RNC chairman will meet with "ex-gays"

Just weeks after the Family Research Council criticized Republican National Committee chairman Marc Racicot for holding "secret meetings with the homosexual lobby," Racicot has agreed to a meeting with a group of people "who used to be homosexual," Cybercast News Service reports. "We thought it was bad politics and not the right thing [for Racicot] to do to meet with a homosexual activist group," said Peter LaBarbera, a senior policy analyst for the Culture and Family Institute, a part of the far-right group Concerned Women for America. "They support gay marriage, gay adoption, taxpayer-funded transgender sex-change operations." LaBarbera was referring to a meeting Racicot had with the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign. Asked at the meeting why religious conservative leaders regularly inveigh against gays and lesbians, Racicot told HRC, "They probably don't know gay people. People fear to educate them. [They have] their own fear and lots of misinformation and disinformation, which some do for political expediency." A time and place for Racicot's meetings with "ex-gays" has not been announced. He did, however, meet with the Culture and Family Institute, and according to a report from that group, Racicot said, "I meet with everybody." He reportedly also explained that he is trying to execute "the directive that the president gave me...to carry our message, our principles to everybody and anybody." But that excuse doesn't fly with some gay rights activists who are angered by the news that Racicot will be meeting with people who claim homosexuality can be "cured." "If Marc Racicot truly understood gay and lesbian issues, he wouldn't be seeking council from those spouting destructive 'ex-gay' propaganda," said Dave Noble, executive director of the gay political group National Stonewall Democrats.