Sarah Palin: “No Problem” With GOProud’s Attendance At CPAC
Sarah Palin clarified remarks she made earlier this week about this year’s CPAC controversy, in a manner which is likely to upset the social conservatives who are leading a boycott of this year’s meeting:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said Wednesday evening she has no objection to the participation of gay Republicans at this weekend’s gathering of conservatives in Washington.
Palin said she didn’t see anything wrong with the participation of GOProud, a group of gay Republicans, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which runs Thursday through Saturday.
I don’t have a problem with different, diverse groups that are involved in political discourse, and having a convention to talk about what the answers are to their problems that face America,” Palin said Wednesday on Fox News when asked about GOProud.
Palin isn’t participating in the conference, and she’s declined previous invitations, despite CPAC’s role as a cattle call for possible Republican presidential candidates.
I’ll actually say that I’m glad to see Palin take this position. Perhaps it will lead the social conservatives who think that running away from a meeting because gay people are there is really pretty silly.
It’s a sensible position. Good for her.
Can we just admit nowadays the the term “social conservative” means “homophobe”? Is there _any_ aspect of a social conservative agenda that isn’t specifically anti-gay?
Good for her. I certainly hammer her when she’s wrong, so good on you, Sarah.
Good on her!
It’s only in keeping with her actual record, back in Alaska,
Funny how Doug’s “Palin friendly” thread gets 5 posts and his typical Palin bashing threads get at least 50 posts.
… and BTW, congrats Doug. I’m proud of you. Good thread
Unconditional kudos.
My guess is that many Palin “defenders” don’t like this move by Palin, so they stay quiet, rather than bash her for it.
But as a Palin hater, I say “Good for her!”
Well done, Mrs. Palin.
Fair enough – I will also admit to being pleasantly surprised, and fully supportive of Palin’s position here.
Wow, expectations for Palin are so low she gets a chorus of kudos when she says something semi-reasonable?
Talk about the tyranny of low expectations….
Somewhere, Smooth Jazz is having an aneurysm.
“Funny how Doug’s “Palin friendly” thread gets 5 posts and his typical Palin bashing threads get at least 50 posts.”
That is because his snarky putdowns and condescending lectures rub some people the wrong way. So her defenders speak up, followed by the Palin Haters, and the threads become a long, boring shouting match. OTB posters generally do not like Gov Palin, but most of the posters disagree with respect and eschew the putdowns.
I think that is all her defenders are saying; Disagreeing with her is par for the course, but avoid the Tbogg & DailyKOS type hatred if you’re trying to come across as a middle of the road forum. Her position regarding GOProud and CPAC is not unusual based on her record as Gov. She has generally respected the Gay POV and has been tolerant for the most part.
“It’s only in keeping with her actual record, back in Alaska,”
This is a key point most people miss. She sure is hell is tapping into some red meat populism as part of her image, but she has never been a gun-ho social conservative liek Hukabee, etc. She didnt run on or govern that way in Alaska. I forget what it was but she signed some kind of “gay friendly” law into place when Governor. There are surely plenty of things wrong with her, but on the spectrum of social policy views she fits well within the center-right portion of the american politic.
EJ wrote:
This is a key point most people miss. She sure is hell is tapping into some red meat populism as part of her image, but she has never been a gun-ho social conservative liek Hukabee, etc. She didnt run on or govern that way in Alaska.
——————
Bing-go. Palin support, much like Obama’s*, is due to the fact that both are able to act as a blank slate for people to project their hopes (and likewise their hates) onto. And both work very hard to carefully preserve that image (as, in fact, do both their supporters and detractors).
Building off Obama, anyone who has actually examined his voting record, on both the state and the federal level, would understand that, for the most part, he’s a slight left of centrist with a tendency to go towards compromise on many issues.** Many of his supporters bought into the “radical leftist” image that conservative media sold — the result (as pointed out here and in other spaces) has been disenchantment with his “slight left of centerist with a tendency to go towards compromise on many issues” performance.***
The irony is, of course, each side accuses the other of playing identity/cult politics. Sarah supporters through-and-through (radio and otherwise) are the first to accuse Dems of buying into the cult of Obama. Similarly positioned people on the left do it as well. And both think that they “really know” their person and that person “speaks for them.”
Notes:
* – This is not to say that Palin or Obama have similar track records in office. I’m not going near that particular debate.
** – Before anyone spills the tired “what about their conservative/liberal congressional scores” remember that those numbers are fundamentally flawed because they collapse conservative and liberal into Republican and Democrat. So his high liberal score is fundamentally a high Democrat score. Before you say same thing, remember that the same system claimed that lots of “RINOs” in the 2006/2008 had pretty impeccable Conservative Scores.
** – And while, perhaps cynically, I think Palin’s abrupt departure from office had a lot to do with cashing in on her newfound national fame, I wonder how much living up to her new image had to do with the choice. As James Joyner and other’s have pointed out here, the marked difference on issues between Obama the Candidate and Obama the President — on the campaign trail it’s easy to keep the crowd going, but when there’s real day-to-day scrutiny the reformer becomes a model Weberian Bureaucrat.
Is there _any_ aspect of a social conservative agenda that isn’t specifically anti-gay?
Yes, they are also anti-woman, anti-non-Christian religion, anti-atheist, and anti-science.
Yeah, I’m with Herb. She said something basically sane. She didn’t even say anything particularly welcome about GOProud, just that she doesn’t hate them. I’m not going to praise her for this statement; I’m just not going to criticize it much either.
Now if she came out in support of DADT repeal a few months ago or marriage equality now, then she would deserve praise. Heck, if she’d even said something more along the lines of being glad to have diverse voices in the party (rather than “no problem” with it), that would be worthy of mild praise.
But not this.
In fact the pro-life position has nothing to do with gay bashing. It is a social conservative position about which she is very passionate and she is respected by social conservatives because she did not just talk the talk, she walked the walk. There are gays, atheists and other assorted non Christians who are strongly against abortion, particularly late term abortions, on the simple ground, that a human fully capable of life outside the womb should not be killed. Many are even opposed to earlier term abortions because in some cultures abortion is used as a way to select for sex.
Shame on Sara
“‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
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