Free Republic

The current leadership sounds hopeful about continuing the organization under a different name with a different mission, but, as the Advocate explains, that's probably unrealistic. Bilerico reporter Andrew Markle initially reported that GOProud was shuttering on Sunday, and following initial denials on social media from members of the group, key organizers confirmed to Bilerico founder Bil Browning Monday that the group is indeed planning to close up shop. GOProud executive director Matthew Bechstein told Browning that the mixed messages were an attempt to calm members and stave off any problems with fundraising efforts. Nevertheless, "We're leaving GOProud behind and re-branding...

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch conceded Wednesday it’s only a matter of time before gay marriage is legal across the country, even though he doesn’t think that’s the right way to go. Hatch said people who can’t see what’s happening aren’t living in the real world. He made the remarks during an appearance on KSL-Radio’s Doug Wright Show. […] Hatch also questioned whether judges should be able to tell states how to handle an important matter like marriage. He said he believes nobody should suffer discrimination, and said religious people should try to understand other people’s beliefs. …

Wouldn’t it be nice if conservatives could go a week without some group or individuals doing or saying something embarrassing? At least, I think it would be nice, but I have no proof because it hasn’t happened in ages. There’s been so much stupidity in the last couple of weeks it’s hard to keep track of it all. Here are just a few examples and how they should have been handled. Ted Nugent called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” Ted is Ted. I get that. And Ted’s going to be Ted no matter what you do. He’s not going to...

Meet the kinder, gentler Conservative Political Action Conference. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, snubbed last year after palling around with President Obama, is coming. So is GOProud, the gay rights group that was banned for the past few years amid noisy boycotts from critics and supporters. There's even a panel debating the merits of medical marijuana. "CPAC is about finding conservative solutions to every challenge in America and not just saying 'no'," said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the conference in Washington, D.C. "We're determined to win the majority of American support." The annual debate...

Earlier this week, GOProud founder Jimmy LaSalvia announced that he was leaving the Republican Party because of its “tolerance of bigotry,” but in an interview with liberal radio and television host Thom Hartmann, LaSalvia went a good bit further in denouncing the GOP. On Thursday night’s The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, LaSalvia said that the party is the “last place in America” where the “forces of intolerance” are left. LaSalvia and GOProud co-founder Chris Barron stepped down from their leadership positions in the gay conservative organization last April, and Barron recently blasted the group as a “sad shell of...

Jimmy LaSalvia, the founder of the conservative gay advocacy group GOProud, has officially announced his departure from the Republican Party. “Today, I joined the ranks of unaffiliated voters. I am every bit as conservative as I’ve always been, but I just can’t bring myself to carry the Republican label any longer,” LaSalvia wrote. “You see, I just don’t agree with the big-government ‘conservatives’ who run the party now.”

LIVE TONIGHT AT 9PM EASTERN -- a special "announcement" edition of The @gaypatriot Report on @the405radio #tcot #SCsen #GP14— Bruce Carroll (@BruceCarrollSC) March 27, 2013 To campaign or not to campaign? Earlier this month, Carroll, the Twitterer formerly known as @GayPatriot, resigned his position at GOProud to focus on a potential run against Sen. Lindsey Graham. It looks like he’s finally made a decision, once and for all.

March 16, 2013 Ann Coulter berates GOP for their divisions on immigration policy in CPAC speech Laine Milam As she has done many times before, bestselling author Ann Coulter delivered an uncensored critique of the Republican party at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Her criticisms this year were harshest when it came to the party’s current divide on the topic of comprehensive immigration reform.Following up on her column from last month, Coulter argued that the GOP needs to have a tough but cohesive message on immigration policy, but not the one that many party leaders have touted lately.“One public...

Circular firing squads are about as helpful as they sound, yet they are something at which some Republicans excel. I do my best to avoid engaging in them. To paraphrase President Reagan, my 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy. But sometimes my 80 percent friends do something 100 percent stupid, and pretending they didn’t could cause more damage than calling them out on it. Consider Sen. John McCain. Few have honed their circular firing squad skills to the level of the senior Senator from Arizona. McCain fancies himself a lot of things – a conservative, a leader,...

Ask Siri: “What is CPAC 2013? There is an app in the iTunes store called CPAC 2013. You must know something about this event!” Siri is a smart woman. She responds: “CPAC 2013 is the largest annual gathering of conservative activists in the country and is celebrating its 40th anniversary in Washington, D.C., March 14-16, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. CPAC’s organizers expect to meet or exceed last year’s attendance record—meaning over 10,000 activists. This is a big feat considering that this is a year after an election where conservatives suffered some major losses. This indicates that...

Via the Andrea Tantaros Show, I assume his point here about the urgency of economic renewal will form the core of his CPAC speech so consider this a sneak preview. Interesting little exchange between him and Tantaros: She seizes on his message about opposing political correctness to steer him towards criticizing Christie’s and GOProud’s exclusion on those grounds, that it’s a form of conservative PC. But that’s not really where he takes it. He comes back at her, essentially, with something similar to Mitch Daniels’s idea of a “truce” on social issues. We need a big tent right now because...

Following in fellow MSNBC co-host Chris Hayes’s footsteps, the network’s conservative pundit S. E. Cupp has withdrawn from speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference next month over the issue of same-sex marriage and the exclusion of GOProud. Cupp announced her decision to back out on The Cycle earlier this afternoon.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is less than a month away and the now-annual kerfuffle over the participation of gay conservative group GOProud was in full swing on Twitter this weekend. When GOProud co-sponsored CPAC in 2011, several conservative groups boycotted the conference. Later that year, the American Conservative Union’s board of directors voted to exclude GOProud from formal participation in 2012 and the welcome mat is still rolled up. Naturally, the liberal media presented this as unimpeachable evidence of the Right’s “H8″ and intolerance. But among conservatives on Twitter, there’s little controversy over whether to embrace gay conservatives as...

American Family Association's Bryan Fischer has slammed gay right-wing groups such as Log Cabin Republicans A homophobic pundit has said gay people have ‘no business’ being Republican, saying they undermine the ‘pure morals’ of the GOP. American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, who supports the criminalization of homosexuality in the US, said gay right-wingers ‘undermine and subvert’ the ‘moral foundations’ of the Republican Party. Speaking ahead of the Republican National Convention, he slammed the rise of gay groups like the Log Cabin Republicans. In an interview with Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Fischer said: ‘They have no business being there. Our message to them...

The 2012 RNC is about to get faaaaabulous! The gay conservative group GOProud will hold its Homocon 2012 event following the Republican National Convention in Tampa. "Homocon 2012 will be the must have ticket for the RNC," the executive director and cofounder of GOProud, Jimmy LaSalvia, says on the group's website. The event will include a number of conservative guest speakers, including Grover Norquist; Breitbart.com contributors Dana Loesch and Mike Flynn; and a former chair of the American Conservative Union and vice chair of CPAC, David Keene. GOProud proudly proclaims on its website that it is the only gay conservative...

Two separate Republican homosexual groups are arguing over who made the first inroads into the GOP platform-drafting process. From the Washington Blade [a 'gay' news source]: GOProud disputes Log Cabin’s ‘first’ at GOP convention Two gay Republican groups disagree over the claim that the participation of Log Cabin in the 2012 Republican platform drafting process is a “first” for the organization as claimed by its executive director. On Wednesday, the Washington Blade reported that Log Cabin would have four members of its organization credentialed to take part in the platform drafting process, which will happen in Tampa, Fla., the week...

Video clip shows Chris Barron, leader of activist homosexual group GOProud advising fellow Republicans to support Gary Johnson because he endorses full sodomite marriage. What is so revealing is that GOProud is the same front group that claimed to endorse Trump and then Herman Cain. Now they are finally admitting they are solely voting on homosexual special rights and demanding gay 'marriage'.

Mitt Romney’s campaign was weathering a minor controversy by week’s end related to the resignation of a foreign policy aide who was gay, forcing the campaign to deny it had caved to fringe social conservatives who’d pressured Romney to fire the aide.“We wanted him to stay with our team. He's a very accomplished spokesperson, and we select people not based upon their ethnicity or sexual preference or gender, but their capability,” Romney said Friday on Fox News of the aide, Richard Grenell, who stepped down from the Romney campaign on Tuesday. Grenell was hired to act as Romney's spokesman on...

-snip- Although Fehrnstrom is one of Romney’s longest-serving aides, he, like his boss, has no roots in the conservative movement. Fehrnstrom started out as a reporter covering alderman meetings in Boston and lives in liberal Brookline, Mass. His work as a GOP operative has been confined to New England — a region, as he often notes, that’s “pretty rocky terrain for Republicans.” To some influential conservatives, Fehrnstrom is an enigma. It’s not that conservatives don’t trust him. It’s that some don’t even know him. “I’ve never heard of him. I’ve been going to conservative meetings since I was knee-high to...

Ron Paul, who claims to be a fierce opponent of globalism and big money interests, as well as a strong proponent of traditional morality, is receiving millions of dollars in political support from global hedge fund manager, Peter Theil. An article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday detailed the $2.6 million in donations made by Thiel, co-founder of Pay Pal, to a Pro-Paul super-PAC, Endorse Liberty, that has produced videos attacking Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry. You will note that Mitt Romney is not among those the SuperPAC has attacked. Thiel also counts himself a libertarian,...