The National Association For Marriage, a group devoted to preventing gays from marrying legally, is boycotting CPAC because of the presence of a tiny splinter group of what's left of Log Cabin, GOProud. This seems a sad piece of meretricious animus - banning a fiscally conservative group because it specifically appeals to gays is not exactly a way to expand libertarianism or frugality. But now the big dogs are wagging their tails as well:
In November, the far-right American Principles Project instigated the CPAC boycott over GOProud’s involvement back in November, and groups such as American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage followed the APP’s lead in boycotting the conference.
Today, WorldNetDaily, which has provided support for the boycott movement, reports that the Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America have decided to boycott CPAC. FRC and CWA are easily the largest groups to join the boycott movement, and FRC hosts a similar conference that is geared to Religious Right activists, the Values Voter Summit. WorldNetDaily reports on their decision and the ensuing praise from anti-gay rights activists Peter LaBarbera and Mat Staver.
These are major Christianist right players. This is the rhetoric they warm to:
God cut Gideon's army up, slicing and dicing it until it represented only a tiny fraction of its numbers. God didn't want a big army to win victory. He wanted a miracle performed by a tiny army listening carefully and being in obedience to His commands.
God purged thousands from Gideon's army.
Conservatives need God's help, not GOProud's.
Purges can make an organization or a movement stronger.
Purges can help to refine, rather than redefine, what an ideology is all about.
Purges can sharpen and strengthen a movement bringing it back to the core convictions and principles that made it successful.
And that's why the purge of the conservative movement should begin with David Keene and his administrative team at ACU.
Really: purges? And NOM and FRC and CWA are all on board? Perhaps CPAC will move toward economic issues and the Values Summit will stick to Christianism. But that itself would be an interesting split.