Alex Constantine - July 5, 2010
Gay GOP group grapples with Family Research Council
By David Weigel
Washington Post | June 23, 2010
Grover Norquist sits on the advisory council of GOProud, the gay advocacy organization
I'm only now seeing that Grover Norquist's decision to join the advisory board of GOProud -- which, he tells me, has generated less negative feedback than some of his previous outreach to gay conservatives --- sparked a battle between the Family Research Council and that group. Tom McCluskey, Vice President for Government Affairs of the FRC, fired this at GOProud and Norquist:
I’ve got to say, many in the conservative movement — especially among social conservatives — saw Grover Norquist’s, the president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), move to join the advisory council of the homosexual advocacy group GOProud as “Grover being Grover.” The phrase meaning that he is well known for his questionable affiliations (from being a middle man for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, profiting from the oppressed Northern Mariana Islands to partnering with Poker Players Alliance to advocate for legislation that ultimately taxes the Internet) and also for his disdain of social conservative issues like life and marriage (once deriding pro-lifers as “pontificators” and on marriage that he doesn’t “focus on it.”) Yet in this case he is actually going beyond his normal “profit and party before principles” motto. As Tony [Perkins] pointed out in his Daily Update last week, “GOProud is not a conservative organization that happens to be gay. It’s a homosexual organization that’s marginally conservative.”
GOProud punches back:
"Over the last week, the Family Research Council has shown its true colors - attacking GOProud for working with the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America to protect 2nd Amendment rights, attacking GOProud for supporting cutting taxes on American families, and for supporting the free market healthcare reform proposal offered by Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK)," said Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director. "These attacks make it clear the Family Research Council doesn't care one iota about the conservative agenda."
GOProud isn't the only organization that has come under fire from Tony Perkins and company. In March, Perkins attacked tea party organizations, FreedomWorks, and the Contract from America (click here). Perkins' attacks followed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's criticism of the Conservative Political Action Conference, an event GOProud sponsored. "We wear attacks from Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council as badges of honor," said Christopher Barron, Chairman of GOProud's Board. "The rise of the new right and the tea party movement in this country is a total repudiation of their ‘big government conservatism."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/06/goproud_grapples_with_family_r.html