Would I be Blogging if not for Log Cabin?
When I moved from the Washington, D.C-area to Southern California in 1999, I resolved to give up activist politics. Tired of being labeled “that gay Republican,” I wanted people to see me as more than a seemingly discordant mix of sexuality and conservatism and instead recognize my diverse passions, to treat me as a complex individual rather than dismiss me as an apparent oxymoron.
While, from time to time, I did share my political views on a friend’s listserv, in my first years in LA, I, by and large, steered clear of politics. At one point though, I almost did come out of my political closet. When, in the spring of 2000, the then-leader of Log Cabin threw a hissy fit, attacking publicly the twelve gay Republicans who met with George W. Bush, the then-presumptive Republican presidential nominee, I castigated him in an Op-Ed, “Of Babies and Bath Water.” That leader soon changed course. I withdrew my piece before it was published.
My public silence then continued until 2004, indeed, many of my friends in that period had no clue about my political leanings.
That changed when some blog (I think it was Instapundit, but it may have been Polipundit which I then read regularly) linked a blogger who was telling Log Cabin to shove it for failing to endorse President Bush’s reelection. So much did I agree with the post that I wrote the blogger and was delighted (and honored) to receive Bruce’s response (though he did not then identify himself by name). Soon we were exchanging e-mails and Instant Messages. Before long, he invited me to join the blog.
The rest is history.
I’ve now been blogging for over three and one-half years and have, by my estimate, written well over one thousand posts. As I was preparing to attend Log Cabin’s San Diego “Convention,” I realized I may not have penned (metaphorically speaking) a single one of those (on a great variety of topics not limited to politics) were it not for Log Cabin.
I started blogging largely because I believed that in the 2004 campaign, Log Cabin did not speak for gay Republicans, even as the media made it seem they did. As if all (or a great majority of) gay Republicans were refraining from supporting Bush, with many voting against him. Log Cabin’s then-political director claimed gay support for the then-GOP nominee would be “in the single digits.”
I wanted to join the then-anonymous GayPatriot in challenging that notion, contending that there were gay Republicans who did not define ourselves by our sexuality and who considered a great variety of issues when casting our votes.
Given the stakes of that election (as well as this one) I assumed most gay Republicans held national security as the paramount issue and feared the consequences should John Kerry win the White House. Yes, we were disappointed with President Bush on many levels, with some of us feeling betrayed when he backed the Federal Marriage Amendment. (I myself couldn’t sleep for two nights after he made his announcement.)
Despite the president’s flaws, we thought he had done a passable job on most other issues, showing extraordinary leadership in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and foresight in his broad policies to respond to the increasing threat of Islamofascism. Exits polls that year proved that most gay Republicans side with us. Log Cabin’s was wrong; an overwhelming majority of gay Republicans stuck with our party’s standard bearer. His gay support wasn’t in the single digits, but nearly identical to his tally four years previously.
Despite its failure to speak for gay Republicans in the 2004 election, Log Cabin retains its media megaphone. While there are now a number of gay conservative media outlets (all blogs), Log Cabin is the only gay group calling itself Republican with ready access to the media and an office in our nation’s capital. Their message is more readily amplified than ours — even now.
But, given that the organization doesn’t always speak for gay Republicans, blogging has provided a forum for our once-silent majority.
Without this medium, gay Republicans disgruntled with Log Cabin’s direction would be dependent on the good will of editors of the gay press to publish our pieces (as I was in 2000). The mainstream media (for a great variety of reasons, some legitimate) has little interest in the opinions of gay conservatives who support Republican leaders (even when they disagree with them on occasion).
If weren’t for Log Cabin, I still may well have become a blogger, but would likely not have recognized the real power–and meaning–of this medium. It provides a forum for those representing political viewpoints of which media elite are not necessarily aware or with which they do not readily sympathize — or which they simply refuse to understand.
The growth of this medium makes it more difficult for groups with a media megaphone to claim that they speak for their entire constituency.
While my sense this year is that Log Cabin will endorse John McCain for president (more on that in a subsequent post), this year it would be more difficult for their non-endorsement to have the impact it might once have had. For with the record of 2004 and the presence of this blog– and others like it, we gay conservatives can better get our message out. And show the real diversity of gay Americans, even of gay Republicans.
- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)
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LInks need fixing. At this instant, they have some “http//http//” thing going on.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — April 8, 2008 @ 11:07 pm - April 8, 2008
Should be fixed now.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — April 9, 2008 @ 1:43 am - April 9, 2008
I can see LCR not endorsing Bush because of his Federal Marriage Amendment, but to say that gay Republicans wouldn’t vote for him because of it is ridiculous. I have plenty of reasons to dislike Bush, but I’d still vote for him over Gore or Kerry. I share your frustrations over having my political beliefs restricted to only gay issues. All of the “gay rights” in the world won’t help me much if the nation isn’t secure or if I’m taxed into massive debt to support failing social programs. (Yes, that happened to me during the Clinton years. Just watch that paycheck shrink!)
Comment by NaturallyGay — April 9, 2008 @ 2:05 am - April 9, 2008
I don’t have much experience with LCR other than a few e-mails with the Tampa Bay chapter. In fact, they’re the ones who recommended that I check out blogs. I’d heard of ‘em, but at the time I thought they were just personal diary pages.
I Googled Gay Republican Blogs and found GayPatriot and others. I came to GP around the time of the “Wanted” Poster kerfuffle. Forget how long ago that was.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — April 9, 2008 @ 2:29 am - April 9, 2008
Why did LCR not endorse Bush? It’s called integrity. For any LGBT organization to supprt a man who has selected us as a target and who enjoys the backing of organizations who despise our existence is really quite disgusting. While as individuals they may, and probably did vote for him, at the group level it would have been totally hypoctrical to endorse him. Identity politics has nothing to do with it. I know it’s a mortal sin for any Republican not to goose step along with the rest of the party but it’s nice to see that they refused to. And I say the same thing about liberal LGBT groups who endorsed Kerry and are doing the same for the current Dem candidates. Certainly most of us vote for the candidate who will do the best job (or the least damage) but for the organizations that are most visible to openly endorse candidates who do NOT have our best interests in mind on our issues is wrong. Isn’t it on here that it has been said HRC and others should not include broader issues in their actions? So why do you expect them to endorse a candidate on those same things? Either the focus on LGBT concerns or the don’t, you want it both ways I guess.
All that aside, it’s a positive thing that it got you back into blogging, voices of all perspectives are needed because it’s a combination of all of them that will move us as LGBT people, as USA citizens and as occupants of planet earth, forward not backwards.
Comment by Dave — April 9, 2008 @ 12:03 pm - April 9, 2008
Isn’t it on here that it has been said HRC and others should not include broader issues in their actions?
HRC allegedly exists SOLELY for the purpose of gay issues.
LCR exists for the purpose of Republican positions on multiple issues, NOT just gay issues.
Therefore, as a Republican group, it is perfectly acceptable for LCR to have a position on abortion. However, since abortion is not a gay and lesbian issue, it is completely inappropriate for HRC to have a position on it or to use it as a consideration in their endorsements.
And I say the same thing about liberal LGBT groups who endorsed Kerry and are doing the same for the current Dem candidates.
That would be all of them. So say it directly, that HRC, NGLTF, and all the other gay and lesbian liberal “rights” groups have no integrity.
And I loved this juxtaposition:
All that aside, it’s a positive thing that it got you back into blogging, voices of all perspectives are needed because it’s a combination of all of them that will move us as LGBT people, as USA citizens and as occupants of planet earth, forward not backwards.
with this:
I know it’s a mortal sin for any Republican not to goose step along with the rest of the party
So you say how much you “value” us in one sentence, and then compare us to Nazis in the next.
Uh huh.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — April 9, 2008 @ 1:47 pm - April 9, 2008
Integrity, Dave? Had Log Cabin perhaps issued a short non-endorsement as opposed to the lengthy bloviation that they did, I might say they showed some integrity. And had its leaders then refrained from criticizing their (ostensible) party’s nominee in the course of the campaign.
It was not so much the non-endorsement that irked me, but how Log Cabin released it.
Were that statement still up on their web-site, I would link it and show what I meanJust found the release via a google search, apparently it is still up, but not listed on their web-site. For the time being, I will just note how long it is.It was the length that really got me. All Log Cabin needed say was:
Such a statement would show the party’s commitment to the GOP and make clear that Log Cabin was not pandering to the left-leaning gay organizations as the text of its 2004 release indicates.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — April 9, 2008 @ 4:18 pm - April 9, 2008
Ok, North Dallas, instead of goose step how about – “bend to the will of the party”. Either way, believe or not it is possible to value differing perspectives while still disliking party politics and expectations of submission to the bosses. If I meant to compare you to Nazis I would have said exactly that. And why don’t I specifically single out HRC and the others for criticism – because it’s already been said, that’s what the article did.
Yeah, the statement was too long. But in it, they clearly described what they support/appreciate about Bush. I don’t see anything in it that indicates any “pandering to left-leaning” groups but I read it with a different set of glasses than you.
Comment by Dave — April 9, 2008 @ 9:34 pm - April 9, 2008
#5: "[i]t’s a combination of all of them that will move us as LGBT people, as USA citizens and as occupants of planet earth, forward not backwards."
So Dave, according to your choice of word order, you consider yourself first a gay man, and THEN an American.
This is why the Left is wrong.
I rest my case.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — April 10, 2008 @ 2:34 pm - April 10, 2008
Peter, I have seen some pretty bizarre attempts to twist the meaning of my words on here but this may be one of the best. To even think of putting an order of importance on my sentence is identity politics at it’s worst. Petty little minds shouldn’t even bother trying to make cases, never mind rest them.
Comment by Dave — April 12, 2008 @ 1:39 pm - April 12, 2008