Last updated on April 11th, 2018 at 10:41 am
Advocate.com reports that the conservative LGBT organization GOProud is closing up shop. The organization was formed five years ago, but never could quite find its niche within the homophobic Republican Party. GOProud founder Jimmy LaSalvia quit the organization and left the Republican Party last year, blasting party officials for their intolerant views on his way out. Co-founder Chris Barron also exited the GOProud organization in 2013 after a dispute regarding the group initially being denied participation in the CPAC convention.
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The troubled organization has always seemed a bit slow to recognize that the Republican Party is not welcoming to gays and lesbians, regardless of how conservative they may be on economic issues. No matter how much the GOP leadership talks about personal liberty and individual rights, they ultimately bow to social conservatives. Anti-gay discrimination is enshrined in the GOP’s national platform, and many state party platforms also explicitly support anti-gay discrimination.
As long as Republicans running for office continue to pander to the socially reactionary Christian Right, gays in the GOP will be treated as second class citizens. While some LGBT conservatives may hope that the party will embrace them as long as they hate Obamacare, love guns, and despise capital gains taxes as much as they do, the truth is the religious conservative base has no use for gays and lesbians period. Bigotry is like that. No matter how much LGBT Americans seek acceptance within the Republican ranks, that acceptance will not be forthcoming until the Republican Party purges itself of the intolerant social conservatives who control much of the party machinery.
GOProud was simply never a viable group within a party that is all to eager to ratchet up antipathy towards gays to win over the support of social conservatives. Apparently the organization has figured out after five years of existence that they really have no home inside the Republican Party. GOProud is proud to be GOP no more, as they are disbanding.
Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick’s successful re-election bid in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.
