This year's Conservative Political Action Conference is adjourned, but the GOP is still struggling with its identity crisis. Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll; an aspiring homophobe was booed off stage; and Tea Party marchers packed much of the auditorium.
Meanwhile, the White House and Congress are poised to make good on the long-awaited overturn of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. The Democrats are catching up with political expectations among gay Americans, but where is the GOP headed? The Prospect asked Charles Moran, national spokesperson for the Log Cabin Republicans, whether this year's version of the GOP base is ready to welcome gay rights into the conservative agenda.
How do you all envision yourselves and your role within the conservative movement?
Having a stance on anything that would infringe upon somebody's personal decisions and on how they lead their personal life is not a conservative stance. There are too many people who are all about letting people have their guns, letting people make personal decisions about how their children will be educated in school, how the government is going to take their own personal money -- but the minute it comes time to discuss things that are going on in the bedroom, that whole principle goes out the window.
So we know that there are a lot of people out there who still need our presence and our education in terms of having a conversation about what being a true conservative really is.
You all clearly identify with conservatism as an ideology, but are you confident in the Republican Party's current ideological trajectory?
Watching the trajectory just from last year's CPAC to this year's CPAC, people are realizing that our country is in such a dire state when it comes to national defense and our economy and some of President Obama's proposals, that we've really got to focus on the core issues that unite us.
We're never going to see another 1992, with Pat Buchanan getting up and railing against the homosexual agenda at the RNC convention in Houston. If we do, the reaction's going to be much different. We had that happen even this past weekend at CPAC where there was a speaker who went up and railed against another organization that supports LGBT conservatives. That person was booed off the stage. Five or six years ago, that wouldn't have happened.
What are the biggest issues that you all are mobilizing around going into the midterm elections this year?
Don't Ask, Don't Tell. We filed a lawsuit five years ago challenging the constitutionality of DADT. That case is going to trial in federal court in August. That trial date is set, and we're moving forward regardless of the political machinations in Washington, DC.
And employment non-discrimination: it's still legal to fire people for being gay. It's still legal to kick people out of housing for being gay. The two final frontiers that we have left that we really need to tackle are DADT and employment discrimination.
Do you all as an organization see your influence waxing or as waning in this year's version of the Republican Party in terms of membership and fundraising?
We are moving forward as we continue to cross issues off the list -- legally and legislatively. I would hope that one day there's no need for Log Cabin Republicans, and that we have no need for organizations that are seeking to right intolerance; that the expectation will be from that point going forward that there is going to be inclusion in the political parties.
Going forward, if the right doesn't adjust, it's going to be left behind. We're seeing it in California right now, where the GOP isn't as much of a state party as it used to be; it's more of a regional party. I think the RNC gets that. Over the years, Republicans are going to have to learn to be more inclusive of different people because if they don't, they really do run the risk of alienating large swaths of the electorate.
