Why Right Wing News Is Sponsoring Homocon

John Hawkins:

Last week, after the announcement that RWN is sponsoring Homocon, people started asking me why RWN chose to promote that event.

After all, I'm against gays in the military, I'm a strong supporter of Prop 8, and I'm very much in favor of a Federal Marriage Amendment. So, why back a gay group that doesn't agree with me on any of those issues?

Well, let's start from scratch. First of all, RWN has a history of supporting gay conservatives. At one point or another, RWN has interviewed Andrew Sullivan (in his pro-war days), Tammy Bruce, Matt Sanchez, and Christopher Barron from GOProud. Additionally, Matt Sanchez has written for the website and B. Daniel Blatt from Gay Patriot still writes for RWN while Jeff Gannon and the blogger from the now defunct Boi from Troy were invited to participate in RWN's blogger polls. So, sponsoring an event like Homocon isn't a big break from what RWN has done in the past.

Moreover, from what I've seen of GOProud, it's an enormous improvement over the Log Cabin Republicans. Let me tell you why: the Log Cabin Republicans have some conservative members, but organizationally, they are a left-of-center gay group. They are funded by Democratic money and their agenda is almost identical to that of most of the liberal gay groups out there.

In all honesty, I don't consider the group to be conservative or even Republican in any meaningful sense. Keep in mind that this is the same group that even declined to endorse George W. Bush in 2004. Yet, take a look at all the establishment Republicans showing up for a Log Cabin Republican fundraiser just three days before Homocon:



After seeing that, isn't it a little ironic that Ann Coulter's appearance at Homocon is causing so much controversy?

Hawkins goes into a lot more detail and concludes:

Still, there's a world of difference between saying, "This is the Republican Party's position on this issue" and saying, "This is the Republican Party's position on this issue and to be a Republican, you have to agree with it." A political party that holds the former position can be both principled and have a big tent, while a political party that holds the latter position is doomed to purge heretics on one issue after the other until it dies an ignominious death. Additionally, no matter what your race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation may be, you should be welcomed into the Republican Party and the conservative movement. If there are people who don't agree with that, if there are people who think a gay conservative or a gay Republican is a contradiction of terms, then we're just never going to see eye-to-eye.

I really don't expect conservatives to ever approve of gays but as Reagan said: "an 80% friend is not a 20% enemy" and homocons believe in probably more than 80% of the GOP agenda. Some want gay "marriage" but many don't. From GOProud's website:

GOProud represents gay conservatives and their allies. GOProud 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.

On the other hand, the Log Cabin Club endorsed Kerry against Bush in 2004. I'm baffled that Cornyn and Sessions are involved.