GOProud was
an American tax exempt
527 organization
A 527 organization or 527 group is a type of U.S. tax-exempt organization organized under Section 527 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code (). A 527 group is created primarily to influence the selection, nomination, election, appointment or defea ...
supported by
fiscally conservative
Fiscal conservatism is a political and economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility with an ideological basis in capitalism, individualism, limited government, and ''laissez-faire'' economics.M. O. Dickerson et al., '' ...
gay men
Gay men are male homosexuals. Some bisexual and homoromantic men may also dually identify as gay, and a number of young gay men also identify as queer. Historically, gay men have been referred to by a number of different terms, including ' ...
,
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
s, and their allies. GOProud advocated for free markets, limited government, and a respect for individual rights and worked at the federal and state levels to build strong coalitions of
liberal conservative
Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by li ...
and
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
activists, organizations and policy makers to advance their shared values and beliefs.
GOProud was founded by
Christopher R. Barron and
Jimmy LaSalvia
Jimmy LaSalvia (born December 15, 1970) is an American political figure. LaSalvia is the co-founder and former executive director of GOProud, a defunct U.S. think tank, political action group."Some Conservatives Boycott Conference Over Gay Group ...
, two former
Log Cabin Republican
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization within the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT in the United States, LGBT+ Americans.
History
Log Cabin Republicans was founded in 1977 ...
staffers who expressed dissatisfaction at that organization's generally
centrist
Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the l ...
political positions. GOProud subsequently co-sponsored the
Conservative Political Action Conference
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC; ) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States and beyond. CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU). ...
(CPAC) and added political commentator/author
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
, political commentator/strategist
Margaret Hoover
Margaret Claire Hoover (born December 11, 1977) is an American conservative political commentator, political strategist, media personality, author, and great-granddaughter of Herbert Hoover, the 31st U.S. president. She is author of the book ''Am ...
,
Americans for Tax Reform
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is a politically conservative U.S. advocacy group whose stated goal is "a system in which taxes are simpler, flatter, more visible, and lower than they are today." According to ATR, "The government's power to control ...
President
Grover Norquist
Grover Glenn Norquist (born October 19, 1956) is an American political activist and tax reduction advocate who is founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes all tax increases. A Republican, he is the primary ...
, new media specialist
Liz Mair
Elizabeth Mair (born June 9, 1978) is an American political and communications consultant. She has worked as a journalist and commentator. She was the Online Communications Director at the 2008 Republican National Committee and has been a politi ...
, political analyst
Lisa De Pasquale, and political communications consultant
Chuck Muth
Chuck Muth is the president of Citizen Outreach, a conservative organization based in Las Vegas, and of Citizen Outreach Foundation. He is also a freelance communications consultant.
He is a former executive director of the American Conservative U ...
.
In June 2014, it was reported that GOProud had ceased operations and was shutting down as a political committee. After initial denials, the executive director later confirmed that they were "leaving GOProud behind" and that GOProud would be dissolved.
History
Jimmy LaSalvia
Jimmy LaSalvia (born December 15, 1970) is an American political figure. LaSalvia is the co-founder and former executive director of GOProud, a defunct U.S. think tank, political action group."Some Conservatives Boycott Conference Over Gay Group ...
and
Christopher R. Barron co-founded GOProud on April 15, 2009. LaSalvia was the Director of Programs and Policy for the
Log Cabin Republicans
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization within the Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT+ Americans.
History
Log Cabin Republicans was founded in 1977 in California as a rallying point for Republicans opposed ...
, a gay organization identifying with
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
ideals. Barron was the Political Director at Log Cabin Republicans before both men decided to leave with hopes of a creating a better organization that dealt with more conservative values. They wanted to focus on the issues of the conservative agenda rather than social issues, the focus of Log Cabin Republicans. Barron and LaSalvia believe that
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...
is a state issue and therefore wanted an organization that focused on the real conservative agenda.
Margaret Hoover
Margaret Claire Hoover (born December 11, 1977) is an American conservative political commentator, political strategist, media personality, author, and great-granddaughter of Herbert Hoover, the 31st U.S. president. She is author of the book ''Am ...
, a member of the advisory council, added her opinion into the mix, "GOProud has helped force gays out of the conservative establishment – what I would call the 'conser-va-gentsia' – to take on these self-anointed leaders of social conservatism."
2010
The
Conservative Political Action Conference
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC; ) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States and beyond. CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU). ...
(CPAC), an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States invited GOProud to its 2010 conference. The
Family Research Council
The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American evangelical activist group and think-tank with an affiliated lobbying organization. FRC promotes what it considers to be family values. It opposes and lobbies against: access to pornography, emb ...
started a boycott of CPAC over the invitation. Groups that followed the FRC in boycotting included the
Concerned Women for America
Concerned Women for America (CWA) is a socially conservative, evangelical Christian non-profit women's legislative action committee in the United States. Headquartered in Washington D.C., the CWA is involved in social and political movements, t ...
,
American Principles Project
The American Principles Project (APP) is a populist conservative 501(c) organization#501(c)(4), 501(c)(4) think tank founded in 2009 by Robert P. George, Jeff Bell (politician), Jeff Bell, and Francis P. Cannon. It is chaired by Sean Fieler. It is ...
,
Center for Military Readiness
The Center for Military Readiness is a tax-exempt, non-profit organization founded by Elaine Donnelly, which opposes the service of gay and transgender people and favors limiting the positions open to women in the United States military. It has ...
,
National Organization for Marriage
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an American non-profit political organization established to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. It was formed in 2007 specifically to pass California Proposit ...
and Liberty Council. These conservative groups worried that adding gay members would weaken the movement.
During a panel at the 2010 CPAC, Alexander McCobin, co-founder and executive director of
Students For Liberty, opened his remarks by thanking the
American Conservative Union
The American Conservative Union (ACU) is an American political organization that advocates for conservative policies, ranks politicians based on their level of conservatism, and organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference. Founded on ...
for welcoming GOProud as a co-sponsor of the event. Ryan Sorba, chairman of the
California Young Americans for Freedom and author of ''The "Born Gay" Hoax'', attempted to derail support for GOProud at CPAC. During his speech at the convention, he condemned GOProud for entering the conference but was eventually booed by the audience.
2011
Donald Trump's 2011 CPAC speech
In February 2011, Trump made his first speaking appearance at the
Conservative Political Action Conference
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC; ) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States and beyond. CPAC is hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU). ...
. His appearance at CPAC was organized by GOProud, in conjunction with GOProud supporter
Roger Stone
Roger Jason Stone (born Roger Joseph Stone Jr.; August 27, 1952) is an American conservative political consultant and lobbyist.
Since the 1970s, Stone has worked on the campaigns of Republican politicians, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Rea ...
, who was close with Trump. GOProud pushed for a write-in campaign for Donald Trump at CPAC's presidential straw poll.
Christopher R. Barron, co-founder of GOProud who would later not only endorse Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, but also launch LGBT for Trump, said he "would love to see Mr. Trump run for president." The speech was later credited with helping to launch his political career within the
Republican Party.
"Don't ask, don't tell"
"
Don't ask, don't tell
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on December ...
" is a political issue and policy enacted in 1993. This policy allowed homosexuals to serve in the military as long as their sexual orientation was undisclosed. GOProud supported repealing the policy.
GOProud condemned Minnesota Governor
Tim Pawlenty
Timothy James Pawlenty (; born November 27, 1960) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 39th governor of Minnesota from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, Pawlenty served in the Minnesota House o ...
and former Pennsylvania Senator
Rick Santorum
Richard John Santorum ( ; born May 10, 1958) is an American politician, attorney, and political commentator. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007 and was the Senate's thir ...
– both candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2012 – after they favoured reinstating the policy.
Fabrizio outing
Founders LaSalvia, who is also Executive Director, and Barron
outed
Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...
gay pollster and Perry campaign adviser
Tony Fabrizio
Anthony Fabrizio (born 1960) is an American Republican Party (United States), Republican opinion poll, pollster and strategist. The principal in Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, Fabrizio was the pollster for Donald Trump's fall Donald Trump 2016 presid ...
over
Rick Perry
James Richard Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States secretary of energy from 2017 to 2019 and as the 47th governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. Perry also ran unsuccessfully for the Republica ...
's "Strong" campaign ad, citing what they viewed as
homophobic
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...
themes in the ad. The ensuing fallout over the outing caused the late conservative media mogul
Andrew Breitbart
Andrew James Breitbart (; February 1, 1969 – March 1, 2012) was an American conservative journalist, and political commentator who was the founder of ''Breitbart News'' and a co-founder of ''HuffPost''.
After helping in the early stages of '' ...
to resign from GOProud's board. This move has also caused controversy inside the group, with many top members expressing disagreement and disgust over the outing.
2012
In July 2011, American Conservative Union's board voted to not allow GOProud to co-sponsor the 2012 CPAC event. This led to controversy among the entities who wanted GOProud to sponsor the event.
2013
2013 CPAC
GOProud was once again excluded from sponsoring CPAC in 2013, however this led to some criticism from some, such as
S. E. Cupp
Sarah Elizabeth Cupp (born February 23, 1979) is an American television host, political commentator, and writer. In August 2017, she began hosting ''S.E. Cupp: Unfiltered,'' a political panel show, co-hosted by Andrew Levy, on HLN and later CNN ...
and
Chris Hayes
Christopher Loffredo Hayes (; born February 28, 1979) is an American political commentator, television news anchor, activist, and author. Hayes hosts ''All In with Chris Hayes'', a weekday news and opinion television show on MSNBC. Hayes also ...
, who boycotted attending CPAC that year over the issue.
Leadership change
In April 2013, the two co-founders, executive director Jimmy LaSalvia and senior strategist Chris Barron, sold the GOProud name, a computer, a contact list, and some posters to three former interns,
and announced plans to step back from their day-to-day roles with the group.
In July 2013, the organization's Board of Directors announced that their new Leadership team consisted of Ross Hemminger, a former aide to US Senator Scott Brown; and Matthew Bechstein, a public relations consultant from California.
2014
Founders leave GOProud and 2014 CPAC
In January 2014, Jimmy LaSalvia left GOProud and the Republican party and became an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
. This was due to LaSalvia viewing the Republican Party as too bigoted and closed minded towards LGBT people.
In February, founder Chris Barron resigned from GOProud to protest what he called "an unconditional surrender to the forces of bigotry" after the new leaders, Hemminger and Bechstein, accepted an offer from the organizers of CPAC to allow them to attend the conference as guests, without a booth or other formal presence for GOProud.
Dissolution
In June 2014, reports surfaced that the GOProud leadership had decided to dissolve the organization. Executive Director Matthew Bechstein issued a denial of the report, stating that it was untrue and that the organization would continue operating as it had. But the following day he admitted that "I posted what I had to on Facebook so I wouldn't scare our members and thwart our fundraising efforts. I wanted to mitigate a disaster." He then stated that GOProud did indeed plan to file dissolution papers with the government.
Political positions
According to its website, the top four issues concerning GOProud included "tax reform", "limited government", "freedom-focused foreign policy", and "choices in education".
On January 18, 2013, GOProud officially came out in support of same-sex marriage at a state by state level. Prior to that, GOProud had no official position on marriage or relationship recognition. In 2011,
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
said she had convinced GOProud to take its support of same sex marriage out of its platform.
While GOProud did not have an official position on abortion,
GOProud attended anti-abortion rallies
and Christopher Barron said that "I want pro-life gays to know they have a home here." Jimmy LaSalvia opposes abortion and warned the gay community should be
anti-abortion
Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life or abolitionist movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in respons ...
because of the threat of selective abortions of gay fetuses.
GOProud had no official position on the
Employment Nondiscrimination Act or the
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a landmark United States federal law, passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Auth ...
. In 2009, GOProud supported the inclusion of the
Thune
Thunes Mekaniske Værksted A/S, Thune for short, was a Norwegian manufacturing company that among other things built locomotives. The production facilities were last located at Skøyen.
History
Thune traced its roots to a workshop founded by Ande ...
-
Vitter Concealed Carry Reciprocity Amendment to the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (, , 123 Stat. 2190.) is a law in the United States signed by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009. As a bill it was H.R. 2647 in the 111th Congress. The overall purpose of the la ...
.
Personnel
Gabriel E. Gomez
The 2013 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts was held on June 25, 2013, in order to fill the Massachusetts Class 2 United States Senate seat for the remainder of the term ending January 3, 2015.
The vacancy that prompted the ...
was a director of GOProud.
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative media pundit, author, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She became known as a media pundit in the late 1990s, appearing in print and on cable news as an outspoken critic of ...
was a member of the advisory council beginning on August 9, 2011.
GOProud had affiliates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Metroplex Republicans
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
and Right Pride (Nevada affiliate)
were affiliated with GOProud.
See also
*
GayLib
GayLib is an LGBT liberal political faction affiliated with the Radical Party (formerly Radical Movement). It was formerly affiliated with the French political party Union for a Popular Movement from its inception in 2002 to 2013 and to the Union ...
*
''Gay Republicans'' (film)
*
LGBT conservatism
LGBT conservatism refers to LGBT ( lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) individuals with conservative political views. It is an umbrella term used for what is bifurcated into two specific sub-categories, each with its own term and meaning. ...
*
LGBTory (Canada)
*
LGBTory (United Kingdom)
LGBT+ Conservatives is an organisation for LGBT conservatism in the United Kingdom. It is affiliated and is the official LGBT wing of the Conservative Party. The current advocacy group can trace its roots back to the Conservative Group for Ho ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goproud
2009 establishments in Washington, D.C.
527 organizations
LGBT affiliate organizations of political parties
LGBT conservatism in the United States
LGBT political advocacy groups in the United States
Libertarianism and LGBT topics
Libertarian organizations based in the United States
Organizations established in 2009
Republican Party (United States)