GOProud Chair Christopher R. Barron says the marriage or bust approach of gay activists leaves little room for other reforms that will reduce discrimination against LGBT couples.
COMMENTARY: The media has been whipped into a frenzy in the wake of an NAACP resolution urging the Tea Party to repudiate supposedly racist elements within the movement. As the NAACP and the rest of the left knows, or at least should know, the tea party isn’t a political party, lacks a formal structure, and has no leadership empowered to speak for the entire movement. With this knowledge in hand, I assume the NAACP expects every person who has ever shown up at a tea party event or even believes in the tea party’s message to post a sign in their front yard stating: “I repudiate any racist element within the tea party.” The logistics of this demand aside, the NAACP’s decision to pass this resolution does serve one important purpose – to confirm just how irrelevant the organization is to the modern challenges facing black Americans.
The good news is that the NAACP isn’t alone in sinking to irrelevance. Indeed, compared to the disconnect between most national gay groups and the challenges facing gay and lesbian families in 2010 – even the NAACP and its desperate cry for attention looks relevant.
The national gay rights groups who make up Gay, Inc. share much in common. Almost all of them are funded by the same handful of rich, liberal donors; almost all of them take their marching orders from the Democratic National Committee; and almost all of them pursue a legislative agenda that offers the same policy prescriptions – marriage and more government.
Indeed its pursuit of marriage at all costs, at often at the expense of other legislation that would improve the lives of average gay Americans, is one of the most serious strategic and political blunders in modern history.
Before the left accuses me of selling out the fight for marriage, let me make it clear — marriage is important and I support marriage rights for gay couples. I believe marriage is a debate worth having and a fight worth fighting. Marriage is certainly personally important to me — in March of this year, I married my partner here in Washington, D.C. That having been said, we aren’t anywhere close to marriage equality nationwide and we won’t be for a very long time. Why should immediate improvements to retirement security, tax fairness and healthcare for gay and lesbian families be ignored?
The gay rights movement was born out of the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969: an uprising against government action. In truly Orwellian fashion, however, Gay, Inc. has worked feverishly to morph a movement that had its roots in getting the government out of our bars, out of our bedrooms and out of our lives, into a movement hell bent on expanding the reach and power of that same government.
Follow us on Twitter. 
Follow us on Facebook.
Page 1 of 2
- Christopher R. Barron is Chairman of the Board for GOProud, a leading
national organization for gay conservatives and their allies. Barron is also the
President of CapSouth Consulting – a political consulting firm in
Washington, D.C.