In 2009, finding the gay Republican group Log Cabin Republicans too centrist for their tastes, wingnuts Christopher R. Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia broke ties with the organization and formed the more teabaggery GOProud. As you might imagine, it didn't go well. Sure, they walked the walk and talked the talk, but because they were into the icky sex, the Republican Party, particularly those of the tea variety, were having none of it.
Since its inception, they have been largely ignored by the GOP. Year after year they attempted to gain access to the Conservative Political Action Conference only to have the religious right throw a major tantrum and thwart their homosexual advances. After years of being rebuffed, the group was finally able to attend CPAC this year. That might sound like progress to some, but it came with major caveats. Sure, the group could pay their money and attend, just not as official sponsors. No booth for you! Rightly, this pissed off Chris Barron who announced that he wasn't about to ride in the back of no bus and resigned forthwith.
“Last night I resigned from the Board of GOProud, the organization that I co-founded back in April of 2009. I cannot in good conscience sit by and watch as the current leadership of the organization disingenuously pawns off an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry as some sort of ‘compromise,’” Barron told BuzzFeed. “Nothing has changed in regards to GOProud and CPAC, GOProud does not have a booth, they are not a sponsor, they are not participating in any formal sense — individual members can attend and that’s exactly the terms ACU dictated the previous few years.”
There was a time when GOProud was on the front lines of the fight for a more inclusive conservative movement — we won some of those battles and we lost some of those battles, but we were always honest about the outcome. If the current leadership of GOProud, or what’s left of it, believes that unconditional surrender to the forces of intolerance is in the best interest of the organization, than they should just be honest about it.
I honestly don't know what Barron and LaSalvia expected. As long as the Religious Right holds the GOP by the short and curlies, no matter how conservative you may be, if you are gay, you are persona non grata. Only the GOP centrists see the handwriting on the wall. The Religious Right and the Tea Party have their heads so firmly planted up their butts, they do not see the shift towards equality happening right before their eyes. GOProud never stood a chance of getting some good GOP lovin'.
It came as a surprise to no one when The Bilerico Project broke the news Sunday that GOProud was taking down its shingle.
GOProud has been mired by several controversies since the departure of their founders. The group has bled donors since the widely reported departure of Jimmy LaSalvia from the Republican Party earlier this year. His departure was so loud, but it focused primarily on his shift of ideology and thus projected a new image onto the organization that he helped found.
Finding it difficult to continue without securing more funding, GOProud will be shutting down immediately - an homage to an era gone by. The shuttering is undoubtedly necessary as the organization's full effectiveness has been tarnished.
GOProud immediately denied that they were closing down, posting "Nothing could be further from the truth. GOProud is not closing. It is growing." Right. Just a day later, Executive Director Matthew Bechstein fessed up that yes, GOProud will be no more and that he lied. He had his
reasons.
"I posted what I had to on Facebook so I wouldn't scare our members and thwart our fundraising efforts," Executive Director Matthew Bechstein told Bilerico Project in an exclusive interview. "I wanted to mitigate a disaster."
"There have been concerns among our members and investors about whether or not we can continue to grow and be effective without severing ourselves from past controversies," Bechstein said in a separately emailed statement.
"The fact is, in order to continue promoting the conservative principles upon which this organization was founded, change is needed. One of the changes under discussion is a switch to a different legal type of organization - basic paperwork that requires dissolution and immediate subsequent reorganization. Technically, as some argue, this would be a legal closure," he emailed. "But if it were to actually happen, it would only be momentary and certainly not the end of our organization."
As The Bilerico Project notes "While Bechstein claims that filing dissolution paperwork with the federal government would necessitate "immediate subsequent reorganization," this is not a requirement from the government. The group will simply be dissolved."
Bechstein insists that GOProud is merely undergoing a facelift, a "rebranding" if you will. That hasn't worked out for the GOP in general and I doubt a rebranding effort will go any more smoothly for Bechstein. So good luck with that.
In the meantime, Bechstein wants you to know that "no matter what happens, our grassroots infrastructure and our daily activism will continue throughout any possible transition. We do not plan to stop working." In other words, keep those donations coming, kids!
I'll be waiting to see what kind of phoenix rises from these ashes. They could call themselves GOPself-loathers, but if their members still like the "icky" sex, no amount of lipstick on the beak will make that phoenix attractive to a party that loves their bigotry.