CBS News: Young Gay Conservatives Say Their Time has Come

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CBS News: Young Gay Conservatives Say Their Time has Come
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20031524-503544.html

The music was blaring at a party for gay conservatives in Washington on Thursday night, and 22-year-old college student Matt Hissey was declaring victory.

Hissey had been asked about the decision by some social conservatives, including the Family Research Council and Sen. Jim DeMint, to boycott the Conservative Political Action Conference over the involvement of gay conservative group GOProud.

"The whole idea about conservatism is about individual freedom, individual liberty," said Hissey, a GOProud volunteer and a "very conservative" supporter of Sarah Palin. "And they have the total right to disagree with me, but who won the PR battle here? We did. So they are more than welcome to feel that way, and act upon it, and try to lobby their supporters, but they lost in the end."

The scene at GOProud's booth at CPAC - a confab of 11,000 (mostly young) conservative activists that doubles as a cattle call for GOP presidential candidates - seemed to back up that assessment. A stream of participants walked up to the booth throughout the day to thank GOProud representatives for coming to the conference and, as Hissey put it, "for driving the wingnuts away."

To be sure, social conservatives remain a potent force within the conservative movement: Along with fiscal and national security conservatives, they form one of its three planks, according to the speaker who opened CPAC this year, Rep. Michele Bachmann. On Friday, a group called The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Prosperity was passing out literature explaining why gay marriage is 'harmful" and must be opposed; the American Principles Project, meanwhile, urged speakers to acknowledge that "social issues are fundamental to the fabric of conservatism and the character of our country."

GOProud describes itself as "committed to a traditional conservative agenda that emphasizes limited government, individual liberty, free markets and a confident foreign policy." Marriage questions, it says, should be left to states. In an interview Thursday, the group's executive director, Jimmy LaSalvia, said the social conservatives boycotting CPAC "have chosen to marginalize themselves out of the conservative movement."

"The groups that have chosen not to be here are the anti-gay for pay industry," he said. "They are the ones who raise money by demonizing gay people. And guess what? GOProud are conservative gay people. We are conservatives, we are proud conservatives, we have a solid conservative record, and they're not here because they can't demonize us."

The mood at the GOProud party Thursday night was triumphant; host Andrew Breitbart described the group's success at CPAC as a "turning point" for the conservative movement.

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"There are so many gay people that I've seen at the tea parties who are being doubly bold - there may be some social stigma still to being gay, but there is a bigger social stigma still to being gay and conservative in the gay community," he said. Breitbart said he stands with GOProud, saying, "people simply want to grant gay people their humanity - is that too much to ask for?"

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