This article is an update of HOMOCON: The Gay Left Responds
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Greetings Friends,
As many of you took the time to read the past article, I want to first THANK YOU! It is important that we remain informed on those who claim to represent the gay community, and hold them accountable to representing, respecting and responding to us in a way that earns them the title of "leader."
Unfortunately, that also sometimes leads to more closely examining so-called (and often self-appointed) leaders of the gay community such as Chris R Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud, a group billing itself as an organization that represents conservative gays.
In the past article, many of us were attempting to hold Chris Barron accountable for his words on Twitter that read, "The gay left = the American Taliban. Hateful, angry and dumb as shit." Over the past couple of days, the overwhelming consensus of all gays has been an understandable rejection of this comparison, no matter who makes it, including (and maybe even especially) a fellow gay person. But instead of Chris R Barron taking a deep breath, swallowing his pride, and apologizing, believe it or not, on January 29, 2011 he simply re tweeted the same message on Twitter, saying exactly,
@ChrisRBarron In case there is any confusion, I repeat, the gay left = the American Taliban.
(but this time he left off the part about "hateful, angry, and dumb as shit.")
It's very sad that Chris seems so starved for attention that instead of stepping up and doing the right thing, he slid further down the spiral on his way to finding the low road. (Perhaps he was following the "Surveyor Symbols" from Sarah Palin's cross hairs map).
Folks on the right were thrilled with Chris' words and rushed to defend him through several tweets to me personally, only to consistently avoid any mention of Chris' slur against the gay community and to engage in repeated attempts to change the subject, ala George Bush cronies, but they were of course unsuccessful. (Not only am I from the Show Me State of Missouri, but from Warrensburg, home to CMSU and the Missouri MULES....though as a Democrat, I would prefer donkey, but I digress).
Today I wanted to explore the origin of Chris' slur. To begin, I think its important to put his comments in the context of which they were said. It all started when someone tweeted to Chris,
"With a little wood putty and a chisel I can fix that face of yours and maybe the Blue Fairy will make you a real boy"
OUCH! While I admit these would be fighting words for most children on the playground, Chris bills himself as an adult, a leader, a gay man, and a conservative. So instead of addressing the discussion with the maturity of an adult, the temperament of a leader, the self respect of a gay man, and the ideals of a conservative, Chris lashed out in a fit of rage and made his now infamous statement:
"The gay left = the American Taliban. Hateful, angry and dumb as shit."
So between the gay left and the CPAC conservatives, it seems that Chris can dish it out, but can't take it when someone dishes it back at him. But as we peel back yet another layer of the onion, we see that playing the victim is Chris' forte, including when Chris tweets on January 27, 2011,
Read it! RT @NYTimes Some Conservatives Boycott Conference Over Gay Group’s Role http://nyti.ms/evV4BO
But then yet another piece of the puzzle was revealed when on January 28, 2011, Chris tweets:
And then on January 29, 2011, Chris tweets this:
Great piece RT @colocelt: GayPatriot - Is MSM missing the real story in CPAC/GOProud kerfuffle? http://bit.ly/fP8AtC
Oh how telling these tweets are. It appears that Chris Barron already understands that unless he can create some sort of controversy, his pack of wolves in gays' clothing cannot succeed at establishing itself as either a Conservative, NOR a Gay organization. Even though he flatly denied that he was "playing the victim card" when interviewed by MSNBC's Cenk Uygur (see video here).
I'd have to devote an entire separate article in order to fully and forensically dissect this interview to point out all the conflicting views that Chris espouses, and show how hypocritical he tends to paint himself, but let's look at a handful, especially concerning the statement he makes that "the groups that are boycotting GOProud are the same groups whose message isn't resonating with the American people." (Apparently Chris believes that saying "the gay left = American Taliban" DOES resonate with the American people.)
He further states in the interview that "The fact that [the boycotting groups] would pull out and organize this boycott....speaks volumes about how little power their message actually has. If they're afraid to be in the same room with us.....then that speaks volumes about the lack of faith they have in their own beliefs."
Last year at this time, when GOProud first attended CPAC, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, was bemoaning the fact that the National Organization for Marriage folks were talking about GOProud's participation in CPAC through media outlets, but "wouldn't walk 20 feet over to GOProud's booth to talk to them directly."
"What kind of man are you? Who's the pansy at CPAC?" Jimmy quipped. (See video here).
My irony meter just blew up, because through all of this (in fact ever since January 7, 2011) when I first called GOProud out for their #homohamas tweet contest on Twitter in "GOProud, Ann Coulter and Lamestream Humor", Chris has had me blocked on Twitter, and has thus far refused to engage me directly in providing a response that would show him at least attempting to be held accountable for his words. So I ask Chris,
"What kind of man are YOU? Who's the pansy at CPAC?"
It's no surprise that Chris would avoid me. Most bullies when confronted will back down and hide in their make believe world of "I've done nothing wrong....which is why I'm hiding." But what IS surprising is for him to then say how those who aren't attending CPAC have a "lack of faith in their own beliefs" so it would seem to me that Chris realizes how "little power his message has" too.
It makes me wonder if that's the reason he won't respond to me and others who have called him out on his mudslinging "smear the queers" campaign. Of course when we better understand the crushing debt the GOP currently has on its books, it isn't hard to see WHY Chris makes these outrageous statements and slurs the gay community, because he knows that's the only power that he has in order to attract money from non-gay Conservatives; for GOProud to deliver gay money to the GOP to help retire its debt, helping to shore up their influence in the GOP. (Yes, Virginia, it's a plot.)
But further into the interview, Chris then says "GOProud is a VERY conservative organization, so for the folks who are pulling out [of CPAC] about this, it's for one reason only: It's because we happen to be gay." (I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with the fact that they simply don't want to help pay off the RNC debt, and point to GOProud's participation as the patsy to cover for the real reasons they don't want to attend).
But now let's look at this revealing nugget: Cenk Uygur later asks Chris, "the groups that are pulling out are HUGE, why don't you get that they still don't like you....it's obviously because of your identity..." to which Chris responds with yet another blatant attack on the gay left saying,
"Look, I KNOW that you hate the fact that there are gay conservatives. I know you can't stand the fact that there is a group of people who have wondered off the liberal plantation that don't play your victim identity politics." Cenk responded: "That's ABSURD!"
And it IS absurd!...but believe it or not, it gets even worse. Chris then says,
"I'm part of a movement that offers REAL solutions to gay people, something that the left has absolutely FAILED to do in this country is offer real solutions that would improve the lives of gay people in this country. That's why I'm a conservative...because we're offering those solutions. Because we're not playing the victim card here." *crickets*
**************************************************************************************************************
Not playing the victim card? Of COURSE he is! "oh look at me and GOProud....all these groups are pulling out of CPAC because I'm gay." But the hypocrisy is what appalls me, because while the interview was on January 24, 2011, just 2 days later, Chris turns around and tweets that the "gay left = the American Taliban." SERIOUSLY Chris? Do you even hear yourself? One day you play the victim and the next you become the bully.
In actuality, the faux martyrdom being put on display by Chris and Jimmy are actually little more than sympathy pleas to attract unsuspecting gay folks to GOProud's membership roles, and to keep all those (wink! wink!) conservatives contributing to GOProud, just as Alan Chambers collects money from churches to fund Exodus International and hope to "pray away the gay."
Chris and Jimmy portray the CPAC boycotters as the bad guys within Conservative Republican politics and attempts to make it appear that they are boycotting GOProud only because they are gay. (all that seems very true by the way). But what is disingenuous is for Chris to then turn right around and besmirch and smear gay people himself by labeling us as the "American Taliban." On the surface it would appear that Everybody Hates Chris, but looking even deeper we find that it would be nearer the mark to conclude that Chris Hates Everybody.
But even THAT recognition of truth doesn't completely capture the reasoning behind Chris' choice of words concerning the gay left. As we'll see, Chris wasn't even original enough to come up with his own zinger. It appears that instead, he relied on the witty (or witless) words of @AndrewBreitbart, GOProud's newest board member who recently quipped: "I Am Not Endorsing Gay Marriage, I'm Not Endorsing Don't Ask, Don't Tell," And I Fear "The Activist Gay Left ... More Than Al-Qaida."
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....so THAT's where Chris came up with the "gay left = American Taliban"
If you've followed me down Chris' spiral to this point, let me be the first to welcome you to the center of the lollipop when it comes to GOProud, Chris R Barron and Andrew Breitbart, as well as those (wink! wink!) conservatives: MONEY.
It's no secret that the GOP is deep in debt. So it's no surprise then to find that they would be all too happy to get those who they persecute the most to pay the bills for persecuting us in the first place. In fact, Mary Matalin is hosting a fund raiser for GOProud at her home in February. The Washington Post is spinning this story as "The GOP's Quiet Evolution on Gay Rights". But judging from Chris and Andrew's choice of words, it would appear that the GOP has found themselves a couple of what I affectionately call an Uncle Tom Homo to raise money for them.
The plan seems to be to first play the role of "bashed homo" and attempt to convince gays that we need representation within the GOP to stand against homophobia. Then the gay community needs to send GOProud to CPAC to stand against the hateful folks who won't talk to them directly, and won't even attend CPAC this year because of "teh gay." And THEN the gay community is expected to swear allegiance to GOProud by denouncing all the "other gays" who are not part of their brood of hypocrites (because after all, we're not going to give GOProud money anyway). But it also helps Chris to gain sympathy then from the Conservatives who see Chris flip his faux martyrdom onto them by pointing to how hateful all the "left gays" are, to the point of referring to us as "the American Taliban," which of course will do NOTHING for gays EXCEPT generate more ammunition for the Right to use against all gay people.
I apologize for the length of this article and thank you for taking the time to read it. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If I were to choose a photo to capture the essence of this article, it would be this one from the January 27, 2011 New York Times article that continues to bill GOProud as the victim of those hate mongering (wink! wink!) conservative CPAC boycotters entitled Divisions on the Right Over Gays in Its Ranks.
And the caption would read:
LOOK! It's Chris R Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia from GOProud who have brought NOTHING to the table for the gay community.....except their own reflections.
But Chris R Barron does have at least one saving grace to his credit.....in this photo at least, he is on the LEFT!
Now what was he saying about the "the gay left = The American Taliban?"
Talk about irony!....and oh so poetic justice! I'm verklempt....talk amongst yourselves.
Sincerely,
Brian Anthony Bowen
Member of the Worldwide Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community
Music Producer, "The Gemini Enterprise: Stellar Trance"
Blogger, "The Gemini Gayzette"
Author of upcoming new book, "The Bed Keeper: A Biblical Case FOR Gay Marriage"
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