Every Wednesday, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist hosts a meeting where a hundred or more right-wing activists gather for an off-the-record strategy session.
There is no official list of who is in attendance, but it is probably safe to assume that representatives of groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council regularly participate.
Earlier this week Norquist has signed on with GOProud, the conservative gay group, which has been met with much dismay from Focus on the Family:
I was so disappointed to learn that Grover Norquist, the president of the conservative and influential Americans for Tax Reform, had joined the board of GOProud, a political advocacy group of “gay conservatives and their allies.”
Grover’s move to join the ranks of those who perpetuate the gay agenda, which has in its crosshairs the destruction of marriage, is as dishonoring to the movement he claims, as it is disheartening.
Historically, conservatism has been built on a 3-legged stool of traditional social values, economic conservatism, and a strong national defense. So when Grover said that he “shares GOProud’s commitment to ‘core’ conservative values,” he’s obviously leaving out a key component that many in his cause hold dear ... Grover’s decision to uphold one leg of the conservative stool while simultaneously working to destroy another is not doing his fellow conservatives any favors, and in the end may leave the movement he loves with one less leg to stand on. What’s that saying about a house divided against itself?
And the Family Research Council is equally outraged at the betrayal:
I was somewhat surprised to see that Americans for Tax Reform's president, Grover Norquist, has decided to join the Advisory Council of the homosexual group GOProud. Grover is usually a masterful Republican strategist and coalition builder -- but in this case, he seems prepared to compromise a unified conservative movement in order to appease a tiny minority of the overall population. GOProud is not a conservative organization that happens to be gay. It's a homosexual organization that's marginally conservative. GOProud's own website explains just how radical its priorities are. This is a group that opposes the death tax and ObamaCare -- not because they aren't sound economic policies -- but because they "discriminate" against "gay families."
And the platform doesn't end there. One of the group's top 10 "principles" is to create "enterprise zones" for homosexuals, despite the fact that the average income for gays and lesbians is higher than most everyone else. At least two other of its "principles" call for the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act. Among their other priorities: allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military and defeating any attempt to protect one-man, one-woman marriage. They even ran ads criticizing President Obama for not doing enough for the homosexual community!
Grover is famous for saying he'll work with anyone who agrees with him "80 percent of the time." But it's been the social issues that he seems willing to sacrifice. His belief that we can have fiscal stability without moral decency is doomed to failure and only drives a deep wedge in a movement that was unified to bring change to Washington this fall.
It is probably safe to assume that next week's Wednesday meeting is going to be a little more tense than normal.
