Posted on 02/10/2011 8:23:00 PM PST by DesertRenegade
The new chair of the American Conservative Union, Al Cardenas, today distanced his organization from GOProud, telling FrumForum in an exclusive interview that “it’s going to be difficult to continue the relationship” with the gay conservative organization.
The ACU, which annually organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference, has faced some criticism for including GOProud as a co-sponsor for the second year in a row. Socially conservative organizations have denounced the move, and the Heritage Foundation claimed that GOProud’s inclusion was part of their decision to opt-out.
Cardenas, who was selected yesterday to replace outgoing chairman David Keene, told FrumForum that he disapproved of GOProud’s response to the furor.
“I have been disappointed with their website and their quotes in the media, taunting organizations that are respected in our movement and part of our movement, and that’s not acceptable. And that puts them in a difficult light in terms of how I view things,” said Cardenas.
GOProud had asserted that Cleta Mitchell, the chairman of the ACU Foundation, was pushing conservative groups and individuals to boycott CPAC because of GOProud’s inclusion. Chris Barron, the chairman of GOProud, recently said in an interview that Mitchell was “a nasty bigot.”
“It’s going to be difficult to continue the relationship [with GOProud] because of their behavior and attitude,” Cardenas told FrumForum.
Asked for GOProud’s response, the group’s chairman apologized for his comments about Cleta Mitchell.
“For the past six months, we have watched as unfair and untrue attacks have been leveled against our organization, our allies, our friends and sometimes even their families. Everyone has their breaking point and clearly in my interview with Metro Weekly I had reached mine. I shouldn’t have used the language that I did to describe Cleta Mitchell and for that I apologize,” said Chris Barron.
Asked about whether he values a big tent approach to conservatism, Cardenas said that he did – but that his vision applied principally to reaching out to different minorities and ethnic groups.
“There are not enough African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities here. That diversity is critical – you don’t need to change your value system to attract more diversity into the movement… [but] I’m not going to – for the sake of being inclusive – change the principles that have made the movement what it is,” said Cardenas.
“David [Keene] invited these folks [GOProud] in an effort to be inclusive… Having friends of ours leaving… presents difficulties to me,” he said. “There’s always going to be some tension, [but] there should never be any tension between time-tested values.”
Asked if someone who supported gay marriage could be a conservative, Cardenas replied, “Not a Ronald Reagan conservative… I will say this: we adopted a resolution unanimously at ACU advocating traditional marriage between a man and a woman, so that answers how we feel on the issue.”
Cardenas says that his priorities as the new ACU chairman will be focused on “making sure that our true friends never leave the table.”
Cleta Mitchell’s position as ACU Foundation chairman also appears to be safe. The new chairman, who has the authority to appoint a new one should he want to, told FrumForum that he has “no intentions [regarding Mitchell] except to keep her where she is.”
LOL, Hoover, and the others.
They’re all about the homosexual agenda , made up from the log cabins and they never left the log cabins because they were fed up they moved because it was found that the log cabins were Dems , funded by Dems and voting for Dems, and who was only there to split the conservatives and cause division,
Sadly it worked to an extent because we have too many dopes and cowards or naive people who fall for it and say crap like well I know a couple and they’re nice or but I don’t care what their agenda is or what they do, it is the Christian thing, or the best one was by an elderly lady some time ago on here who said she has no problem because she met one at church and he is nice who wants ot be left alone and love anyone whom they want.
Guess she never read this about infiltration of the church.
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm
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That's a big part of the problem: people who refuse to see what this issue is all about. They deny the reality of the homosexual lifestyle (aids, hepatitis, hiv, TB, promiscuity, the teaching of homosexual practices to public schoolchildren and on and on), and instead focus on the surface. To some degree, this problem is also one of ignorance. How many people who are not homosexual and do not live in the San Francisco area know about the Folsom Street fair? I'm guessing a very small minority.
exactly
right.
The amount of people I met up north when I went there saying they had no problem with homosexual marriage but then when asked if they wanted fisting taught in schools, men have sex at public places, pay for their diseases, let kids see two men playing families like both getting a child and then that child seeing two men in bed together they say no that is bad.
I agree with you that much of it is ignorance and an agenda of the media pushing that lifestyle.
Going soft on amnesty for illegal aliens will not result in many more Hispanics joining the GOP, and will lose more non-Hispanic GOP members than it gains.
The way to victory is NOT to be "Democrat Lite".
The attitude should be "We welcome anybody who adheres to conservative principles. We will not adjust conservative principles to pander to any group."
There should not be a "Gay Conservative Caucus", "Hispanic Conservative Caucus", or "Women Conservative Caucus". There should just be conservatives.
If their primary objective is to advocate conservatism to the gay community, then they are welcome. If their primary objective is to lobby the gay agenda to the Republican Party, then they are not welcome.
Guess Who's Coming to CPAC? (Breitbart & Norquist Gush Over GOProud in Homosexual Publication)
...Barron looks at the landscape: "We've said all along that we don't think that the conservative movement is unwelcoming to gay people. There is a fringe element. A really nasty, anti-gay, bigoted element. And we have smoked them out, and we have marginalized them."
“Asked for GOProud’s response, the group’s chairman apologized for his comments about Cleta Mitchell.”
When I was a student at the University of Oklahoma from 1976-1980. Cleta Mitchell was the state legislature representative from Norman (included OU). At that time she was a liberal democrat. When did she become a conservative republican? I’m not doubting her bonafides, just wondering when the switch occured and why.
Hear hear! Thanks for posting that for the record. It would make a great tag line.
Ugh, say it isn't so! How could Cardenas not support fellow Cuban-American conservative Marco Rubio?
Asked if someone who supported gay marriage could be a conservative, Cardenas replied, “Not a Ronald Reagan conservative… I will say this: we adopted a resolution unanimously at ACU advocating traditional marriage between a man and a woman, so that answers how we feel on the issue.”
Cardenas says that his priorities as the new ACU chairman will be focused on “making sure that our true friends never leave the table.”
Thank God Cardenas has taken a stand on this insane GOProud issue, which is threatening to destroy the ACU and CPAC. It sounds like level heads are finally prevailing. Good riddance, David Keene!
Next on my CPAC wish list: Finally shining light on Suhail Khan's and Grover Norquist's "questionable" Muslim alliances. If there's "no there there", fine, but so far I'm not convinced.
David Horowitz's Keynote at CPAC 2011 [The most important and least reported speech at CPAC.]
Suhail Khan and Horowitz to debate on Hannity today...
We WILL be responding to the post-CPAC survey, btw.
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