrates the way unconservative values get smuggled into conservatism.

On Monday, former Trump intelligence chief and Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who is himself gay, tweeted a “truth from CPAC” in the form of Log Cabin Republicans San Diego Chapter president Gina Roberts talking about how CPAC was a “wonderfully accepting and wonderful experience for this transgender Republican woman”:

Sharing some truth from @CPAC that DC reporters won’t acknowledge.

cc: @daveweigel pic.twitter.com/ST4MqRmQO3

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 1, 2021

This, naturally, inspired some pushback, to which Grenell responded by framing the issue purely as a matter of accepting people despite their differences:

No. We are celebrating that God made everyone and people being respectful. Try it.

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 1, 2021

So just to be clear, you don’t welcome gay conservatives into the Republican Party? https://t.co/gw0q4LXXWm

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 1, 2021

Nope. We got it.

No gays allowed in the GOP for you. https://t.co/xMNtARZKeQ

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 1, 2021

On Thursday, Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter chimed in on Grenell’s side:

Our goal must be, at a minimum, to hold 50 percent + one of the American voting population. In a two-party system, it’s unlikely to get a lot more for any length of time. If you get 55 percent it’s a landslide, but that’s the nature of the beast. Arbitrarily excluding groups is therefore ridiculous, and the silliness starts with identifying people by groups. Are all gay people the same? No, some are conservative, some liberal, and some don’t care at all about politics. The same with trans people. If you’re trans and a conservative, you’re welcome in the GOP. If you are trans and support the whole erasure of womanhood agenda, we are probably not the party for you. This is also true if you are cisgender and support the whole erasure of the womanhood agenda. And it is also true if you use terms like “cisgender” unironically …

If our priority is defeating the full-frontal assault on every aspect of American life, we are going to need to go to battle stations with all hands on deck, and not on some Bulwark cruise ship either.

Fair enough: Of course, Republicans should appeal to homosexuals as, say, the party that values their right to bear arms in self-defense, or the party that (unless the Swamp wins the current civil war) favors restricting immigration from parts of the world that want to stone them to death.

But what Schlichter and the rest of Grenell’s defenders on the Right overlook is that Grenell goes much further than that. In the above tweet, he didn’t merely relay a story about conservatives treating a gender-confused American with respect. He promoted the testimony of an official representative of an organization that expressly advocates steering the GOP leftward on several issues.

Log Cabin Republicans advocates forcing government-assisted adoption agencies to place children in same-sex — i.e., motherless or fatherless — households, and in fact calls it “abhorrent” for states to insist that children be given the benefit of both parents. It calls for a “nationwide ban on conversion therapy for anyone under the age of 18,” opposing parents’ rights to treat unwanted sexual attraction or gender confusion as best they see fit. And it promotes the so-called “Fairness For All Act” — essentially a Diet Equality Act that on paper is more respectful of religious liberty, but in practice would still radically upend the rights of the American people in the name of LGBT accommodation.

And those are just the positions LCR highlights on its website.

But Grenell and his allies didn’t debate any of that. In fact, they obscured it with feel-good rhetoric about personal acceptance, in effect signaling that debating these issues is verboten unless we want to get branded as bigots. Further, by defending promotion of Roberts as merely a question of accepting “LGBT conservatives,” they are the ones making “LGBT conservative” synonymous with “left-wing social agitator.”

How do we expect to ever restore marriage when we’re expected to constantly fend off even more radical LGBT demands from within our own tent? Is adopting left-wing conformity on some issues in the name of supposedly advancing other issues really what we signed up for? (I say supposedly because, obviously, Trump’s LGBT inroads weren’t enough to secure him a second term, whereas polling data indicates that a greater focus on, say, the campaign to erase women’s sports could have helped Republicans quite a bit.)

This is the flip side of the “big tent” mentality: Newcomers don’t just add to your movement’s vote totals; they also change the overall composition. And it’s simply not realistic to expect most political minorities to be content with their positions relegated to the minority, never to be acted upon. (Put another way, LGBT activists tend not to share the contentment with table scraps seen in, say, Democrats for Life.)

Personally, I would love to be reassured that more people beyond typical conservative subcultures recognize the stakes before us and want to help save America. But we can’t let ourselves become so desperate for more allies that we rubber-stamp new recruits who are anything but. The fact that so many of these examples of “nontraditional conservatives” keep turning out to be libertarians at best and progressives at worst should tip us off to the futility of Grenell-style outreach, and how its outcome will be anything but a reversal of the “assault on every aspect of American life.”


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Society
KEYWORDS: conservative; gay; homosexual; homosexualagenda; lgbbt; lgbt; republican; richardgrenell; trump
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-127 next last
To: Ennis85

“How do we expect to ever restore marriage when we’re expected to constantly fend off even more radical LGBT demands from within our own tent?”

“Conservatives” wanted Government to define marriage. They did.

How do you like it?

L


21 posted on 03/05/2021 3:10:05 PM PST by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

“When Trump seeks out your sage advice let us know.”

We beat up RINOs here for being out of touch with Trump’s populist base - but I guess it’s ok for Trump to have people working for him that effectively gives Trump’s base the finger, ...according to your idea of ‘building coalitions’.

No thanks.


22 posted on 03/05/2021 3:12:11 PM PST by BobL (TheDonald.win is now Patriots.win)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: catnipman

I always thought that is what a true conservative stood for. I agree with your post.


23 posted on 03/05/2021 3:12:11 PM PST by leaning conservative (snow coming, school cancelled, yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: lodi90

Precisely


24 posted on 03/05/2021 3:12:41 PM PST by Nifster (I see puppy dogs in the clouds)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: BobL
"Not much different than Cruz going Cancun while his voters were freezing back in Texas."

Exactly, because that was a nothingburger. As much as it pains me to defend Tedlim, that was nothing but an MSM ginned-up Narrative brought on by Mrs. Cruz Facebook circle.

Do you have Facebook?

25 posted on 03/05/2021 3:13:44 PM PST by StAnDeliver (Eric Coomer of Dominion Voting Systems Is The Blue Dress)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Ennis85
Schlicter is advocating for the failed "Big Tent" strategy that has doomed the Republican Party for decades.

Our strength is in free-market policy solutions and standing strong for Christian principles that simply cannot be compromised. Also, a live and let live philosophy that by default should attract homosexuals to the party itself just as long as that philosophy doesn't abridge the Christian foundation that the party should stand on.

Republicans have already sold out on so-called gay marriage and funding for abortions. If ever there was a hill to die on, it's now transgenderism and advocating for homosexual rights that go above and beyond to what individuals already have under the Constitution.

26 posted on 03/05/2021 3:13:47 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Trust the plan of the 17th letter of the English alphabet!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BobL

We beat up RINOs here for being out of touch with Trump’s populist base - but I guess it’s ok for Trump to have people working for him that effectively gives Trump’s base the finger, ...according to your idea of ‘building coalitions’.

No thanks.


I take a MAGA fighter like Grenell over an empty suit careerist like “good Christian” Pence any day of the week.


27 posted on 03/05/2021 3:18:10 PM PST by lodi90
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Ennis85

Conversion therapy......I am a woman & I would never be with a man who is gay & has gone thru conversion therapy. If you are a gay man you are NOT going to be straight after some hack “therapy.” It’s ludicrous.


28 posted on 03/05/2021 3:20:01 PM PST by leaning conservative (snow coming, school cancelled, yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: for-q-clinton

LGBT is cancer on western civilization and the family unit.


29 posted on 03/05/2021 3:20:39 PM PST by mrmeyer (You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him. Robert Heinlein)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: BobL

“Carnival Act”

I searched for this and couldn’t find it. Happen to have any good links?


30 posted on 03/05/2021 3:23:27 PM PST by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Ennis85

“But Grenell and his allies didn’t debate any of that. In fact, they obscured it with feel-good rhetoric about personal acceptance, in effect signaling that debating these issues is verboten unless we want to get branded as bigots.”

BS. While I’d have preferred that Grenell mention parenthetically that he opposes the Log Cabin agenda, his failure to do so does not imply what the above passage claims - which may be why they used the weasel-word “signals” much like the Left talks about “dog whistles.”


31 posted on 03/05/2021 3:29:07 PM PST by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: lodi90

“I take a MAGA fighter like Grenell over an empty suit careerist like “good Christian” Pence any day of the week.”

I did, until Grenell equated someone who has an issue with Drag Queens testifying to the Senate with being anti-gay. Two TOTALLY different things...except for people pushing the Drag Queen agenda on conservatives.

As far as Pence, it was STUPID OF US to pin all our hopes on him. He was simply the last person who had a chance to stop us from destroying ourselves...something which started 70 years ago, when the ‘Greatest Generation’ didn’t bother to tell their kids why they should defend America.


32 posted on 03/05/2021 3:29:18 PM PST by BobL (TheDonald.win is now Patriots.win)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: NobleFree

“I searched for this and couldn’t find it. Happen to have any good links?”

Search HARDER, then.


33 posted on 03/05/2021 3:30:16 PM PST by BobL (TheDonald.win is now Patriots.win)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: BobL

Grenell advanced Trump’s populist agenda. A fact lost on fools too stupid to notice.


34 posted on 03/05/2021 3:31:44 PM PST by Pelham (Liberate the Democrats from their Communist occupation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

“Grenell advanced Trump’s populist agenda. A fact lost on fools too stupid to notice.”

He did that by NOT shoving Drag Queens in our faces. If he stuck to that, we wouldn’t be arguing now.


35 posted on 03/05/2021 3:35:02 PM PST by BobL (TheDonald.win is now Patriots.win)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: ontap
As sinner I don’t judge others...that is Gods right ,not mine!!!!

We judge people all the time. I don’t like bank robbers, rapists, murderers, abortionists, liberals. That is making a judgment.

36 posted on 03/05/2021 3:45:52 PM PST by Mark17 (USAF Retired. Father of a US Air Force commissioned officer, and trained Air Force combat pilot. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: BobL

Why are you arguing about it? You don’t spend any time at all on Twitter, isn’t that correct?


37 posted on 03/05/2021 3:46:34 PM PST by Pelham (Liberate the Democrats from their Communist occupation)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

“Why are you arguing about it?”

We don’t need this Drag Queen crap in my face, and Grenell knows this. Maybe Trump will explain to him the need to treat the Republican base with RESPECT, as Trump did by never having Drag Queens anywhere near him.


38 posted on 03/05/2021 3:51:21 PM PST by BobL (TheDonald.win is now Patriots.win)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Ennis85
I thought CPAC was supposed to advocate for conservative positions and limited government....the kind of government the Founders gave us.

I don't think the Founders advocated "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of buggery."

39 posted on 03/05/2021 3:56:16 PM PST by Repeat Offender (While the wicked stand confounded, call me with Thy saints surrounded.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: StAnDeliver

I thought they adopted a son.

Maybe it’s someone else’s kid in many of his IG posts?


40 posted on 03/05/2021 3:57:45 PM PST by Jane Long (America, Bless God....blessed be the Nation 🙏🏻🇺🇸)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-127 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson