"The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the `no fun police' on the left," said Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud.

 "I can't think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed `right-wing Judy Garland' - Ann Coulter."

The "right-wing Judy Garland?" Can Coulter sing? Might Rudi G show up in drag? (For some choice Coulter comments/jokes about gays compiled by Media Matters, see http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201002200009.)

Coulter said that she was "thrilled to be giving a speech to a room full of gay conservatives, because according to every single liberal I've ever met, such people don't even exist! Who's next on my speaking tour? Conservative unicorns? (And don't kid yourselves they're out there. I get letters from them all the time.)"

On August 6, GOProud announced that Coulter would headline the first annual Homocon. Four days later, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality, issued a press release urging Ann Coulter to reconsider headlining the event:

"As a fan of Ann Coulter, it pains me to see her cave in to political correctness and lend credibility to the phony homosexual "conservatives" over at GOProud. Worse, Coulter is sending a dangerous message to young Americans that homosexuality is OK. (It's actually a sin.) Fully half of GOProud's top 10 federal priorities center on using the Government to advance homosexuality...."

"One must ask Coulter, who professes Christianity: Would you speak at an event for `Republicans For Responsible Porn Use,' or `Republicans for Higher Taxes,' or Republicans for Choice (Abortion) -- if such groups took legitimately conservative positions on other issues like gun rights?

"Does God condemn only Democratic `men who lie with a male as one lies with a woman' - while giving Republican sodomists a pass?"

In a sharply worded statement, Christopher Barron, Chairman of GOProud's Board, said:

"I strongly encourage Mr LaBarbera to head out to his local bookstore, buy an Ann Coulter book and actually read it. For a guy who claims to be a `fan,' he seems completely clueless about what Ann has actually written and said about gay people and gay conservatives. If Mr. LaBarbera spent less time obsessing about gay sex and hanging out at gay Pride events, maybe he would have a little more time to read one of Ann's books."

HOMOCON 2010

I first learned about HOMOCON 2010 via an e-mail from John Hawkins, who presides over the Right Wing News website. On August 16, Hawkins proudly noted that Right Wing News had become the first sponsor of Homocon. (GOProud is asking $2500 to sponsor Homocon. John Hawkins told me that Right Wing News is not paying a sponsor's fee.)

In an item titled "Big Announcement: Right Wing News Is Sponsoring Homocon," Hawkins pointed out that the Log Cabin Republicans - traditionally the most public of gay conservative organizations - "have long been an annoyance. They're a gay `Republican' group that endorsed John Kerry in 2004 and they essentially sound identical to every liberal gay group that you run across. In other words, there's nothing meaningfully Republican about the Log Cabin Republicans or any point to their continued existence."

While Hawkins doesn't agree with everything GOProud is about - he believes "that the Bible considers homosexual sex to be a sin"; opposes gays in the military and same-sex marriage -- he quotes Ronald Reagan who said: "My 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy."

In late-January, Hawkins had a free-wheeling conversation with GOProud's Chairman of the Board, Christopher Barron, who was formerly the national Political Director for Log Cabin Republicans. Barron said that the organization was founded because a number of gay conservatives "no longer felt that the Log Cabin Republicans fairly represented gay conservatives and straight conservatives that cared about gay people. We just felt that they no longer represented the conservative values that we held." Barron maintained that the Log Cabin Republican "website looks like a legislative agenda you'd find on gay left-wing organizations in this country" (http://rightwingnews.com/2010/01/an-interview-with-goprouds-chris topher-barron-on-liberty-university-cpac-and-the-log-cabin-republ icans/).

Hawkins asked Barron: "What do you say to people who say, `Most conservatives oppose gays in the military and gay marriage and they're unlikely to change?"

Barron responded: "when you look at our legislative agenda and the issues that we're working on, we think the question of `gay rights' has been narrowly defined by the left. We think that if you want to improve the lives of every day gay and lesbian folks all across this country, you can do things like reform our tax code and provide for personal savings accounts in social security, free market health care reform, the type of stuff that's going to improve the lives of every American in this country.

"We certainly do understand that there are going to be conservatives who disagree with us on issues like same-sex marriage. We understand that and respect that. But, the fact is that movement conservatives aren't going to agree on everything..."

GOProud's controversy at CPAC

GOProud was involved in a bit of controversy earlier this year when, although it was an official co-sponsor of CPAC, it was denied a speaking slot. In addition, Liberty University decided to pull out of CPAC because of GOProud's co-sponsorship. Barron said that it was "unfortunate," that Liberty University pulled out because "GOProud is a mainstream conservative organization. We work with conservatives all across the country and in D.C. all the time." He added that they made that decision "and if it's a decision they're comfortable with, then good for them. Personally, I think CPAC is too important of an event for any conservative organization to say that they're not going to participate."

In a column titled "The Gay Infiltration of the Conservative Movement," Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid wrote that GOProud "isn't a conservative group.".Kincaid said that Barron, runs a group called Cap South Consulting (http://www.capsouthdc.com), "which works for `centrist Republicans' -- not conservatives."

"In fact," Kincaid wrote, "GOProud's commitment to constitutionally protected homosexual sodomy (i.e., anal intercourse) is not a position that appears on the agenda of any conservative groups. Hence, using the term `gay conservative' to describe these people is either a deliberate deception or an oxymoron that doesn't stand up under scrutiny."

Kincaid maintained that GOProud "claims to be `conservative' but supports the Obama policy of putting active and open homosexuals in the military, supports homosexual marriage, and even advocates a foreign policy of promoting acceptance of sodomy abroad. The latter is referred to as `Standing strong against radical regimes who seek to criminalize gays and lesbians.'

"These `radical regimes,' such as the Christian-dominated government in Uganda, are trying to prevent the spread of AIDS and protect traditional moral values by toughening laws against homosexuality.

"Under these `gay conservatives,' one can imagine gay soldiers being deployed to overthrow `homophobic' regimes.

"GOProud also says it wants to `defend the Constitution' in the U.S. by `Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment.' It doesn't explain how protecting the country against out-of-control judges legalizing gay marriage without a vote of the people is unconstitutional."

On its website, GOProud maintains that it "is committed to a traditional conservative agenda that emphasizes limited government, individual liberty, free markets and a confident foreign policy. GOProud promotes our traditional conservative agenda by influencing politics and policy at the federal level."  

Right Wing News' John Hawkins told me in an e-mail that thinks that "GOProud is a genuinely conservative group that doesn't smear people who disagree with them on gay issues as bigots, they don't insist that everyone else in the party see eye-to-eye with them on gay marriage, and they believe gay Americans should have an agenda that goes far beyond gay marriage and gays in the military. To demand more than that from gay conservatives is, in my opinion, unreasonable."

Hawkins also allowed that "The Log Cabin Republicans are not in any meaningful sense a conservative group," and that he would "encourage conservatives who have supported that group in the past to back GOProud instead."

Log Cabin Republican spokesperson Charles Moran, commenting on GOProud;s tagline about being ''the only national organization of gay conservatives and their allies," said: that GOProud "could also say that pigs fly and the sky is green. ... It has no bearing on who we are and the relationships we have with the Republican Party."